Pioneering fintech firm Payless Africa has launched its operations in the country, its first ever market, seeking to tap into the cashless payment segment.

Mainly targeting the youths, the firm promises to become a disruptive force in the payments landscape by offering affordable service rates compared to other players in the market.

“We offer about 60 per cent cheaper service rates than the dominating players in the market,” said Derrick Gakuu, the project lead at Payless Africa.

“Payless offers free transaction cost for up to the first Sh1,000 in a day, and as little as Sh10 for the next transaction up to Sh50,000.”

Kenya being the launchpad, the firm says its targeting other markets in Eastern Africa; Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania in the medium term, with further plans to go beyond into the North and West Africa in the long term.

This as it also plans to venture into savings and investments segment.

“We are also looking forward to venture into cross border payments in the next two to three years,” Gakuu added.

On his part, Payless founder and CEO Kev Muley, reiterated that the firm's launch vision is to provide a youth centric, mobile first and seamless financial services to over 100 million unbanked and underserved youth in Africa, a population that will constitute about 42 per cent of the global youth by 2030.

"We are committed to challenging existing practices in the industry and championing financial empowerment for all individuals and businesses,” Muley said.

With the youth as the core audience, a recent survey conducted last year revealed a negative sentiment among individuals (4 out of 5) aged between 20-30 towards traditional banking.

“After taking time to sit down in focus groups, conduct research and gather feedback from the youth, we found solid gaps in the current financial services and banking industry,” Muley said.

“The youth want products that align with their aspirations, cost efficient, transparent, variety, not rigid and accommodating. Most of the existing solutions are denying the youth the opportunity to transact.”