CAPE TOWN – The largest and fastest growing black empowered JSE-listed ICT group in the country, AYO Technology Solutions, and Vunani Group, an independent black-owned and managed diversified financial services group, on Monday announced the formation of a R100 million fintech joint venture to expand the fintech platform and financial services activities of Vunani.
Vunani Group is the investment vehicle owned by Ethan Dube, Butana Khoza and Mark Anderson, the three founders and senior management of the listed Vunani Limited.
Vunani Group owns 50 percent Vunani Limited, a diversified financial services group with more than R30 billion of funds under management, R10bn assets under administration, employing more than 300 staff through its four operating businesses: Fund management, fund administration, investment banking, securities trading, corporate advisory and private equity.
AYO listed on the JSE in December last year, offering numerous end-to-end solutions to a host of industries, including health care.
The group’s product and service offerings include business process management, big data analytics, data security, software development, internet of things solutions and cloud services.
Dube said Vunani and AYO wanted to make a high social impact, particularly on the lives of ordinary people, by reducing transactional cost as well as providing access to financial services.
“The strategic partnership with AYO allows us to approach like-minded investors and partner locally and abroad, specifically on the African content. Our fintech focus will include payment technologies, online insurance, lending and banking, digitisation of securities trading, use of crypto currencies (to allow small and medium sized emerging businesses to trade across borders), robo advisors and the application of artificial intelligence (AI) in asset management and many other possible new technologies that are available to the financial services industry.
AYO chairperson, Advocate Wallace Mgoqi said the strategic partnership with Vunani was key to business today. “We believe that Vunani will expose AYO to innovative financial products and services, some of which we could ultimately introduce to our clients and partners thereby strengthening the ecosystem we are building.”
Dube said: “Technology, in particular the interface between ICT and telecoms – a core enabler provided AYO – and access to global partnerships, will over the next decade be the great disrupter in financial services on the African continent. Vunani intends to expand its existing fintech operations and enter new markets, both through organic growth and by acquisition.”