Exclusive: Old Mutual signs for 10x Banking core, igniting vendor’s African expansion
Core banking solution provider 10x Banking has successfully landed its first client in Africa – Old Mutual, the continent’s second-largest financial institution.
10x Banking expands into Africa with Old Mutual
The vendor says Old Mutual, which is headquartered in Sandton, South Africa, will leverage its Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) core banking system to “serve those who have bank accounts but are severely underserved, with their day-to-day money management needs not met by what’s currently available”.
The group currently offers a broad range of financial services, including retail and corporate banking, asset management and insurance services, and operates across 14 markets across Africa and Asia.
For 10x Banking, the agreement boosts its continued efforts to grow beyond its native UK market following its expansion into Australia and New Zealand in July last year.
More recently, the vendor successfully raised $45 million in January through a funding round led by BlackRock and JP Morgan Chase – capital it’s expected to utilise to cement its newfound position within its latest market.
“It’s clear that in Africa the big driver is digital,” comments Antony Jenkins, CEO of 10x Banking, who also founded the company in 2016 following a three-year tenure as CEO of Barclays.
“By 2025, over half a billion people on the continent will have access to mobile internet, providing a platform for them to make payments, source financial advice, secure loans to buy a home or start a business,” continues Jenkins, adding that such access will ultimately culminate in “a huge set of opportunities for the underbanked and unbanked, which in turn drives economic growth”.
Best foot forward
Speaking with FinTech Futures on how the lessons learned from previous expansions will be applied this time around, Matt Mills, chief revenue officer at 10x Banking, explains that the vendor will prioritise the delivery of more value for clients over a reliance on heavy marketing spend to ensure its success in the region, reiterating his belief that “customer-centric growth will allow us to efficiently leverage our resources to scale across Africa”.
This, Mills says, will be aided by the delivery of “relevant regional features”, which he expects will result in the rise of product offerings promoting a specific focus on financial inclusion.
Mills describes its latest expansion as “a natural next step in meeting one of our core goals of promoting financial inclusion worldwide”.
“By enabling banks and financial service providers to reach underbanked and unbanked customer segments more economically through rapid product development, we anticipate substantial demand for using 10x Banking to develop inclusive offerings.”
He goes on to claim that the vendor’s tools “empower faster rollout of accessible solutions tailored to specific market needs”, and that as a result, he anticipates “strong adoption from clients innovating at the intersection of infrastructure constraints and financial access across the continent”.
“With the region’s large underbanked population and fast-growing digital finance sector, we see tremendous potential to empower more individuals and small businesses through access to innovative and affordable banking services suited to their specific needs.”
With this, he also reveals that Singapore will be “one of the next key areas of strategic growth” for the vendor, sharing that an appointment of a regional lead will be following “soon”.
10x also claims its platform is currently experiencing “growing interest” among banks stationed in India, Sri Lanka, Vietnam and the USA.
