Selpal

Selpal serves as a digital and financial bridge to South Africa's informal economy, specifically targeting township and rural retailers. The company was founded in 2013 by CEO Stephen Goldberg, a chartered accountant with a background in investment banking and private equity, along with two unnamed co-founders with extensive experience in the township market. Goldberg's professional journey, including co-founding an investment holding company with interests in FMCG distribution, directly informed Selpal's mission to formalize and support the often-overlooked informal retail sector.

The firm operates a virtual distribution platform that integrates the entire fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) supply chain, connecting large manufacturers and wholesalers directly with informal retailers like spaza shops, tuckshops, and taverns. Selpal's core offering is a smart point-of-sale (POS) device provided free of charge to these merchants. This device facilitates cashless transactions and supply chain management by allowing traders to view, order, and pay for stock electronically from an integrated catalog of suppliers, such as Pioneer Foods and Procter & Gamble. This system mitigates the security risks and costs associated with handling large amounts of cash for both the retailers and the suppliers' delivery networks.

Revenue generation is intrinsically linked to the transactions processed through its ecosystem. For retailers, the platform enables the sale of virtual goods like airtime, data, and electricity, with transactions funded from a prepaid e-wallet called the 'Store Traders Vault Wallet'. This wallet functions as the merchant's working capital. For FMCG suppliers and manufacturers, Selpal provides invaluable outlet data and supply chain visibility, offering direct customer insights that are typically obscured when dealing with unregistered outlets serviced by intermediaries. Following an initial investment from FirstRand Group in 2018, Selpal was fully acquired by First National Bank (FNB) in March 2021. This acquisition was a strategic move for FNB to deepen its financial inclusion efforts, leveraging Selpal's platform and data to develop tailored financial products like credit facilities and insurance for the informal sector.

Keywords: informal sector finance, township economy, spaza shop technology, FMCG distribution, supply chain integration, point-of-sale solutions, cashless payments, financial inclusion, emerging market fintech, virtual distribution, retail technology South Africa, mobile payments, B2B marketplace, working capital solutions, electronic value distribution, rural retail, supply chain data, FNB acquisition, Stephen Goldberg