#17: Interswitch - How the pioneering Nigerian FinTech & payments platform became one of the most valuable private companies in Africa

Overview: Today, we’re going to talk about Interswitch, the African fintech payments company. We'll discuss its founding, early history, growth, place in the broader African fintech ecosystem & end with our views on its future outlook. This episode was recorded on Nov 29, 2020.

Companies discussed: Interswitch, Telnet, Visa, Helios Investment Partners, Stripe, Flutterwave, Paystack & Jumia Pay

Business concepts discussed: Nigerian Payments ecosystem, payments partnerships strategy, card networks, payments infrastructure, low-end disruption, banking regulation & payments M&A strategy

Conversation highlights:

• (02:40) - Why Interswitch is important
  
• (10:50) - Nigeria payments ecosystem and pre-Interswitch context
  
• (18:12) - Interswitch founding
  
• (22:40) - Interswitch fundraising from Helios, Visa etc and expansion
  
• (34:24) - Interswitch competition across Nigeria’s payment landscape
  
• (40:34) - Interswitch today - size, financials, margins
  
• (45:17) - Interswitch relative to competitors
  
• (56:37) - Bankole’s general thoughts and outlook
  
• (1:02:15) - Olumide’s general thoughts and outlook
  
• (1:04:15) - Recommendations, small wins and open questions
  

Olumide’s recommendations, small wins & open questions:

• Recommendation: Reddit FATFIRE thread: "What asymmetric bets are you currently placing? Good discussion. A little bit of crypto, a little bit of leveraged investments, some talk about options, individual stocks, etc
  
• Small win: Using Fitbit Inspire 2 for sleep tracking (switched from Oura ring)
  
• Other content: Visa's 2020-Feb Investor day (slide 124) (from Visa's investors site)
  
• Open question: What can we learn from the founding of interswitch?
  

Bankole’s recommendations, small wins & open questions:

• Recommendation: Invest Like The Best podcast ft Nick Kokkonas
  
• Small win: Easy does it in my Fantasy Premier League this season. Not doing exceptionally or doing well.
  
• Other content: Interswitch 2019 Bond Prospectus
  
• Open question: What do you think? Are you bullish on Interswitch vs the competition? Why? Let us know via email / twitter.
  

We’d love to hear from you. If you have feedback, topics you’d like to hear, or just want to say hello, please email info@afrobility.com

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