Stanbic Bank, GIZ commence NextGen fintech accelerator programme
Stanbic Bank Ghana in partnership with Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH has commenced a training program to assist the growth of 12 selected Financial Technology Companies (FinTech) as part of the ‘Stanbic-GIZ NextGen Fintech Accelerator Program’.
The program, which was launched in October 2021, aims to assist growth stage technology companies in their market validation and customer acquisition phase in Ghana.
Speaking on behalf of Stanbic Bank, Mr. Benjamin Mensah, Head, Wealth and Investment at Stanbic Bank explained how the program was designed to assist them. He noted that, “Here at Stanbic, we believe that Ghana is our home and we drive her growth. Therefore, our mission is to create sustainable businesses and contribute to job creation. Over the next six months, you will be going through a carefully planned structured program to accelerate your business growth. We will avail our internal experts and partner organizations from the Bank and its ecosystem to ensure that you are given the necessary information, tools and resources to stay competitive and innovative.”
“We will work closely with you the FinTechs to give you a competitive advantage on the market and provide access to the market and extend financing where feasible. As the program goes on, our client solutions team will engage each of you to identify potential areas of collaboration with the Bank and its ecosystem.
“We are very excited to be working closely with GIZ on this mission to building a formidable FinTech ecosystem in Ghana. We also appreciate the efforts of our implementing partner, Growth Africa, for your commitment so far through the planning, interviews and shortlisting of the most promising FinTechs to the program”, he added.
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Mr. Emmanuel Mumuni, Advisor, Digital Transformation Centre, GIZ spoke on the importance of supporting startup FinTech companies in the country in light of the various challenges before them.
He said, “We have put this program in place to assist in supporting financial companies. FinTechs are faced with a set of challenges when it comes to regulation, access to finance, and even access to skills. We decided to partner with Stanbic to find ways to take this burden of the startups. For us to build a sustainable business ecosystem, the financial technology really needs to be at the heart of it. We hope you all immerse yourself in this program and take advantage of all the session tailored specifically to meet all your individual needs as startup FinTechs.”
The NextGen (Next Generation) Ghana Fintech Accelerator is a partnership initiative between Stanbic Bank Ghana through the Stanbic Business Incubator and Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH.
The accelerator program will run one cohort of 10 – 20 selected early-to-growth stage FinTech startups. In October 2021, Stanbic Bank and GIZ officially entered into an agreement to co-design a FinTech Accelerator program that will sponsor 15 Fintech startups with operations in Ghana to go through a 6-month structured immersion on how to run their businesses and establish effective collaborations with other ecosystem players.
The program aims, amongst other things, to build the capacity of FinTech businesses/startups by reconstructing and validating their business models to scale, testing and validating their growth strategies, refining and validating their operational frameworks and obtaining better access to funding through investment-readiness support.
The NextGen Program also aims at addressing the unique challenges running FinTech to help startups realize their entrepreneurial goals by connecting them to Financial Service Organizations to provide infrastructural support, integration into larger financial value chains for access for markets opportunities and expose them to industry best practices.
