Papara joins Inclusive FinTech 50 to drive resilience

By Sunniva Kolostyak

Turkish FinTech Papara has won a seat in the 2020 Inclusive FinTech 50, an international cohort of early-stage FinTechs looking to drive financial inclusion and resilience.

Papara, a so-called ‘SuperApp’, aims to provide its users financial freedom through products like free multi-currency transfers, a one-stop-shop for paying bills, trading digital currencies and tracking spending habits.

By securing a seat in the Inclusive FinTech 50, Papara becomes part of a group of international, high-potential early-stage FinTechs which are focussed on driving financial inclusion and resilience.

Inclusive FinTech 50 was founded by MetLife Foundation and Visa, with support from Accion and IFC, and additional funding from BlackRock and Jersey Overseas Aid & Comic Relief. It is a global competition to identify start-ups poised for success through four key criteria: inclusiveness, innovation, scale potential and traction.

The 50 companies have been selected from 400 applicants operating across the world.

Commenting, Ahmed F. Karslı, Founder of Papara, said: “Papara was created to serve the underbanked and those who are chronically underserved by their current banks. We wanted to disrupt the status quo and deliver financial freedom to those who are so often overlooked and ignored by the banking system. In recognition of this, we are delighted to have been selected by Inclusive FinTech 50 to join the 2020 cohort and continue to build our business.”

“With five million current users and having grown our customer base by 56 per cent this year alone, we are confident in the sustainability and strength of Papara’s model. As we now look to further expand across Europe, the Inclusive FinTech 50 network will be hugely supportive in our goal to provide financial freedom for all.”

Since launching in Turkey in 2016, Papara has grown to become Turkey’s largest fintech company, with a current customer base of five million registered users and one million active monthly users. To date, Papara has facilitated over $5.5 billion worth of money transfers, and has made over 70 million money transfer transactions. It also facilitates mass-payment for businesses, offers a corporate card which can be tailored to facilitate varying spending patterns and enables a secure check-out option for merchants.