Zim Achievers Awards appoint ZymPay as main sponsor

LONDON – The Zimbabwe Achievers Awards has unveiled ethical money transfer business ZymPay Ltd as the main sponsors for this year’s edition of the premier red carpet show, which is scheduled to take place on the 10th of May at the five-star Royal Garden Hotel in Kensington. 

They take over from MoneyGram, who had held the sponsorship position for the past three seasons.

ZymPay plans to open its first global route to Zimbabwe in the second quarter of this year. “Our service aims to deliver a safe and fair way to send money abroad,” says Dakshesh Patel, founder and CEO of ZymPay.

“We have adopted extremely high standards of compliance for ‘Know Your Client’ (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML), going way beyond current guidelines and practices. It means that we – and the institutions we partner with here and in Zimbabwe – have the greatest confidence in our system.”

There has been much debate and concern from Regulators and Financial Institutions of Remittances. The level of compliance varies amongst money remittance companies and ZymPay sets a new standard to assure compliance to the highest standards that regulators seek to implement in future.

Taking this approach means each transaction is automatically cleared in real-time and in accordance with a high degree of assurance around KYC/AML at both the send and receive points of the transaction cycle.

The service is all electronic and seamless. “My vision is to reduce the friction associated with the process of money transfer at an economic cost,” says Patel. “We wanted to just let the money flow, but in a safe and entirely secure way.”

While the company is more than merely competitive with the major players, ZymPay have gone further to win customers with an easier process.

“Placing the customer first is at the heart of any good business,” says Nicholas Ricketts, ZymPay’s CMO. “We knew that the existing systems out there were time-consuming and laborious for people. So we removed the form-filling and waiting around at money transfer agents.”

The proof of the ethical side to the business comes in two parts.

ZymPay plan to be completely transparent with their rates with low fees that will simply cover ID checks and processing. Then they will use a share of profits to build a foundation to deliver health and education projects in the recipient countries.

“I came to the UK during the troubles in the seventies and was lucky enough to gain a good education that started me off on a successful career path. I am grateful for the opportunities afforded me and now feel that it’s time to give something back,” says Patel.

“The Foundation model that I already run through my business has helped deliver projects in Sri Lanka and South Africa in conjunction with a leading UK School. I’ve seen at first hand just how effective carefully delivered education can be. We will build a meaningful foundation funded solely from our earnings from ZymPay so that customers know that when they send money home they are doing some good too.”

ZAA Chief Executive Officer, Peter Soko, said the new partnership with ZymPay was an exciting development as both organisations shared similar visions and goals. He expressed confidence that the new strategic partnership would allow the ZAA more opportunity to develop its youth mentorship programme as well as add more value to the awards for all the nominees and winners.

His counterpart, ZAA executive director Brian Nyabunze, welcomed the new sponsorship deal with Zympay and hailed it as a perfect meeting of minds since both organisations are inspired by the principle of giving back to, and empowering the community.

“We admire ZymPay’s ethical business model that places a high premium on sowing into the community in order to achieve sustainable development. As ZAA, we see a confluence of values and objectives with ZymPay in our high regard for the role of corporate social responsibility in driving social change,” he said.

Now in its fourth year, the ZAA has grown to become the flagship awards event for the Zimbabwean community in the UK.

Having signalled its ambitions with an inaugural show at the swanky Mermaid Theatre in London’s Blackfriars district in 2011, the ZAA is now habitually resident at some of London’s most glamourous five-star hotels.

This year’s event will take place at the Royal Garden Hotel, situated in the regal environs of Kensington Palace and Kensington Gardens.

Tickets are now on sale on Zimachievers.com, and this year organisers have put in place a world class ticketing system that allows customers to pick their table and seat before they make a purchase.

Unlike in previous editions, this year’s awards show will be followed by an after-party at the same venue. Entertainment during the awards show and afterwards will be provided by an impressive cast of performers to be unveiled soon, organisers said.

Find out the latest about #ZAA2014 and follow @zimachievers on Twitter; you can also get rolling updates on this year’s event from the Zimbabwe Achievers Awards Facebook page.