MyBucks Piloting FinTech in New Markets With Novel AI Credit Scoring
Financial technology or FinTech, like any industry with such a strong focus on providing more intuitive deliverables to its consumer base, is in a constant state of growth. For Luxembourg-based MyBucks, these evolutions simply represent more and more opportunity.
While MyBucks is currently listed on the Frankfurt Exchange, operating across Africa and Asia Pacific while at the same time actively promoting its portfolio at forums such as the European Microfinance Awards (2017 Financial Inclusion Award Winner) and at the American Banker Digital Banking Summit, it’s clear that their growth so too reflects the industry. The brand foresees continued expansion into new markets, established and excitingly emerging on the immediate horizon.
“Ultimately, yes, we are viewing expansion into the US as critical”,” said MyBucks Founder and Executive Chairman Dave Van Niekerk. “We have invested a lot into our technology and its application is very important in banking the unbanked and underserved in Africa and far beyond.”
While a foray into the United States market has not taken place as of yet, it certainly helps MyBucks’ prospects by having such a great foothold seemingly everywhere else; hosting a malleability to install their operation where most receptive.
And their portfolio expands to meet the market need. Currently, MyBucks is spear-heading a pilot program with the intent to distribute free smartphones in certain markets in Sub-Saharan Africa, which is an ambitious effort from end to end. Said Van Niekerk: “Less than ten percent of people in the regions where we have launched our smartphone initiative have access to these mobile technologies and the financial support that we provide. Many countries are currently attempting to facilitate supply to meet this demand, especially in southern and eastern Africa. We are also focusing our energies on more of the english regions to the west of the continent, as we expand.”
While the proliferation of mobile devices across parts of the African continent is forward-thinking, MyBucks has long been engaged in one of the world’s most intriguing technologies to accomplish their goal of banking the unbanked in the digital space, via cutting edge artificial intelligence or AI.
“We firmly believe that our proprietary AI-driven credit scoring technology is applicable in the west and will help us to retain a foothold in those markets. We in fact went live in Australia in January of 2017 and have seen tremendous results”, Van Niekerk said. “As far as the west is concerned, we will need a strong market desire in-country to give us the chance to do what we’re already good at, perhaps via strategically positioned partners and with them, grow substantially.”
There is justified excitement around such technologies and, for MyBucks leadership, there is already a keen sense on where the enterprise is headed in the future.
“Right now, we are busy building a leading digital mobile brand in Africa and we are very confident that success here will lead us to becoming successful doing the same in other markets, the U.S. included,” Van Niekerk said. “We know that we can be one of the leading AI lenders in the world.”
As the demand for mobile-accessible financial tools increases, companies like MyBucks will continue to maintain pole position in developing and deploying the consumer technologies of the future.
Leave a Reply