Core banking vendor 10x has sealed a deal with its first African client, Old Mutual, the pan-African investment, savings, insurance, and banking group.
10x’s international expansion closely follows its $45m funding round announced in January, as it looks to capitalise on the significant momentum in the core banking market.
Old Mutual is actively looking to serve those who have bank accounts but are severely underserved, with their day-to-day money management needs not met by what’s currently available.
“It’s clear that in Africa the big driver is digital." comments 10x founder and CEO Antony Jenkins. “By 2025, over half a billion people on the continent will have access to mobile internet, providing a platform for them to make payments, source financial advice, secure loans to buy a home or start a business. This opens up a huge set of opportunities for the underbanked and unbanked, which in turn drives economic growth."
He adds that 10x is seeing growing interest in its platform worldwide among banks in India, Sri Lanka, Vietnam and the USA, and looking further ahead it expects to work closely with banks in Canada, pan-Africa and central and southern Europe.
“These are the markets where we see a significant shift to a more customer-centric mindset among banks,” comments 10x’s chief revenue officer, Matt Mills, who joined the company last month from fintech scale-up Featurespace. “Banks can see the issue for themselves and come to us because they have a creaky core, unfit for rolling out financial products which meet the increasing demand among their customers for a better, digital-first user experience.”