Simon Fortune, founder and CEO of Pesh Money Ltd, went to Central Bank one day in 2019 hoping to discuss his “new” idea with Central Bank officials and have a conversation on the possibilities and what would be needed to make his idea a reality.
To his surprise, he realised that his idea was not so new.
“I was told that it was the fourth meeting concerning fintech they had that week,” he said. “This was before the E-Money policy, before 2020, before covid19. I was surprised. I thought I was breaking ground, but the ground was already starting to be paved.”
He said this was an indicator that there was a growing interest in adopting fintech solutions for finances.
His company is now one of three which were granted licences to be e-money issuers earlier this year.
In the Budget 2024, Finance Minister Colm Imbert said more than 40 applicants are in the pipeline for review by the Joint Regulatory Committee of the Central Bank, which is more evidence to Fortune that not only is TT ready for digital transformation, but several people are interested in the service and many others are eager to invest in what has the potential to be a fast-growing industry.
TT is ready
“There is going to be a point where digital currency is everywhere,” Fortune told Business Day in an interview last Thursday. “You won’t even realise it, but the frameworks and the laws allow for that. I am very excited to see where TT is in five years.”
Fortune said, in many ways, there is already a significant penetration of cashless transactions, with several people using debit and credit cards for transactions and others using digital means to transfer money from one individual to another and even more using credit cards and digital payment methods to order online. He said while most countries may not go fully cashless, fintech products such as Pesh Money will serve as another option for consumers to manage their money.
“The moment you go to the bank and you put your bank card in, that is a digital transaction. Your bank account balance is just a number on a database,” he said. “The jump now is saying I can use my credit card or debit card, I could use cash, or I have this third option where I don’t have time to go to the bank. With Pesh, you eliminate all that walking. The wallet is connected to your bank, so you just have to withdraw it, send it to the person and they can decide when they want to withdraw.”
He said since the launch of the company on November 20 and the app going live on Google Play Store, there has been a rush of people signing up and beginning to use the app.
“The sign-up has been way beyond what we expected. It may take a couple of days for them to really get into it, but they signed up, added their bank accounts, are going through the validation and are now starting to top up. We saw this morning people putting in $5 and $10 just to see if it works,” he said.
Fortune believes that growth and adoption of Pesh and other fintech solutions may happen organically with people trying the products and then talking a
