Visa Everywhere Initiative

Visa Everywhere Initiative in Kazakhstan & Central Asia

in association with Astana International Financial Centre

Organizers

Visa Everywhere Initiative – is a global innovation program for supporting startups which is held in partnership with Astana International Financial Centre (AIFC) with the main objective to promote innovations that help solve local market challenges and create new products and services in the field of financial technologies.

All participants of Visa Everywhere Initiative will get:

chance to implement their developments and ideas in cooperation with Visa or their partners - banks, insurance companies, mobile operators etc
opportunity to receive free training from AIFC's Incubation or Acceleration program

Startup	Website	Country	Product
reKASSA	www.rekassa.kz	Kazakhstan	reKASSA – this is a free mobile application - a cash register that allows micro-business owners to save 60 thousand tenge
NambaPay	nambapay.online	Kyrgyzstan	A mobile application impoverishing various payment methods and an integrated loyalty program
LendingStar	LendingStar.com	Singapore	LendingStar - financial platform where SME can sell its receivables and receive low-cost financing for its operations
Nebank.kz	nebank.kz	Kazakhstan	Nebank – it is an aggregator of consumer lending and a service for selling goods on credit for offline and online stores, retailers and retail chains
MARTA	marta.uz	Uzbekistan	Mobile acquiring for EMV cards with MPOS card readers

Benefits for Winners of the program

Projects at the idea / prototype stage

Projects ready for implementation

Participation in the AIFC Tech Hub's Incubation program (May-July 2019)
Fixed workplace for 3 members of the team in the AIFC Tech Hub's co-working space in Astana for the period May-August 2019
Direct access to professional from the Fintech industry
Consultations with international fintech experts
Demonstration of your project during Astana Financial Day
The possibility of launching a pilot project in partnership with bank, insurance or telecom company
Opportunity to find work in the best companies of the financial sector of Kazakhstan

Opportunity to participate in the AIFC Tech Hub's Acceleration program (August-November 2019)
Fixed workplace for 3 members of the team in the AIFC Tech Hub's co-working space in Astana for the period August-February 2020
Assistance in entering the markets of Kazakhstan and Central Asia
Ability to start a joint project with Visa
Company registration at the AIFC Fintech Sandbox
Demonstration of your project during Astana Financial Day (pitch + booth)
Presentation of the project to potential partners banks, insurance, telecom companies
Presentation of the project to potential investors

Challenges

Financial literacy	Financial services for individuals	Financial services for SMEs
Insurtech	B2B services for financial sector	Mobile Finance Services for Beeline

Challenge 1: Financial literacy Services that allow adults, children and teenagers to explore financial services and manage personal finances.
Detailed information Financial literacy is a combination of knowledge and skills in the field of human financial behavior, leading to improved well-being and quality of life, ability and confidence in managing personal finances and long-term financial planning. For this challenge, we are looking for innovative solutions that will help people with these issues: make informed decisions when obtaining a loan: calculate the effective interest rate, compare your income with the amount of payments, evaluate financial risks, find the best credit conditions form personal savings starting from small but regular savings start using cashless payments instead of cash, learn how to get benefits from cashless payments and keeping money in banks teach children and teenagers basic concepts of financial literacy: what money is and how it works, where it comes from, how to make money, how and why to make savings, how to pay with cards and telephone, safety rules in financial matters master new banking technologies
Useful links for preparation: Financial Inclusion And Financial Literacy In Kazakhstan. Asian Development Bank Institute. Overview of financial inclusion, regulation, financial literacy, and education in central Asia and South Caucasus. Peter J. Morgan, Yan Zhang, and Dossym Kydyrbayev. Asian Development Bank Institute. October 2018 Ernst & Young report "Innovation in financial inclusion: Revenue growth through innovative inclusion"

Challenge 2:
Financial services for individuals

Services that simplify access to loans, money transfers and payments, allowing to compare financial services, providing new level of convenience, speed and consumer experience.

For this challenge we are looking for projects, services and mobile applications that are directed to individuals and customers

Examples of possible directions of current challenge:

Digital bank (neobank). Platforms that work in partnership with banks and provide a fundamentally new level of customer experience in financial services. The best examples of such banks are: Revolut, N26, Monzo, Monobank.
Lending. Services that allow you to get a loan quickly, at the best rate, in any situation and in the most convenient way (through card, account, mobile balance or cash).
Financial marketplaces. Assistance in choosing financial products and services, comparison, tips/advice
Loyalty systems tied to client's transactional activity (bonus, with cashbacks and others)
Personal finance management (PFM)
Islamic banking

Challenge 3:

Financial services for SMEs

Technological solutions that allow companies from different business areas and of different sizes to accept cashless payments, use loyalty systems, personalize relationships with customers.

Detailed information

As part of this challenge, we are looking for any services that make the work of small and medium size businesses more efficient through the introduction of innovative financial solutions and technologies for personalizing customer relationships.

Examples of directions for developing ideas:

Financial marketplaces for business. They allow you to choose the best service conditions in banks, get a loan, compare the cost of other financial services and order them.
Financial, accounting and management accounting of an enterprise
Solutions for receiving payments (QR codes, NFC, e-wallets)
Cloud Cash Solutions
Business hardware solutions (cash registers, terminals)
Lending, including crowdinvesting
Factoring
Invoicing
Services that solve unique financial problems in various segments (tourism, cafes / restaurants, education, health, etc.)

Challenge 4:
Insurtech

Technologies that drastically change insurance: online transfer of policies, use of the blockchain, automated underwriting, artificial intelligence, telematics, personalized insurance.

Detailed information

Examples of directions for developing ideas:

Insurance marketplaces. Aggregators to find the best deals in the insurance market.
Innovation in underwriting. Use of new sources of information, big data analysis and artificial intelligence.
Insurance Automation
Integration of insurance services with "smart devices" (fire sensors, smoke, flooding, etc.) and the creation of fundamentally new insurance products
Innovations in auto insurance (in particular, insurance telematics - devices that are installed in the car and allow you to control the movement parameters, on the basis of what the insurance product is built)
Personalized insurance products based on the use of principally new sources of information and big data analysis

Challenge 5:
B2B services for financial sector

Services and systems that allow to improve work and internal processes in banks and financial sector companies

Detailed information

Examples of directions for developing ideas:

Analytical systems based on open data
Credit scoring using Machine Learning technologies
Technologies that improve credit analytics during the loan servicing phase
Fraud monitoring (including using digital footprint)
Counterparty verification, early detection of potential problems
Improving the promotion of financial services online, new approaches to marketing
Innovations in improving internal banking processes: opening accounts, document flow, communication units
Remote Client Identification Mechanisms
Robo Advising, Chat Bots

Challenge 6:
Mobile financial services for Beeline

Financial services integrated with mobile operator Beeline

Detailed information

1. A prototype of a virtual bank issuing virtual bank cards Visa Beeline, issuing microloans

2. Tools for making payments from the mobile balance in trade and service enterprises

3. Platform (application) for transfers from the balance to the balance of a mobile phone within one operator and to / from other operators with verification of the sender and receiver by means of biometrics

4. Platform for creating and managing a coalition bonus program with trade and service enterprises with payment for services from a mobile phone balance via a QR code and a Visa Beeline card

Program time line

Round 1. Application process March 13 - April 30	Submission and reviewing of applications, online interview with teams.
Selection of best teams May 1 - May 10	Selection of best teams to participate in the Semifinal in Astana. Up to 40 teams will be selected for participation.
Round 2. Semifinal bootcamp & demo May 23-24	2-day Bootcamp, when teams will work with mentors to finalize their ideas and products. Presentation of projects in front of jury. Winners will continue to work on the project in Round 3.
Round 3. Incubation program June 1 - July 31	During the program, teams will implement their ideas along with the best mentors and consultants from the financial industry. The program will be held at the AIFC Fintech Hub in Astana.
Final @Astana Finance Days July 2-4	Within the framework of the Astana Finance Days conference, a Demo day will be held, when all participants of the 3rd round will be able to present their projects to Visa, the Fintech community, bankers, investors and partners.

Partners

Mentors

Yevgen Lisnyak	Taras Volobuiev	Ivan Istomin
Senior Director, Head of Strategic Partnerships, Fintech and Ventures Visa	Chief Startup Officer AIFC Tech Hub	Managing Director of Retail Business Alfa Bank Kazakhstan
Rashid Dusembaev	Zhanargul Izimova	Sergey Koptik
Managing Director Centras Insurance	Managing Director of Retail Business Sberbank Kazakhstan	Head of Mobile Financial Services Beeline Kazakhstan
Andrey Rudov	Aleksander Bondarenko	Vitaly Kim
Head of Card Business Home Credit Bank Kazakhstan	Director Wooppay	Head of Innovation Projects Halyk Bank
Bolat Mynbayev	Alim Khamitov	Alexander Trapezin
Head of Strategy and Operations Group KPMG in Kazakhstan and Central Asia	PhD, Entrepreneur, Director Business-incubator MOST	CIO Tengri Bank

Tips for participants

Use Visa resources


Explore Visa' s APIs on the Visa Developer Platform to integrate into your product	Check out this video of past pitches to see how to present your ideas
Visa Developer Center >	See on YouTube >

Visa Everywhere Initiative