It has been a busy couple of months as we continued to expand globally and reach new customers. We kicked off the beginning of March by celebrating International Women’s Day and the role that fintech can play in tackling the issue of gender inequality. We also discussed about the challenges of giving women access to financial services and the ways in which we can promote financial inclusion through policy changes and innovation.
In an interview with Finextra we marked the occasion by discussing the challenges of giving women access to financial services and the ways in which we can promote financial inclusion, which remains an ongoing gender issue. Women make up 55% of the world’s unbanked population. I shared three essential elements that can enable female financial autonomy: “education, reach, and tools.”
UKTN also celebrated International Women’s Day by profiling some of the leading lights of the UK tech sector. I was honoured to be included in the list for this year’s biggest trendsetters, along with other incredible female entrepreneurs.
In the Philippines, O-CITY (our smart city payment division) piloted a digital payment programme on public vehicles such as buses and jeepneys to support the local government’s goal to introduce automated fare collection, contactless payment, and digital ticketing to Metro Manila travellers. Jay Kie Tan, Business Development Director for APAC, spoke to The Manila Times about the initiative. Tokhir Abdukadirov, Director of O-CITY, also shared his insight with the publication Crowdfund Insider.
Beyond the Philippines, O-CITY’s digital programme has been implemented in over 130 cities worldwide, demonstrating quick adoption from travellers and a rapid return on investment for governments and operators.
We have also been helping Egypt take a leap of faith into digital banking and a cashless economy, as COO and Area Managing Director for MEA Region , Usama El Sayed explained to Egyptian Streets. He shares how BPC is enabling organisations across the country to integrate its digital banking solutions into their business models. We are also currently in the process of launching a number of projects and partnerships with several companies in Egypt.
Emmanuel Obinne, Head of Growth and Partnerships for West Africa, has been advocating for a robust payment system for trade under the African Continental Free Trade Area and spoke to Modern Ghana, GhanaWeb, and the Business & Financial Times. He explained that the modern cyber fraudster has become even more “lethal” during the Covid-19 pandemic and has gone from placing hidden funds in off-shore banks to concealing them in cryptocurrency networks on blockchain systems that authorities cannot access.
Frank Molla, Managing Director and Head of Sub Sahara Africa, spoke to Business Daily on how fraudsters are also pretending to be financial institutions. Our study, The Anatomy of the New Fraudster, demonstrates that scammers are targeting corruptible employees and are now going after untrained personnel and asking for private data of top executives, stealing billions and hiding them in cryptocurrency form.
All in all, one of my favourite things to see this month was an observation penned by Dawn (the largest and oldest English-language newspaper in Pakistan) on how BPC is helping to advance the digital transformation of the country by bringing “ a much more advanced product suite and a tried-and-tested capacity of processing more volume and value than the entire local industry combined. Given a much higher top line, it is able to invest more and that reflects in the more advanced solutions, such as fraud or dispute management that other players can’t really match.”
