Velmie, a digital banking system integrator and delivery partner for regulated fintech programmes, recently announced its role as delivery partner for Preferta, a mobile-first neobank launching in Africa.
The neobank, planned to cover Angola, Mozambique, and Mauritius, will help users to fund a wallet, send money, pay for everyday needs like airtime, and hold balances in multiple currencies.
To know more about the initiative, International Finance caught up with Slava Ivashkin, founder and CEO of Velmie, who spoke in detail about what his company’s partnership with Preferta means for Africa’s digital banking industry, the role Velmie is playing in ensuring the success of Preferta’s mobile-first neobank, and the roadmap the company has prepared for expanding its fintech innovation across the continent.
Here are excerpts from the interview:
What is the vision behind Velmie’s partnership with Preferta, and what does it mean for digital banking in Angola, Mozambique, and Mauritius?
The vision is to establish a modern banking platform that Preferta can use to build a serious regional financial-services business, rather than launch a narrowly defined consumer application. Velmie is the lead technology vendor, providing the platform that will run the core operational processes, and customer experience.
For Angola, Mozambique and Mauritius, the significance is practical: financial institutions can bring well-designed digital services to market without inheriting the cost and limitations of legacy infrastructure.
Each market has its own regulatory and distribution model. So, the platform must combine a common technology foundation with local execution. Done properly, this creates a scalable business for Preferta and broader access to reliable financial services for consumers and businesses.
How is Velmie leveraging its fintech expertise to ensure the success of Preferta’s mobile-first neobank?
Success depends less on launching features than on building a platform that performs reliably as volumes and regulatory expectations grow. Velmie has spent more than a decade developing and operating banking technology, including projects across Africa serving multi-million customer bases.
That experience shapes the work with Preferta from the outset. We are bringing a proven architecture, established operational controls and delivery discipline, while adapting the implementation to the realities of each market.
The result should be a neobank that feels simple to the customer but is institutionally robust behind the interface. That balance is essential. Mobile-first must never mean technology-light or control-light.
What does Velmie’s roadmap for expanding fintech innovation across Africa look like?
Our roadmap is driven by client demand and the maturity of individual markets, not by expansion for its own sake. We will continue to deepen our presence in countries where regulated institutions and ambitious fintechs need modern banking infrastructure, while strengthening the regional capabilities of the platform.
The priority is to help clients launch faster, operate more efficiently, and expand without replacing their technology every time the business model evolves.
That means staying close to regulatory change, building integrations with local financial ecosystems, and maintaining a platform that can support both domestic growth and regional expansion. Africa is not one market, and our roadmap reflects that. The technology must be global in standard and local in execution.
How have Velmie’s white-label banking and wallet solutions contributed to financial inclusion in Africa?
Financial inclusion is ultimately a distribution and economics problem. A digital account has limited value if the customer cannot access it through the channels available in daily life, or if the cost to serve is too high. Velmie’s platform was designed with those realities in mind.
It supports models such as USSD access and agent-assisted banking, which remain important beyond major urban centres, while giving providers the ability to offer payments, savings and credit services on the same technology foundation.
This allows our clients to reach customers who may be outside the traditional branch model without creating a second-class banking experience. The contribution is not a single feature. It is the ability to make inclusive services operationally sustainable at scale.
What sets Velmie’s fintech platform apart from other providers in the African market?
Velmie combines the reach of a global technology company with a clear understanding of African operating models. We serve clients across four continents. Our customers benefit from technology and practices proven in different regulatory and commercial environments. At the same time, we do not treat Africa as a simplified version of another market. The platform accommodates the distribution methods, payment rails and operating constraints that matter locally.
The other distinction is ambition. We are not supplying software simply to preserve an existing model. We provide a platform that allows institutions to grow into larger, more sophisticated businesses without changing their core technology. That is what clients should expect from a top-tier banking technology partner.
How does Velmie plan to capitalise on Africa’s rapidly growing fintech opportunity?
We see the opportunity in Africa as a long-term institutional market, not a short-term fintech cycle. Our approach is to work with regulated banks, financial institutions, and credible fintech operators that have a clear path to scale. We will invest where we can bring repeatable technology, strong delivery capability and measurable operating value.
Partnerships will remain important, particularly where local payment networks, compliance providers, and distribution channels determine how quickly a proposition can reach the market.
The objective is disciplined growth: establish strong reference clients, deepen the platform’s regional capabilities, and use that foundation to support expansion across neighbouring markets. The winners will be the companies that combine local relevance with institutional-grade execution.
How does Velmie plan to support Mauritius’ National Fintech Strategy 2026-2030?
Mauritius has an opportunity to become more than a successful domestic financial centre. It can serve as a trusted base for digital financial services connecting Africa with international markets. Velmie can support that ambition by giving banks and fintechs the technology foundation to move from pilots to regulated, scalable operations.
Our role is practical: resilient banking infrastructure, secure digital channels, and the ability to integrate with local and cross-border ecosystems. We also see value in working with local institutions and talent so that capability remains in the market rather than being imported project by project.
This is closely aligned with the strategy’s focus on sound regulation, digital resilience, skills, innovation and inclusion. The measure of success will be whether Mauritius produces financial platforms that can compete beyond its borders.
What are the biggest challenges facing Africa’s fintech ecosystem today, and how can they be addressed?
The central challenge is fragmentation. Regulation, payment infrastructure, identity systems, and distribution economics differ materially between markets. That makes regional scale harder and often encourages companies to build around short-term constraints rather than a durable operating model. The answer is not to force uniformity.
It is to create stronger common standards, improve interoperability, and give regulated institutions technology that can adapt without becoming a bespoke system in every country.
Trust is equally important. Customers and regulators will only support digital finance when resilience, data protection, and financial controls are built into the operating model from the start. Africa has no shortage of demand or entrepreneurial talent.
The next phase requires more institutional depth: stronger infrastructure, disciplined governance, and partnerships capable of supporting scale.