Jordan Slowly Building A Fintech Ecosystem

Wants to get rid of its cash-based system:

Jordan is known to have the fourth largest share of startups in the MENA region and this startup culture hash elped the country to become a center for fintech ecosystem too. Fintechs have been able to collect record investments and more so spur innovations by incumbent institutions. As the country has a huge unbanked population - it is estimated that just 24% of the adults in the country has bank accounts and credit is accessible to still fewer people - it is a challenge for the country to bring in fintech products on a large scale. However, the government has taken some initiatives like the creation of a national payments system - called JoMoPay - to serve the unbanked and the underbanked, which is in fact considered as the first initiative towards a fintech culture.

Jordan is a fit enough country for fintechs to flourish. It has 70% of its population under the age of 30, and 86% of the population use the internet. Ideally, the country is asking for an alternative to the existing financial system that is largely cash-based. Besides, the country’s economy is partly dependent on remittances and many of those who have migrated to other countries in the Gulf find the existing money transfer systems costly and time-consuming.

CENTRAL BANK, A CATALYST

The Central Bank of Jordan too on its part has been enacting measures help fintechs. It has created a special lending window, by which banks can re-lend low-cost funds from the government to fintech and IT projects; it has facilitated the creation of an IT fund, set up in partnership between the World Bank and the country’s ministry of planning and international cooperation, which will provide support to some 200 startups using a $100 million fund in its possession.