INTELLIGENT MOBILE TECHNOLOGY
Ukheshe appoints African
director and targets continent as
cashless trend gains momentum
M
icro-payment platform, Ukheshe,
has announced the appointment
of Mark Dankworth as Executive
Director of Ukheshe Africa. This comes at a
time when the need for a cashless society is a
rising trend and a strategic global imperative.
Ukheshe Africa will not only look to increase
its user base but will also be identifying new
business-to-business opportunities for the
platform across the continent.
According to Global Findex, 1.7 billion
adults remain unbanked. Sub-Saharan Africa,
with approximately 350 million unbanked,
accounts for 17% of the global total according
to the same report. Dankworth says that
since its inception in November 2018,
Ukheshe has established that financial
inclusion is vital for the overall growth and
prosperity of the continent: “If the unbanked
continue to have limited access to proper
financial solutions, they remain barred from
the majority of the continent’s economic
activities. This, in turn, results in a reliance
on limited retail opportunities, inability to
access credit and thus often paying more for
goods and services.”
Dankworth says that since his entrance
into the payments sector in 2004, true
financial inclusion is undoubtedly the most
important: “Being able to truly bank the
unbanked is by far the greatest challenge
as well as a significant accomplishment.
In my experience, several businesses have
attempted to achieve this but fail and in
the end they cater for the same customer
base that has previously been banked. What
excites me about Ukheshe is that it has been
built to address the smaller merchants and
people who previously did not have access to
affordable banking services.”
Dankworth says that partnerships in
Africa will play a key role and the company
will look to establish relationships with key
players in the various markets. Enabling
Ukheshe to date has been its strong alliances
with Mastercard and Nedbank. Dankworth
says the Africa expansion will offer both these
companies significant growth opportunities.
While Ukheshe has focused on South
Africa, Dankworth says that there are
already opportunities underway for the
micro-payment platform in Zimbabwe,
Zambia, Namibia, Nigeria, Malawi, Botswana
and Angola. An industry veteran, Dankworth
Being able to truly bank
the unbanked is by far
the greatest challenge
as well as a significant
accomplishment.
launched a Kenyan card business in 2013
and says that the payments industry has
always excited him: “I saw how M-Pesa
changed many lives in Kenya and as a fully
interoperable wallet solution, Ukheshe will
undoubtedly change the lives of so many
across the continent.”
Clayton Hayward, Co-Founder of
Ukheshe, says that Africa represents
immense opportunity, as well as significant
challenges to address the legacy of an
unbanked society: “We recognise that
through our platform, we can assist in
addressing social equality and boosting
the growth of the lower and middle-class
brackets. We also know that we can,
more importantly, play a vital role in the
upliftment and improvement of the societies
we work in.”
He says Dankworth is ideally suited to
launch and grow Ukheshe Africa and looks
forward to assisting in the success of the
new entity. •
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