Kiwe gets Central Bank green light to launch nationwide

Homegrown fintech Kiwe officially secured final approval from the Central Bank of Egypt for a nationwide launch of its app and card, co-founder Mohamed Khalifa tells EnterpriseAM. The startup is backed by our friends at EFG Hermes, Valu, Marakez, and EFG EV as well as Cairo Capital and Dfin Holding.

“The approval or licensing process took us around 9 to 12 months and went through different verticals and sectors,” Khalifa tells us. “Each party and each vendor has its own requirements; it is not just the Central Bank. Even the bank you work with has its own requirements, so does Visa or Meeza.”

The infrastructure build: Developed in partnership with Banque Misr, Visa, Meeza, and ModuPay, Kiwe offers practical money management tools allowing users to send instant, no-cost transfers and track their spending habits in real time for clearer insights on financial habits, according to a press release (pdf).

The startup is focusing on moving money talk from utility to lifestyle. Kiwe is positioning itself as a “new wave” fintech that focuses on how people actually experience money. “In Egypt, people usually don't like to talk about money, especially money you owe or are owed […] money should be a social effect and a lifestyle app, not just a financial app where you transact a few times a day to check your balance and then close it. We want Kiwi to be an everyday app, similar to Venmo or CashApp,” Khalifa tells us.

Looking ahead: Kiwe will launch “very soon,” Khalifa says, and has plans to introduce additional financial products within their suite to continue simplifying money management. The startup also plans to launch another funding round within “six to nine months,” he adds.

Why it matters: Opening the door for more specialized niche players like Kiwe suggests the CBE is opening space alongside state-driven utilities like InstaPay to share end-users. By targeting the social friction points of everyday finance like splitting the bill, saving as a group, and sharing investments, Kiwe is attempting to make “money something habitual, not something embarrassing. Look at what Thndr did for investment […] that is what we want to do for the payments ecosystem,” Khalifa says.