A fintech’s purple patch

After being named the top financial technology start-up at the University of Cape Town’s (UCT) Financial Innovation Hub (FinHub) Hackathon in 2023, Tata-iMali has enjoyed a purple patch, including being the sole South African start-up at the START Global Accelerator 2025 hosted in Switzerland.

The programme aims to “give young entrepreneurs and leading investors the platform to join forces and create something remarkable [and] to enable the next generation of entrepreneurs to turn their ideas into reality”.

Founder, Gregory Andrews, who spoke to UCT News from Switzerland, where he is currently attending the START Global Accelerator 2025 until May, was asked to describe Tata-iMali to someone who has never heard of it before. He explained: “It is the most affordable and accessible way for any business, big or small, to increase their revenue by accepting card payments. Over 90% of the South African population uses debit cards as their preferred means of payment; however, over 800 000 micro, small and medium businesses in South Africa are not equipped to accept card payments. Tata-iMali addresses this gap by providing the most affordable and accessible card terminal solutions in South Africa to ensure that all merchants … never lose a sale and are included in the digital economy.”

Following on from their initial 2023 success, Tata-iMali has received top honours from the MTN MoMo National Hackathon, been selected as the chosen start-up for the 2024 Swiss–Africa Business Innovation Conference, been named the top start-up at the 2024 Nedbank Payments Innovation Pitch-Off, and became the Lisk x CV Labs African Accelerator IC Investment Awardee in 2024.

“We evolved from a theoretical concept into a real company that is legally operating in South Africa, generating revenue, paying employees and serving real customers.”

According to reports, South Africa’s fintech sector is growing. In 2023, the country was home to 140 fintech startups, representing 20.6% of all fintech startups in the continent, according to Disrupt Africa’s Finnovating for Africa 2023 report.

“Our initial concept was presented at the UCT financial innovation hackathon as a personal lending business; however, over the months and years, through intense competition, continuous refinement, customer feedback, and understanding of regulation, we found our niche and evolved into a digital payments business. We evolved from a theoretical concept into a real company that is legally operating in South Africa, generating revenue, paying employees and serving real customers,” said Andrews, an MPhil student in Financial Technology.

Given that the start-up market is attracting more ideas, how does Tata-iMali continue to set itself apart? “The way we set ourselves apart is by staying as close to our customers as possible, listening to their feedback and continuously refining our offerings to ensure that we provide real value to our customers in a way that suits them. We do not innovate in a vacuum; customer feedback loops are crucial to our system of innovation. As they say: ‘The customer is king’.”

Courage

With a new cohort of applicants soon to be accepted and starting their financial technology journey this month, Andrews is best placed to offer some advice: “Firstly, it’s about having the courage to set your sights high and developing the faith and belief that you can achieve the goals you set. Next, it’s about a relentless work ethic: you must develop a system for being able to put in intense hours of work week after week but also include mechanisms for recovery to ensure that you can sustain this level of work over very long periods of time. You need to develop what they call a ‘big game mentality’. You need to learn to deliver your greatest performances when the stakes are the highest. Finally, you need to have courage, there will be times where you must make extremely difficult decisions, such as letting go of ideals or even people that are crucial to unlocking the next phase in your journey.”

“UCT is one of the leading places on the African continent to develop your financial technology ideas and pursue the path of building your own business. This is because the UCT Financial Innovation Hub has created an optimal ecosystem to support students to do just this.”

On his experience in Switzerland, Andrews said: “I have been completely immersed in building [the] business and [been] exposed to each key pillar from some of the leading specialists in the world. One thing I realised as the only South African founder in the programme is that I belong. The work I have put in over the past five years along with the crucial foundations that have been laid through the MPhil in FinTech programme at UCT, the GensisBloc Pre-incubation programme and the support from the UCT Financial Innovation Hub have prepared me to thrive in this environment and I am loving every moment of it.”

He concluded, “I believe Tata-iMali will be the leading digital payments platform in Africa within the next five years. I see Tata-iMali empowering over half a million micro, small and medium businesses in the country to increase their revenue by accepting digital payments and being included in the digital economy. I see a future where we are able to provide purpose, hope and livelihood through employment to thousands of young South Africans.”