Fintech firm ZitoFinancial is targeting Cameroon’s rural areas in a bid to reach a potential 40% of the country’s 26.5 million people.
Founded in 2015, ZitoFinancial leverages existing systems and solutions to provide financial access to the unbanked, informal sector and rural populations.
The company has established partnerships with other Fintech and payment institutions in Cameroon, notably MTN and Orange for mobile money, Smobilpay for settlement of utility bills, and United Bank for Africa (UBA) Cameroon for Visa cards.
Its value proposition is by centralising various solutions across a single interface, it offers a ‘one-stop-shop’ financial service.
ZitoFinancial runs ZitoPay (an online payment system), ZitoCard (a Visa prepaid credit card) and Give Cameroon (an online fundraising platform for individuals and organisations).
Esame Mondoa, Founder and General Manager of ZitoFinancial said solutions are tailored primarily to serve the needs of low-income households, farmers, and small and medium-sized enterprises. “Due to our partnerships with the incumbent institutions and other Fintech companies, we offer low rates, rapidity and a reliable system to everyone. We use advance machine learning systems and proprietary algorithms to provide state-of-the-art security.”
Mondoa said he was inspired to create the company thanks to his childhood experience. “Growing up in the rural community of Muyuka, I noticed how the majority of the businesses fell within the informal sector and most inhabitants (farmers) didn’t have access to formal financial services. That is, the local population was financially excluded. They didn’t have access to loans, credit lines, insurance (healthcare, social, property, amongst others), wealth management, and financial education.”
The company has a customer base of over 17,000 users to date and aims to increase this number to seven million in the next five years.
Its mission is to establish itself as the first full-access neo-bank in Cameroon by 2025.
Mondoa said, “Our long-term goal is to expand across Africa and make cross-border payment seamless, flexible, and instant.”
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