MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: Woman-owned Fintech Tez of Pakistan, Green Girls Organization of Cameroon Win $200k in Visa Everywhere Initiative

Tez Financial Services, a private firm in Pakistan, and Green Girls Organization, an NGO in Cameroon, each recently won prizes of USD 100,000 in the inaugural iteration of the Women’s Global Edition of the Visa Everywhere Initiative, a program of US-based payments technology company Visa that is intended to encourage innovation to “solve payment challenges of tomorrow.” The challenge has two categories, financial technology and social impact.

Tez, a woman-owned firm that was established in 2016, won the financial technology category for addressing the question, “Leveraging your company’s unique capabilities, how could your solution help transform consumer payments and/or commercial experiences locally, regionally, or globally?”. Tez offers an app for mobile phones that provides savings, insurance, credit and investment products to people without access to conventional banking services in Pakistan.

Green Girls, which trains women and girls to create renewable energy from the sun and bio-waste, won the social impact award by addressing the question, “How can women entrepreneurs around the world drive social impact by supporting sustainable and equitable livelihoods and strengthening local/regional economies?”.

Visa partners with financial institutions to provide consumers with credit, debit and prepaid cards that can be used at merchants in 200 countries. Visa also offers payment programs and consulting services for commercial clients. As of July 2019, Visa reported total assets of USD 69.9 billion and total equity of USD 34.3 billion.

Financial data are not available on Tez or Green Girls.

By Eugene DeCosse, Research Associate

Sources and Additional Resources

Visa press release
https://usa.visa.com/about-visa/newsroom/press-releases.releaseId.16451.html

Tez homepage
https://www.tezfinancialservices.pk

Green Girls Organization
http://www.gg-greengirls.org

Visa Everywhere Initiative webpage
https://usa.visa.com/visa-everywhere/everywhere-initiative/initiative.html

Visa financial statements
https://investor.visa.com/financial-information/quarterly-earnings/

MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: JazzCash Mobile Money Users in Pakistan to Gain Access to Merchants Accepting Visa Cards
https://www.microcapital.org/microcapital-brief-jazzcash-users-in-pakistan-to-use-mobile-money-at-merchants-that-accept-visa/

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