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The Barclays Africa Group (BAG), in partnership with Techstars, has begun accepting applications for the Barclays Accelerator programme, which is designed to nurture start-ups operating in Africa’s financial services industry.

According to a statement released today, BAG said the accelerator programme will admit up to 10 fintech start-ups to participate in a 13-week course beginning in May next year at the Rise innovation hub in Woodstock, Cape Town.

“Africa has tremendous untapped potential to not only pioneer its own creative solutions for its unique contexts but to also create solutions that the rest of the world can adopt for their own contexts,” said Yasaman Hadjibashi, Chief Data Officer, Barclays Africa Group.

Selected start-ups will be allowed to enter or expand their presence in the African marketplace via BAG’s customer, product, and technology teams. The start-ups also have opportunity to scale globally by leveraging the global footprint of Rise, which has innovation hubs in London, New York, Mumbai, Tel Aviv, and Vilnius.

The Barclays Accelerator – which is an initiative of British banking giant, Barclays – was launched earlier this year, with BAG signing initial collaboration agreements with seven of the 10 start-ups selected for the programme. Selected start-ups will be mentored by leading entrepreneurs and experts in Africa’s financial services industry. Each participating start-up in the programme could receive up to $120,000 in seed funding from Techstars.

"I truly believe that being part of Techstars gives companies such an advantage when it comes to scaling globally,” said Yossi Hasson, Managing Director of Techstars, a US-based venture capital firm and accelerator. “The depth of experience that the Techstars team and global mentor network has in working with and investing in over 900 start-ups is unprecedented for the African continent.”

Fintech companies can apply here: https://www.f6s.com/barclaysaccelerator-africa by February 5th, 2017. More information is at http://www.barclaysaccelerator.com/#/cape-town/ or contact emily.skinstad@techstars.com