Kocela, a Kenya-based firm, emerged the winner of the Payments and Transfer Company category after an extensive voting process that also involved the public at the African Fintech Awards at the Sandton Convention Centre in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Held on October 12 – 13, 2017, the African Fintech Awards recognises innovative and disruptive FinTech companies. About 6000 finance professionals and 500 handpicked entrepreneurs, bankers and investors meet at the event to expand their network, extend knowledge and develop business.
(TOP: Abel Masai, the Kocela CEO – second from right – poses with members of his team).
The African Fintech Awards forms an integrated part of Finance Indaba Africa. Finance Indaba Africa is the largest conference and expo for finance professionals on the African continent. The Finance Indaba brings together thousands of colleagues, suppliers of technologies, platforms, tools, specialists, CFO’s and Africa’s most inspiring thought leaders.
Kocela’s journey to victory started with a nomination to this year’s African FIntech Awards, which meant that the African Fintech community recognised the firm as one of the most promising companies in the Fintech sector.
After 2 months of public voting, Kocela emerged at the top of the public vote, clinching “Top in
Kenya” and top in their category: Payments and Transfers. The firm then proceeded to the next stage which was pitching at the African FIntech Awards.
Along with 2 other companies, which included Cellulant (last year’s category winner), Kocela pitched before a panel of judges and once again emerged victorious.
Kocela’s products are used by thousands of people daily, including those on the KCB Mobile Banking app in Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Burundi. Some of the firm’s other clients include Standard Media Group, Radio Africa, The Star, Safaricom, Spire Bank, HF Bank, Credit Bank among many others.
When asked who Kocela credits for its success, Abel Msai, the firm’s CEO, said: “We thank KCB Bank and all our other partners for the great support they’ve given us – they are a big part of the Kocela story. I’d also like to express my heartfelt gratitude and appreciation for the great love and support we received from those who believe in us – our families, friends, colleagues and partners who voted for us and drummed up support for us.”
Kocela’s products include mobile banking/payments platform which allows financial institutions (banks, mobile operators, SACCOs, micro-finance institutions) to avail their suite of service through mobile(access via mobile
app/ web/ USSD) and with backend tools for administration, predictive analytics, reports and reconciliation. This platform combines M-Pesa, PesaLink, mVisa and Masterpass to allow customers to pay directly to any bank, mobile
wallet or mobile money merchant.
Kocela also offers a mobile lending/savings platform which allow financial institutions and companies to offer mobile loans to their customers. It also includes automated tools for credit-scoring, loan initiation and loan disbursement and finally, a payments/collections platform that enables institutions, schools, rental companies to make and receive payments. This platform allows for bulk payments, collection of payments, tracking of payments, reports, reconciliation and invoicing. The platform is being used by KCB to power its LipaKaro service for schools.
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