Paystack is granting access to its team of experts to startups building financial service products in a new initiative called Fintech Office Hours. The members of the first cohort of the programme will be selected from a pool of applicants after May 31.
Paystack processes a significant amount of financial transactions online in Nigeria and has diverse experience gained from working on different sides of the fintech sector in the country. The company works as a payments infrastructure provider interfacing with banks, regulators, and card schemes.
What you need to know about Fintech Office Hours
To apply, your startup must have built a fintech solution that is already being used by people in Nigeria or Ghana. The solution could be a lending app, apps providing invoicing and accounting solutions, investment apps, cryptocurrency, remittance, insurance, payments, or any other innovation that solve a financial problem.
The solution must already be in use by your target market and must have a good month-on-month growth in the Total Processed Volume (TPV). Information from Paystack says a 10% month-on-month growth is good enough.
The application period will end on May 31st and feedback will be given within the following week. The first cohort will have a maximum of 10 startups selected and each will be invited to scheduled Zoom calls with Paystack’s team and other experts that will have valuable contributions to the startup’s business.
The fintech Office Hours will take place quarterly and will select new cohort members after the 2 weeks application window. After working with a startup in the cohort, the startup’s representative will be added to Paystack’s alumni page of cohort members.
The areas that will be covered by the Paystack Office Hours include the APIs and tools needed to build elegant solutions, licensing and compliance issues when scaling, product management and software development, user acquisition, sales and growth, hiring, and people operations.
You can apply here
Just a little catch…
For now, the application is only open to companies with an active Paystack account in Nigeria or Ghana. After some time and internal processes by Paystack, other fintechs who do not use its financial services may be welcome into the Fintech Office Hours cohort.
The Fintech Office Hours is similar to another programme that Paystack launched in April for business owners selling essential goods and services.
The company partnered with 7 digital agencies including Cregital and Pulse Africa to help 40 businesses integrate their websites into Paystack’s platform. Having done that, the businesses could start selling and receiving payments online.
In the case of Office Hours, fintech startups get consultation from the company’s widespread experience and network of experts.