During the past decade, the Dubai -based network has become one of the dominant payment processors throughout the Middle East and Africa, thanks to the part in A pair of Getting.
However, many large incumbents can victimize slower changes, opening the door for smaller, faster moving startups. The latest development is Practicea fintech established in 2022's Hiddy fucry, A former manager of the network director, along with another ex-network executive Hamish Houston.
Fintech, which raised $ 6 million in seed funding, builds infrastructure for banks and Fintech, offering a range of local payment solutions, from cards to wallets to real-time payments.
Prior to the launch of Enza, the founders manage the global acceptance, processing, and consumer finance departments at Network International. While the network was building a stable payment network throughout the Middle East and Africa, focusing primarily on accepting the sides of things, they felt a huge gap in creating comprehensive solutions for banks and fintech, especially in Africa.
When either party could not find a network alignment, they resigned to start Enza, which was officially launched in January 2023.
“Our difference -differently motivates us to take a step back and re -think about how to meet the underserved needs in the market,” CEO Fekry told TechCrunch.
Enza founders said they built the company with lessons from their time to Network International and its subsidiary, DPO Group. But unlike those companies, focusing largely on receiving the card and getting a merchant, Enza is taking a wider approach, which serves on both sides of the transaction.
The Enza platform is designed for banks and fintech on the discharge side, and the SMEs and merchants on the reception side. Startup first targeted Egypt, Nigeria, and South Africa, three of the continent's largest financial markets.
The reception of payment to the wider FinTech scale
Payments are often the first point of entry into formal finances for millions of nonsense or non -small businesses throughout Africa. Enza wants to help these businesses accept personal and online payments a little at the cost-a strategy that it thinks will allow banks and fintechs to build long-term relationships.
When they are in place, Enza's infrastructure enables cross-selling lending, thrift, insurance, and other financial services.
“Payments are the gateway,” said Andrew keyjoining Enza as an executive director last year. “But the value is in the data and services you can layer above.”
That approach also acts on the dynamics change between banks and fintech in Africa. For years, banks have ceded infrastructure and especially sharing SME markets with players such as Flutterwave, Fawry, Paymob, and MoniePoint, which is now Nigeria's largest businessman. But banks still hold basic benefits, especially the broader service offerings and regulatory backgrounds.
“The banks realize they give up on the finteches,” Houston said. “We want to give them tech to compete and win it.”
Similarly, despite rising finishes across Africa, banks remain middle, regulated players behind most combined -fees. But many still lack the obvious visibility of what their aggregator partners do or entrepreneurs.
That's one of the Enza's operations, the founders said: Providing banks more transparency and control of their payment ecosystems so they can stay compliant while scaling.
Dubai -based startup also expanded the payment options available to banks. Enza integrates with local card schemes such as Verve, Afrigo, and Meeza, along with global networks such as Visa and MasterCard.
It also connects to the real-time payment infrastructure, including Nigeria's Nibssss, South African Payshap, and Egypt's Instapan, as well as mobile money and telco wallets, while supporting QR, buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) codes, and features of free payment.
Founders' use networks
Enza is The seizure of decades of experience of its founders and deep relationships throughout the continent to quickly secure contracts with many banks. For example, Fekry previously served as the Chief Commercial Officer at the Emerging Markets Payment (EMP), acquired by Network International, where he became a manager of the director.
Throughout their career, the team cooperated with nearly 200 banks. But this time, they will go for quality in quantity. “We're not trying to copy that scale,” Houston said. “We target 30 to 40 with high quality bank relationships.”
While the company just started operations last year, Dubai -based fintech gained more than 10 million monthly contracted transactions through live -bank partnerships throughout the six markets of Africa, Rwanda, Nigeria, Ghana, Egypt, Uganda, and South Africa.
Enza charges banks on a per-transaction (“per-click”) basis. Those volumes grow 35 to 40% month-to-month and are expected to double the next two years.
The company booted in its early years, with the founders funding it itself. When they decided to raise the outside of the capital, the founders said they did not buy the deal.
Instead, Algebra Ventures and Quona Capital led $ 6 million seeds. “The Enza's leadership team has a wonderful track record of starting, growing up, and the release of FinTech businesses throughout the continent,” said Tarek Assaad, in charge of the Algebra Ventures partner, why his firm supports a two-year-old FinTech.
The new capital is going to expand the team and rotate new products for banking clients throughout Africa.
“We have established Enza to solve real infrastructure problems throughout Africa,” Fekry said. “We have spent our careers trying to make sure our families and communities can access financial products because people in Europe or the US at a low cost and whatever time they want.”
