Slide, the Fintech Facilitating Money Transfers Between North Africa and Europe, is Launching from Marseille

An innovative marketplace solution for sending money

After four years of development, Slide is preparing to launch its platform to simplify money transfers between private individuals living in North African and European countries. Founded by the Tunisian entrepreneur Omar Guizani, the application aims to drastically reduce costs while offering quicker transfer times. The FinTech start-up made contact with Provence Promotion at the VivaTech technology trade show and will soon deploy its service to the general public from its base in Marseille.

It was when his family wanted to send him money during his law studies in Toulouse that Omar Guizani became aware of the obstacles people faced when making international money transfers between North Africa and Europe.

“Delays were long and fees were high. Despite some improvements, it still takes between five and six days to receive money in an account,” explains Omar Guizani, who saw an opportunity in the problem and founded his start-up Slide to offer a solution.

Inspired by cryptocurrency and blockchain technology, Slide offers an innovative marketplace platform that facilitates direct transactions based on the principle of “matching”. The platform connects two requests for opposite currencies thus transforming two international transactions into local ones, which eliminates intermediaries and speeds up the process. With its policy of zero exchange fees and zero hidden costs and a fixed commission of 1% to 2%, Slide is a highly attractive option for people sending money.

“We see ourselves as a social impact start-up. Our users include students, parents, travelers, and entrepreneurs and we are seeing many different use cases,” adds Omar Guizani, who founded Slide with Emna Guizani and Maher Bouzid.

The application is based on white-label banking technology developed by a start-up incubated at the Station F campus in Paris in partnership with the BNP Paribas bank and the Plug and Play tech center and venture capital firm.

Opportunities in Aix-Marseille to launch Slide

Thanks to the support of Provence Promotion, Slide was created in Marseille in April 2023. A pilot project has confirmed the viability of the project, and 4000 users have already pre-registered. The test phase is continuing with this community and the plan is to open the platform to the general public before the summer of 2025.

“It was thanks to our meeting with Provence Promotion that we chose to set up our company in Marseille rather than Paris. They provided support and were both reactive and motivating. We were put in the spotlight and discovered a vibrant ecosystem as well as a dynamic community of digital entrepreneurs,” says Omar Guizani.

At Emerging Valley 2024, the landmark tech event in Aix-Marseille that promotes innovation, entrepreneurship, and investment between Africa and Europe, the start-up was given the “Invest in Provence” award by Provence Promotion in recognition of the new company’s move to the Aix-Marseille-Provence metro area.