NowNow joins Mastercard Start Path Global program to scale financial innovation in Africa

Africa’s fast-growing fintech and digital banking startup, NowNow Digital Systems, has been selected to participate in the Mastercard Start Path Global program, created to help later-stage startups innovate and scale. Recognized as an emerging leader in Africa’s fintech sector, NowNow is among the eight startups and the only African startup selected to participate in the latest Start Path class. The program provides opportunities to co-innovate, gain expert knowledge, and reach a global customer base for the brightest startups in the world.

Mastercard Start Path is an award-winning startup engagement program within the Mastercard Developers portfolio which aims to support startups on their scaling journey across financial services industries globally. The Mastercard Developers portfolio provides the services and tools fintech innovators need to iterate at each stage of their journey, transform bold ideas and achieve scale at pace to bring more people into the digital economy. 

Through Start Path, Mastercard will provide NowNow with operational support, commercial engagement, and the opportunity for strategic investment. NowNow who aims to deliver best in class financial services in Nigeria and Africa would benefit from the opportunity to collaborate with other innovative startups across the globe.

Sahir Berry, Chief Executive Officer of NowNow Digital Systems, said, “It is a pleasure to be recognized as an emerging leader in the fintech sector, and our participation in the Mastercard Start Path engagement program reinforces our commitment to enabling innovative financial solutions. This opportunity means that NowNow can scale its solutions while learning from the leading global payment technology company. Combining this expert guidance with our innovative solutions, we are confident in the future.”

“At Mastercard we are proud to collaborate with businesses that are committed to the development of the local digital payments landscape which directly results in the growth of the economy. The Start Path program was designed to enable high-potential fintech startups to take advantage of Mastercard’s resources to co-innovate and quickly scale up operations. As the digital economy increasingly becomes the economy, enabling NowNow to achieve its vision only brings us closer to our financial inclusion commitment to connect a total of 1 billion individuals and 50 million micro and small merchants (MSMs) to the digital economy by 2025.”, says Ebehijie Momoh, Country Manager & Area Business Head, West Africa at Mastercard.  

Mastercard creates bespoke training programs for each Start Path participant and provides access to its product teams, customers, and channels to help each startup unlock the potential of Mastercard’s network. Since founding Start Path in 2014, Mastercard has provided mentorship and support to nearly 300 startups globally. 

The latest cohort of the Start Path program will tackle challenges and take advantage of opportunities across Mastercard’s ecosystem of digital transformation, biometrics, cybersecurity, small business, open banking and more. 

NowNow Digital Systems Limited provides reliable, best-in-class financial services technology to small and medium-sized businesses, agents, and consumers to drive financial empowerment for its customers.