Apis Partners acquires stake in Tutuka

&NewLine;<p>Tutuka&comma; a third-party payments enabler&comma; announced on September 4  that global financial services investor&comma; Apis Partners&comma; has acquired a majority stake in Tutuka&period; According to a statement by African Media Agency&comma; AMA&comma; made available to OpenLife&comma; Apis acquired their stake from Paycorp&comma; who invested in Tutuka in 2015&comma; and helped the company grow their international presence and more than triple in size since their initial investment&period;<br><br> Tutuka is well known for its unique processor plus model which enables fintechs&comma; mobile wallets&comma; apps and banks across emerging markets to easily issue Mastercard and Visa payment products&comma; such as physical or virtual cards that are linked to the values in their customers&&num;8217&semi; wallets or accounts&period;<br><br> In 2019&comma; Tutuka has launched programmes with clients such as Octopus in Hong Kong&comma; Grab in Asia&comma; MTN in Africa as well as other programmes in the Middle East and Latin America&period;<br><br> As financial services focused investors&comma; Apis was attracted to Tutuka&&num;8217&semi;s strong presence across 19 emerging markets&comma; as well as its client base of telcos and wallets that are the fastest growing financial service players in those markets&period;<br><br> Matteo Stefanel&comma; Apis Partners&&num;8217&semi; Managing Partner and Co-Founder&comma; highlighted that &&num;8220&semi;the mobile wallet ecosystem is forecast to grow at over 45&percnt; p&period;a&period; through to 2021&comma; and we believe that Tutuka is extremely well positioned to capitalise on this growth while delivering significant value for these ecosystem owners&period;&&num;8221&semi;<br><br> &&num;8220&semi;We are proud to have Apis as investors&comma;&&num;8221&semi; said Rowan Brewer&comma; CEO of Tutuka&period; &&num;8220&semi;Emerging markets is where the growth and innovation in financial services is happening and Apis will add to Tutuka&&num;8217&semi;s ability to enable fintechs&comma; mobile wallets&comma; apps and banks to easily issue Mastercard and Visa cards and payment products to their customers&period; Often this is the very first time these customers are able to access the millions of POS terminals&comma; ATMS and e-commerce sites that accept Mastercard and Visa&period; That is true financial inclusion&comma; it&&num;8217&semi;s where the fastest growth will be in the future&comma; and that is why as part of this deal&comma; management and staff have kept a substantial stake in Tutuka&period;&&num;8221&semi; <&sol;p>&NewLine;