Fintech popularity has been on an upward trajectory, and the story is not different in Africa.
A South African startup YOCO is proving this point. Five years after the company was launched into the market, the digital platform now boasts 110 000 customers and crossed R1.2 billion in December 2020.
Carl Wazen, co-founder and chief business officer of YOCO, is surprised giving the company’s achievement.
"This was a faster recovery than anticipated". Carl Wazen
He further said, “If you had come to us in April 2020, when our merchants’ transactions were down -85 per cent during lockdown level 5 and told us that we would surpass the billion-rand mark in a single month before the end of the year, we would have laughed. This milestone shows that small and micro-merchants are as agile and resilient as ever and will find a way to bounce back. It also shows us that demand for digital payments is stronger than ever, with fewer consumers carrying cash and more businesses going fully cashless.”
The startup saw a drop in its revenue by more than 90 per cent in the early days of the pandemic. The recent achievement in their monthly transaction volume means that their revenue is 50 per cent ahead compared to pre-Covid levels and ten times versus April 2020.
South Africa in Focus
Population: 58,588,270
GDP: $351.432 Billion
GDP per capita: $6,001
