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Africa Rising Through Fintech: TFT Talks Shop with Three of the Continent’s Highest-Flying CEOs

In this Talking Heads interview, TFT met CEOs Anurag Yadav of Prima Felicitas, Joff Paradise of Cryptomatic and Chrissa McFarlane of The Patientory Association to find out about their companies’ market solutions and strategic plans for entering the African Fintech sector.

(Prima Felicitas, CEO Anurag Yadav)

Anurag Yadav, CEO Prima Felicitas

TFT: What’s your company’s USP and how are you going to change the world?

AY: My company, PrimaFelicitas, primarily develops cutting-edge solutions based on Emerging Technologies. Our USP is developing these highly innovative solutions at the intersection of technology, for instance at the intersection of blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and the Internet of Things.

Developing products at the intersection of some of these novel technologies, we are able to leverage the collective power of these technologies and through it develop products and solutions that have the ability to impact society and world in big and meaningful ways.

What are the major challenges for your business?

Since these technologies are so novel most clients and potential users are not aware of these technologies or their benefits and strengths. Our challenge always is to educate and inspire people to appreciate the power of these technologies and be moved to try and use them. Despite our entire development team being based in India and therefore our prices being significantly lower than any teams based in San Francisco or London, clients during early discussion phase still find it expensive to invest and try out these technologies.

How does your business extend financial inclusion and social impact?

Most of the innovative digital technologies of the past 50 years benefitted large corporations who were able to invest in those still expensive technologies and earn huge profits. This happened with internet technology in the past and continues even today with technologies such as AI.

The real value was never shared with the society at large until much later. We are trying to bring access to these novel technologies to SMEs and common consumers at a fraction of a cost, thereby democratising the technology and ushering in widespread usage and benefits to society. Further, we are developing solutions that will let consumers earn passive income, for instance monetising access to their data, something that large corporations value a lot and will be very willing to pay for.

Why are you going to Africa?

To share the latest technological developments in the fields of blockchain, AI and IoT and let the audience know how some of the developed parts of the world are already harnessing these technologies to improve their citizens’ lives and build better societies and countries. Africa can immensely benefit from these technologies by being one of the early adopters and experimenters. I offer all my technological help and support in letting Africa embrace and leapfrog this global technology race. This is the message that I want to bring to Africa.

(Cryptomatic, CEO Joff Paradise)

Joff Paradise, CEO Cryptomatic

TFT: What’s your company’s USP and how are going to change the world?

JP: The unique selling point of our company is providing full 24/7/365 support to our clients and unique software with its own eco-system. Cryptomatic customises software development to client’s needs and requirements to ensure the stable operation of the machines. We are planning to install at least 5.000 ATMs and change the way people buy cryptocurrency. We also want this process to become simple, clear and safe. The German made components used for assembling the ATMs, guarantee their reliability and quality

What are major challenges for your business?

The main challenge for our business is the human factor. We must change the way people think. By that I mean we are changing the world, by changing people’s minds, the way they understand crypto and the way they buy crypto. We are here to make complex things easier.

How does your business extend financial inclusion and social impact?

Cryptomatic opens capitalised, large and decentralised markets for an average citizen. The fact is that in our modern world with AI, crypto, blockchain and other technologies, people still want to remain conservative. Now our team is trying to open doors and show society how finance operations are shaping up in 2018.

Why are you going to Africa?

We are glad to visit this wonderful country – cradle of talented people such as Elon Musk and to take part in a brilliant event such as The Blockchain World Summit in Cape Town in December. Our team is sure that the majority of African citizens have been reading themselves for a financial revolution that began in 2016. Our goal for this event is to show how crypto-payments work and teach people how to make profit on it.

(The Patientory Association, CEO Chrissa McFarlane)

Chrissa McFarlane, CEO The Patientory Association

What’s your company’s USP and how are going to change the world?

The Patientory Association, a global non-profit healthcare member organisation enables the adoption of emerging technologies in the healthcare industry.

Currently, the foundation connects healthcare industry adopters of the PTOYNet blockchain which comprise the PTOYNet consortium. The PTOYNet blockchain securely stores and manages health information in real time, and such storage and management is facilitated by a blockchain based token (called “PTOY”). 

The Patientory Association accelerates the development of standards that are essential to the implementation and adoption of the PTOYNet platform and ˚ in securely protecting and managing healthcare information. Such standards are necessary for interoperability and auditability and for transparency purposes. These activities will help ensure the safety, reliability and usability of the use of the PTOYNet platform by its members and the general public, a prerequisite to the wide acceptance of the PTOYNet platform as a viable means of transacting business by the public and the acceptance of the industry as a whole.

What are the major challenges for your business?

Our goal is to foster innovative ecosystems around healthcare technology and delivery. We overcome educational and technical challenges identified as barriers to entry for organisations, by providing subject matter expertise.

How does your business extend financial inclusion and social impact?

We particularly focus on those technologies that will transform low income and underprivileged communities.

Why are you going to Africa?

We are going to Africa to further develop our mission of transforming healthcare through emerging technologies across the world.

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