The software engineer develops fintech solutions for various purposes in the growing fintech industry in Africa. 

Andry Randriamanamihaja (photo) is a Malagasy entrepreneur and computer engineer. He graduated from Polytechnic ISPM (Madagascar) in 1998, with a master's in business computing, software engineering, and artificial intelligence. He is also a certified digital finance practitioner. 

In 2018, he officially launched the fintech company Vanilla Pay to dynamize the financial sector in his home country. The first tech solution he developed through Vanilla Pay is a mobile payment aggregator that enables business professionals to make online sales securely, conveniently, and automatically. The aggregator integrates all of Madagascar's mobile operators and is now used by universities, training centers, and e-businessmen. The aggregator claims nearly 50,000 active users with a peak of 3,000 financial transactions processed every minute. 

Apart from the payment aggregator, the fintech company plans to launch an international payment solution geared toward tourists. The solution, called Vanilla Pay International, will be presented for the first time during the International Tourism Fair Madagascar that started yesterday, June 15. It is an e-wallet that enables tourists to directly send funds to residents’ mobile money accounts once in Madagascar.  

Andry Randriamanamihaja, who was incubated by Orange Fab in 2019, tells We Are Tech Africa that he wants to turn Vanilla Pay into a unicorn valued at millions of euros within five years. The VivaTech 2022 participant already has some ideas to make that ambition a reality. He for instance plans to develop a blockchain-based system for real-time money exchange between islands in the Indian Ocean.

Before Vanilla Pay, Andry Randriamanamihaja founded Ariary.net in 2015, a start-up that aimed to revolutionize the financial landscape in Madagascar and democratize online payment.

His professional career began in 1998 with the IT company Advanced Information Systems, where he was an offshore project manager. From 2003 to 2009, he worked on a World Bank project to set up a Public Expenditure Management Information System.

Melchior Koba