May 16, 2018

Moroccan company Hmizate, which since 2011 has provided an e-commerce platform offering users access to goods, food, travel services and deals, has expanded into fintech with the launch of HmizatePay, an all-in-one mobile commerce and payment platform. Hmizate said its new payments platform provides users with an e-wallet that they can use to book, buy and pay for everyday needs. The app offers instant cashback that rewards customers for most in-app purchases. “HmizatePay unites all of the services offered by Hmizate Group along with other digital services such as airtime and data, utilities, ferry tickets, highway pass top-ups, auto registration and more,” said Kamal Reggad, the startup’s founder. “Our goal is to help consumers save time and money by offering them a one-stop-shop for all services used on a regular basis. We will be progressively adding more consumer services along with financial solutions such as P2P money transfer and offline payments via QR code as early as the third quarter of this year.” Hmizate, which claims to have been the first e-commerce company launched in Morocco, began life as a flash sale site focused on leisure and travel but now runs multiple consumer-focused services. “E-commerce did not exist in Morocco before Hmizate. We started with a flash sale site and in six months there were about 30 sites offering the same services,” Reggad said. “They certainly helped us create and develop the e-commerce sector but most of them don’t exist today.” Hmizate, however, has over 600,000 members, and has sold over 1.7 million products and services. Reggad said 70 per cent of the monthly orders are from returning customers. “Our goal with HmizatePay is to get to one million users on the app before the end of the year,” he said of the payments solution, which makes money by taking a cut of each transaction and selling in-app advertising services. The startup was launched with its founder’s savings, and bootstrapped for the first two years before raising US$2 million from international VCs in 2013. Until now only focused on Morocco, Reggad said Hmizate is exploring expansion into other African markets with its new payments platform.