Pesalink Partners with Strathmore University to Empower Future Fintech Innovators

By Remie OTIENO

Integrated Payment Services Limited (IPSL), operator of Pesalink, partnered with Strathmore University to launch the 2025 Pesalink AI Fintech Hackathon.

The initiative is designed to cultivate the next generation of fintech leaders and developers by creating opportunities to solve current payment industry challenges that impact Pesalink ecosystem participants.

The event brought together 150 student developers, who were challenged to develop AI-powered tools to address a significant change in the payment industry: failures during bulk transaction validation.

These failures occur when payments are sent to incorrect account details, leading to unsuccessful transactions, delays in processing, and extra work for financial institutions. Ultimately, this also results in slower real-time payments and a less satisfactory experience for consumers.

The participants were tasked and coached by Pesalink to build secure, scalable, and real-time solutions to pre-validate account data before bulk transactions are executed. The solutions were designed to ultimately strengthen user trust, reducing friction, and improving the reliability of real-time payments across the ecosystem.

“At Pesalink, we are passionate about innovation as a means to creating more inclusive and seamless payments,” said Plounne Oyunge, Chief Growth Officer at IPSL. “This hackathon is more than a competition—it’s a practical step toward solving real infrastructure challenges, while nurturing the next generation of fintech innovators who will shape the future of digital finance.”

The participants were mentored and assessed by Pesalink’s product and engineering teams. Winning teams were awarded for innovation, scalability, security, and impact potential.

“Today’s opportunity was not just about coding. It’s about creating infrastructure that enhances financial inclusion and supports Kenya’s broader digital economy goals,” said Michael Gikonyo, Chairperson of SCESA. “We’re proud to see students build solutions that can be adopted beyond the classroom.”

The initiative builds on IPSL’s strategic priorities of enabling open participation, reducing payment friction, and deepening cross-sector collaboration.

As Kenya advances toward the implementation of the national Fast Payment System (FPS), initiatives like this reinforce the role of digital public infrastructure in shaping the future of financial services, where real-time, affordable, and accessible payments are the norm.