Karandaaz Pakistan announced ‘CreditFix’ the winner of its Fintech Disrupt Challenge 2017 after a close competition between extraordinary startups at the Institute of Business Administration (IBA), Karachi. CreditFix, founded by Owais Zaidi will receive up to $100,000 in funding whereas the three runner-ups, ‘Invoice Wakalah’, ‘UniKrew’ and ‘Agrigate’ will receive up to $20,000 each.
The Fintech Disrupt Challenge that aimed at hunting for extraordinary startup ideas worthy of creating substantial social impact, solicited innovative responses to bottlenecks in Pakistan’s financial services sector under the 2nd edition of the challenge.
This year, Karandaaz had invited startups in five thematic areas including Access to financial services, payments, E-commerce, Interoperability and Early stage ideas related to M-Wallet Use cases, Education of Financial Services through technology, Customer Engagement / Experience, Micro Credit, and Digital Savings.
Funded by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and UKAid, the disrupt challenge offered two different grants, up to $100, 000 for established startups and $20,000 for seed funding of new startups respectively.
The panel of judges for the event included Azfar Jamal, EVP Head of Payment Service and Banking at National Bank of Pakistan, Humayun Bashir, Former CGM IBM and current Chairman at NCCPL, Khurram Zafar, Director at LUMS Centre for Entrepreneurship and Ali Abbas Sikander, Executive Director at Paysys Labs.
The Fintech Disrupt Challenge is an extension of Karandaaz Pakistan’s overall ambition of promoting financial inclusion to marginalized segments of the society. The company extends financial and technical support to financial technology starts ups which showcase substantial potential to create value for the society.
