Egyptian Startups Dominate Arab Financial Inclusion Innovation Prize

The Arab Financial Inclusion Innovation Prize (AFIIP) has announced the 2021 winners for its main prize, focused on financial inclusion, and its green prize, for financial innovation, with Egyptian startups dominating both.

Five overall winners were chosen from more than 120 applications based on the AFIIP’s criteria of innovation, impact, implementation and more. Three winners were chosen for the main prize and two for the green prize. The winners will receive grant funding and technical assistance to expand their businesses.

The first main prize winner, Egypt’s Stryve, serves unbanked SMEs in Egypt with a range of digital banking products focusing on invoice financing. The startup is tackling Egypt’s SME finance gap with their innovative model aimed at improving the efficiency of B2B purchases.

Tunisian startup, Ahmini, snagged the second place prize for their work as intermediaries for rural Tunisian women, helping them access social protection and insurance by onboarding them onto the national social security system (CNSS). The startup also connects women with mobile payment providers that allows them to pay their premiums into installments.

Egypt’s Syndo’s won third place for their work providing access to finance through a peer-to-peer crowdfunding solution. If implemented successfully, the solution will encourage more engagement in SME financing in Egypt.

For the green prize, another Egyptian startup in Mozare3 (pictured in main image) won for its work digitalisation of the agricultural value chain, providing smallholder farmers with access to finance, the market and technical assistance. This, in turn, promotes sustainable farming practices.

The second winner is Plastic E-Wallet, which provides a cashless payment system for fishermen cleaning up Egypt’s Nile. Through Plastic E-Wallet, previously unbaked fishermen receive compensation on the plastic they remove from the Nile.