In January, the Governor of the Bank of Mozambique, Rogério Zandamela, launched the 5th edition of the Regulatory Sandbox, which aims to promote the creation and regularization of fintechs.
Fintechs are companies that seek to innovate in offering financial services in entirely digital formats. They use technology to improve and/or revolutionize traditional financial services such as payments, transfers, investments and money management.
With the Regulatory Sandbox, Banco de Moçambique aims to respond to the challenges posed by technological innovation in financial services, without dismissing the challenges linked to risk mitigation, financial stability, consumer protection and market behavior, according to the governor.
“The creation of conditions that favor technological innovation must not neglect the challenges linked to risk mitigation, financial stability, consumer protection and market conduct,” reads a note from his speech at the launch of the fifth edition.
The launch took place at the Sandbox premises, where the governor of the central bank, Rogério Zandamela, initially congratulated the five fintechs approved in the previous edition of the Sandbox: a financial intermediation platform, two payment aggregators and two platforms for managing savings groups and revolving credit.
From the previous edition, four companies didn’t go ahead because they didn’t meet the necessary conditions to carry out tests in a real environment, with the required security. In view of this situation, the governor expressed his encouragement for them to continue participating in future editions.
For the fifth edition, more than 15 fintechs have registered, and the areas to be explored by the participants are banking agency, credit scoring, microcredit management platform, digital personal finance management system, payment aggregator and cryptocurrencies.
For the vice-president of the Association of Fintechs of Mozambique (FINTECH.MZ), Carlos Mondle, the results obtained with the previous edition of the Regulatory Sandbox, as well as the launch of this 5th edition, were positive, stating that 2024 is the year of change, as these fintechs bring new disruptive solutions to the financial system.
On the same occasion, Teotónio Comiche, president of the Mozambican Banking Association (AMB), congratulated the Bank of Mozambique on the initiative and said that he would like to see a specific Sandbox for the capital and insurance markets in future editions.
The five fintechs approved in the 4th edition received certificates of participation from Rogério Zandamela and are now eligible to obtain a license from the Bank of Mozambique to make their products available on the market. These are Tablu Tecnologias, Hivieoline, Tesy Investments, Volet and Speranza.
The Regulatory Sandbox is part of the implementation of the National Financial Inclusion Strategy (2016-2022), which aims, among other things, to increase the level of access to and use of financial services by the Mozambican population.
Previous editions of the Regulatory Sandbox have resulted in the approval of more than twelve fintechs and, of these, two companies have already been licensed by the Bank of Mozambique and are operating in the market, operating payment initiation services and money transfer services.
In addition to these two, three fintechs have already submitted applications for authorization and the remaining seven are preparing the necessary documentation to submit their applications for authorization.
The event was attended by members of the Board of Directors of Banco de Moçambique and the Monitoring Committee of the Regulatory Sandbox Project, as well as the project partners, namely AMB and FINTECH.MZ, representatives of financial institutions and members of the participating fintechs.
