Craft Silicon contributes immensely to financial inclusion in Africa

At 23 years, Craft Silicon ranks among the oldest financial technology companies serving clients in over 30 countries across Africa and Asia.

Right from microfinances to commercial banking, to Islamic banking, to digital banking platforms, to anti-money laundering solutions, to micro-lending, and recently buy now and pay later platforms, Craft Silicon has done it all over the past two decades.

According to Dhimant Shah, the chief executive officer at Craft Silicon, this vast experience places them among the elite in terms of driving financial inclusion across the globe.

“We started with our core banking solutions for microfinances which is something we excel at and are probably the number one microfinance core banking provider in the world,” he asserts. 

On top of this, the company provides a digital suite that includes all mobile banking platforms, retail Internet banking, corporate Internet banking solutions, and other payment platforms. For this, they have been listed among the 50 fastest-growing fintechs in Africa.

Shah notes that it is this experience that has seen them work with more than 250 financial institutions across the world, serving about 89 million end users. 

“In terms of customers, our customers are not just banks and financial institutions. We have now started a division that works with the governments. We provide revenue collection services for the governments and we intend to touch millions more through these interactions,” he says.

To put it into perspective, Craft Silicon processed about $7.5 billion worth of transactions in 2022.

“Our estimation at the end of this year we will be about $13 billion worth of transactions processed by our systems,” he noted. 

Thriving amid tough times

Craft Silicon are the 40th participant in this year’s 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative. Now in its fourth season, the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative is organised by HiPipo to showcase innovations that are enabling underserved populations to join the digital economy space.

This initiative is run in partnership with the Level One Project, Mojaloop Foundation, INFITX, Cyberplc Academy, and Crosslake Technologies with support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Shah says that fintech in Africa is laced with opportunities, especially at a time when there is emerging artificial intelligence and machine learning. 

“So, how do we harness this technology for the end consumers?  How can they take advantage of the platforms that we provide? We are certainly excelling in that area of artificial intelligence; some of the products benefit immensely from artificial intelligence. It is not just about providing the rules,” he says.

In the pursuit of providing fair credit to consumers, Shah notes that artificial intelligence would be very helpful because it can check many money data checkpoints simultaneously and contribute towards a fair score for the consumer.

He further adds that with their footprints across Africa, Craft Silicon serves as a fintech big brother. However, this does not mean that they do not have operational challenges.

First, he identifies cyber security threats as a primary challenge that they have learnt to mitigate by employing certified ethical hackers as well as security professionals.

“There are also regulatory challenges across the countries that we work with.  The regulatory framework keeps changing and we have to keep up with it,” he says. 

He however encourages African innovators to identify unique African problems and come up with specific solutions.

“We don’t have to always copy everything that the West does. How do we move with our own solutions to address the unique problems of Africans? We don’t always need to copy because there are areas where we excel in these technologies like our mobile money systems of M-Pesa,” he says.

In a similar vein, Shah applauds the organisers of the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative for creating awareness among African FinTechs and end-users.

“People get to know what technologies are available, who are the people behind them, and their philosophies. This is not just a flash of knowledge that perhaps Craft Silicon is doing this but who are the people at Craft Silicon? What are their motives or philosophies? Why are they doing the things that they do?” he said.

The HiPipo CEO Innocent Kawooya says that the participation of established FinTechs such as Craft Silicon serves to motivate startups.

“Craft Silicon has stood the test of time. When we have them to offer an insight on the sector and how they have evolved with changing times to remain relevant, we believe that young fintechs can borrow a leaf. We applaud Craft Silicon for their dedication to accelerating financial inclusion across Africa,” Kawooya noted.