Episode overview:
In this conversation, Verto co-founder and CEO Ola Oyetayo shares the journey of building a cross-border payments platform that tackles the unique challenges African businesses face when making international transactions. 

Since graduating from Y Combinator in 2019, Verto has established itself as what Oyetayo describes as a profitable and cashflow positive fintech serving multiple African markets. Incidentally, the company recently made headlines after winning the prestigious $1 million Milken-Motsepe Prize in FinTech.

He discusses his team's pragmatic approach to addressing payment barriers in emerging markets, why traditional financial institutions have failed to serve these regions effectively, and how technology can disrupt traditional banking networks that have historically excluded certain markets.

Andile Masuku engages Oyetayo on the evolution of fintech in Africa, the role of privilege and networks in business success, and the future potential of stablecoins to revolutionise cross-border payments in ways that might prove more transformative for emerging markets than developed ones.

Key topics:
- Verto's position in the cross-border payments landscape
- The strategic decision to focus on B2B rather than consumer payments
- The untapped $286 billion trade flow between Africa and China
- Why 96-97% of business cross-border payments still go through traditional banks
- The innovator's dilemma Verto faces with the rise of stablecoins

Notable points:
1. In 2018, Oyetayo launched Verto's business model alongside his co-founder Anthony Oduu after spotting a solutions gap for African businesses making international payments outside of traditional banks
2. Verto has been profitable and cash flow positive for approximately 18 months
3. How a chance meeting with legendary VC Vinod Khosla at YC in 2019 first turned him on to the stablecoin investment opportunity—years before they became mainstream
4. The company operates in Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania and the Francophone region
5. Despite previous experience in institutional finance, Oyetayo admits "ignorance is bliss" helped him tackle a problem others saw as too risky
6. The potential of stablecoins to solve liquidity, volatility and capital control challenges in emerging markets

Listen out for Oyetayo's take on Paystack's B2C play Zap, the fintech ecosystem implications of Moniepoint's "unicornification," and his contrarian insight that stablecoins will revolutionise emerging markets while having minimal impact in developed economies: "This is not a popular opinion... There's just no case for stablecoins in developed markets. People talk about, oh, it's going to disrupt Visa and MasterCard... I don't see that coming anytime soon." 

Image credit: Verto

Ola Oyetayo of Verto: Building a Profitable Cross-Border Fintech for Emerging Markets

There Is A Way

John O’Nolan is the founder and head designer at Ghost, an open source, hackable platform for building and running online publications. Ghost is used to power blogs at NASA, Sky News, Elon Musk’s new Open AI initiative, and literally a million other online publications. The interesting thing about Ghost is that it’s run as a non-profit organization with only 10 full-time employees. All of Ghost’s code is open source and the company publishes its financials, including run rates and salaries, on its website.

In this conversation we discuss life on the road, tips and tricks for digital nomads, and how to keep a team in sync across time zones. We also discuss the founding of Ghost, and John’s ideas about the role of the designer CEO, and touch on women in tech, the best tools for virtual teams and a lot more.

Awesome with Simon Dingle

Why do you do? with John O'Nolan

In this conversation, Andile Masuku asks PesaCheck.org Managing Editor, Eric Mugendi, to reflect on the unprecedented leveraging of digital technologies by leading actors in Kenya's controversial elections, and to factor in on how the country's emerging tech ecosystem is doing in the aftermath.

Quick (Tech) Chats

Kenyan post election reflections with PesaCheck.org Managing Editor Eric Mugendi

Back on the show for the first time since contributing his fair share of involuntary hot takes on Episode 109 entitled "Investor Bias Debate 2.0 + Should Africa Embrace Uberisation?" (http://bit.ly/investorbias) Tapsnapp Founder, Vije Vijendrenath assumes co-hosting duties in Musa Kalenga’s absence. Andile Masuku chats to him about the workarounds he's deployed to secure funding for two startups that he previously struggled to get investors to take seriously-- namely, www.tapsnapp.co and www.youbabyandi.com.

Then, joining Andile and Vije on the show for a deep dive into South Africa's mobility scene is Obakeng Morapeli Matlhoko, the Founder of AftaRobot-- South Africa's ambitious "Uber for minibus taxis". Obakeng shares trench insights into his company’s audacious attempt usher in a new paradigm for the country’s notoriously fragmented minibus taxi industry.

Music Credits:
Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

African Tech Roundup

A Peek Under the Hood Of South Africa's Mobility Scene feat. Obakeng Morapeli Matlhoko

In this relaxed chat - taped on Wednesday, May 2nd, 2018 - Business Report (South Africa) Content Editor, Philippa Larkin and African Tech Roundup Executive Producer, Andile Masuku, chat about topical global issues impacting Africa's tech and innovation industry.

Listen in to hear how the conversation takes some unexpected twists and turns as Philippa and Andile discuss the continent's unfolding digital transformation journey.

Philippa Larkin and Andile Masuku's tech and innovation catch-up

This podcast is the first instalment of a two-part conversation Andile Masuku had with one of Zimbabwe’s most well-known and widely-respected business people, the economist turned banker, entrepreneur and investor, Dr Nigel Chanakira. 

Dr Chanakira is probably most famous for founding Kingdom Financial Holdings Limited in 1997, and for orchestrating that company’s much-publicized merger and demerger with the Meikles Africa group before eventually selling out to the Mauritius-based AfrAsia Holdings in 2013.

Prior to founding Kingdom Financial Holdings, Dr Chanakira spent long stints working for the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe and Bard Discount House. Over the years, he has sat on the boards of numerous leading companies and institutions, including Econet Wireless Holdings, Success Motivation Institute (Africa), the Christian Community Trust and Kingdom Meikles Africa.

Listen in to hear Dr Chanakira's fascinating personal and professional origin story. And heads up, this episode features an intriguing anecdote about role Dr Chanakira played in setting up Econet founder Strive Masiyiwa to become one of Zimbabwe’s most prolific entrepreneurial successes to date, and how he may have simultaneously made the poorest investment decision of his career.

Image credit: Pepi Stojanovski

Investment Diaries With Dr Nigel Chanakira Part 1 - Worst investment decision in Zimbabwean history?

In this episode of the African Tech Roundup podcast, Andile Masuku and The Subtext’s Osarumen Osamuyi are joined by Iginio Gagliardone for a candid introductory chat about the budding Africa-China/China-Africa tech collaboration dynamic.

Iginio is an Associate Professor in Media Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand and an Associate Research Fellow in New Media and Human Rights in the Programme in Comparative Media Law and Policy (PCMLP) at the University of Oxford. He is also the author of a new book called China, Africa and the Future of the Internet, which has taken him the better part of ten years to write.

This context-setting conversation covers a lot of ground. Some of the questions discussed include: 

1) Where big-money moves in tech and innovation sector are concerned, is there an Africa-China or China-Africa dynamic at play? [12:17]
2) How committed is China to promoting mutual commercial beneficiation in Africa? [15:51]
3) Is there substance to stereotype of “Everyone has a plan for Africa, except Africa”? [20:13]
4) Are there any “good guys” left, and if so, is China one of them? [25:02]
5) Is China’s influence in African “technopolitical” circles inducing a neo-Third World psyche? [30:23] 

The episode is chock-full of fascinating real-world anecdotes, provocative ideas for how things can and should be and even a lively lightning round near the end of the show which elicited reflex takes on Africa-China tech stories that have trended over the last short while.

To view resources referenced in this episode, visit https://www.africantechroundup.com/africa-china-tech-dynamics/

Image credit: Kayla Kozlowski

Is The Africa-China/China-Africa Tech & Innovation Dynamic Win-win? feat. Iginio Gagliardone

Africa-focused technology, digital and innovation ecosystem insight and commentary.

Ola Oyetayo of Verto: Building a Profitable Cross-Border Fintech for Emerging Markets

African Tech Roundup

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