“The MTN MoMo platform offers consumers and businesses easy access to various innovative digital financial services. In South Africa alone, eight million people are registered on the MTN MoMo platform," says Bradwin Roper, chief financial services officer at MTN SA.
"This massive user base makes it ideal for local talent, developers, companies, and entrepreneurs to unlock economic growth through financial and digital solutions in their communities.”
Through the Open API platform, developers participating in the hackathon will compete to design and develop a solution that goes beyond processing payments and incorporating additional features and functionalities that promote financial inclusion and literacy in their registered markets.
The MTN judging panel will select their top 12 applicants to advance to the prototyping phase and compete for the $10,000 prize in South Africa.
Developers have five weeks to submit innovative ideas for financial and transactional applications incorporating MTN MoMo APIs.
The mobile application must target consumers, merchants, or businesses, providing practical and valuable solutions that can be deployed in the developers’ registered markets. The applications should cover use cases beyond payment, leveraging MTN MoMo APIs.
Preselected applicants will be required to develop a working prototype of their solution and provide a live application demo to the adjudicators.
According to Roper, as newly developed solutions are introduced and adopted, they will also be helping advance MTN’s drive to build a pan-African fintech platform that is enabling millions of Africans, previously excluded from the financial mainstream, to take control of their financial futures.
“We aim to encourage and bring to the fore the talent and creativity of Africa’s developers, enabling them to showcase their capabilities by leveraging the MoMo platform and creating opportunities for their growth,” he continues
“Bridging the financial services gap requires wide-ranging partnerships. By working with partners across the spectrum, from regulators to financial service providers and merchants, MTN can help improve millions of Africans’ economic and social well-being.
"Encouraging the participation of local talent, familiar with local needs, is an important facet of the partnership process,” concludes Roper.
Interested developers can find more information and register at the hackathon website.
