Congratulations to agricultural insurance provider OKO for taking first place in AFI’s first-ever FinTech showcase at the 2019 AFI Global Policy Forum (GPF).

Chosen by a panel of expert judges and a popular vote among GPF participants, OKO won over the audience with its innovative product and pitch, beating stiff competition from nine other financial technology (FinTech) firms. 

OKO provides crop insurance to smallholder farmers in Mali using satellite imagery and weather forecasting to simplify and automate claim management. It connects to mobile payment platforms, weather information providers and distribution tools, allowing farmers to be compensated instantly when specific thresholds are reached, such as insufficient rainfall or extreme temperatures.

In second place came Rwanda-based ride hailing platform Yego Innovation, which standardizes motorcycle taxi fares and allows drivers to accept cashless payments that are deposited directly into their mobile money or bank accounts. Drivers also receive detailed credit scores, helping them secure finance from banks. It is also assisting in the design and facilitation of personal accident insurance for drivers and passengers.

Third place went to Mexico-based Gestell, which uses artificial intelligence and automated processes to increase the efficiency of financial institutions. It operates platforms using application programming interfaces, cloud computing, machine learning, blockchain, data mining and robotic process automation to verify customers, analyze and monitor transactions and identify outliers and patterns to provide solutions to challenges, such as money laundering.

Well done to all the FinTech winners!

Below find a list of the remaining FinTech finalists:

IrisGuard

Founded in 2001, IrisGuard is a UK-based electronic payment solutions company that uses end-to-end iris recognition technology to provide financial services to some of the world’s most vulnerable populations. IrisGuard technology has been used to enroll over 2.3 million Syrian refugees, allowing them to make cardless cash withdrawals at selected ATMs, blockchain transfers, remittances and food voucher replacements in supermarkets.

JUMO

JUMO uses data science and machine learning to create to financial tools that help unbanked and underbanked entrepreneurs — particularly women –, access loans and savings products through cellphones. It builds and operates several services for millions of customers in Ghana, Tanzania, Kenya, Zambia, Uganda and Pakistan, including savings products that bear interest and short-term, structured credit products. It also provides credit that can be configured to fit the needs of individuals, as well as insurance products to safeguard incomes, families, assets and businesses.

KlickEx

KlickEx provides a network of non-bank clearing infrastructure in the Pacific Islands. First launched in 2009, the payments infrastructure company maintains remittance flows in a severely de-risked ecosystem and provides, builds and operates a variety of clearing systems, mobile money operations, national payment infrastructure, know your customer and anti-money laundering and counter financing of terrorism platforms, bio-metric identity systems and production blockchain systems.

People’s Pension Trust

People’s Pension Trust provides pension products to people working in the formal and informal sector with the aim of reducing old-age poverty in Ghana and Rwanda. Its products allow clients to save daily, weekly or monthly through mobile payments, using direct debit or community-based groups and associations. A subsidiary of the Netherlands-based People’s Pension Holding, its goal is to provide affordable pension products to four million people in the informal sector by 2027.

pinBox

pinBox, short for “pension-in-a-box”, is a Singapore-based technology firm that supports digital micro-pension inclusion across Asia, Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean. It helps countries, financial inclusion stakeholders and large pension funds to design, build and deploy inclusive micro-pension programs that enable young, low-income people working in the informal sector to save for their old age.

Sinitic

Sinitic uses artificial intelligence (AI) to run multilingual contact centers that bridge cultural and linguistic gaps, enabling higher deflection rates and increased customer value. Launched in 2017 at National Taiwan University, its mission is to deliver the cutting-edge multilingual AI to global enterprise, including through a chatbot that is accessible to people living in rural areas with access to SMS-feature phones and popular messaging apps.

Smart Solutions

Smart Solutions works with customers in Nepal and Zambia using data flow, online safety and security, data management and data protection to develop customized digital and automated processes that improve efficiency among its clients. It has worked with central banks to automate their reporting processes and provide analytics for policymaking.

2019 AFI FinTech Showcase is partly funded with UK aid from the UK government and supported by other AFI funding partners.