Author: Opinion

In a report by GSMA released earlier this year, mobile money accounts grew to 1.2 billion with 43% of new users all from Africa.

Inferring from this growth rate in just one year, it’s clear that the market size for offline payments is significantly larger than online payments. In coming years, we’ll be focusing on this space even as we continue to grow in online payments.

In sub-Saharan Africa alone, there are 44 million micro, small and medium enterprises providing the majority of jobs effectively serving as the backbone of the economy in their countries. …

The National Treasury is projecting real GDP growth of 6.0 per cent and 5.8 per cent for 2021 and 2022 respectively and has used the same as the basis for its revenue projections. But this adds to the overall optimism being projected.

In September 2021, the Central Bank of Kenya Governor projected a 6.1 per cent growth rate for 2021 and 5.6 per cent in 2022.

The International Monetary Fund’s most recent forecast puts 2022 growth expectations at 6.0 per cent. The World Bank, on the other hand, projects growth to print at 4.5 per cent and 4.7 per cent in 2021 and 2022 respectively.

We really believe this optimism being projected around is largely irrational and the story of Kenya’s economic growth still remains a puzzle to us. …

Statistically, Uganda appears to have been relatively untouched by the pandemic in terms of infections and deaths but unhappily holds the unenviable world record of being the country that closed its schools for the longest time.

The consequences of this in terms of mental health, teenage pregnancy, child labour and school dropout rates is likely to have a negative effect on my adopted country for many years to come. School closure also emphasised the uncertainty factor.

President Museveni and his Health Minister have recently declared that not even Omicron will delay the reopening of the economy any longer and that Uganda will be fully open for business with the aim of rebuilding the economy from January 2022 onwards. …

Based on a report by Disrupt Africa, funding for health tech startups in Africa jumped 257.7% from US$28.8m in 2019 to US$103m in 2020. These startups provide a wide range of services from scheduling medical consultations to telemedicine and digitalized imagery.

MaiSoin from Cote d’Ivoire uses a decentralized, gig-economy model, to facilitate the relationship between healthcare professionals and patients needing care at home or via telemedicine. In their first year of operations, they have had an average of 50% growth month over month and are already looking at potential expansions in the region.…

These travel bans are based on politics, not on science. It is wrong on so many levels that I find myself in a shocking state of disbelief.

It is wrong for economic reasons, for humanitarian reasons, for scientific reasons but above all for actual health reasons. What I mean is that perhaps only the most naive of individuals could possibly believe that isolating the region from the rest of the world would have any significant impact on preventing the virus from spreading.

I can only speculate that these may be the same people attending record-breaking premier league (1) games with other 40,000 unmasked fellas in the UK or even European governments such as the one in Portugal who think to …

In the years between 2000 and 2010, several insurance companies collapsed and the joke in the industry then was on those clients who were demanding to be served even as the doors were being shut for good.
But industry insiders, like yours truly, knew companies that were in the red and it was only a matter of time before they were shut down. Most insurance consumers did not have a clue as to what was going on. …

M-Pesa is on course to become a US$1Bn business.

Safaricom Plc (NSE: SCOM) released its interim results on 10th November announcing a 12.1% year-on-year (y/y) rise in 1H22 net earnings. Combing through its numbers against our estimates, its net earnings per share print (KES0.92) outperformed our expectation of KES0.85. The outperformance was primarily driven by lower than forecasted cost environment. Direct costs came in at KES44.5Bn (+20.3% y/y), beating our forecast of KES49.2Bn, while operating costs came in at KES23.4Bn (+10.3% y/y) outperforming our forecast of KES29.6Bn.  

M-Pesa revenues printed at KES52.3Bn (+45.8% y/y), against our forecast of KES55.9Bn. Behind the strong y/y growth, total transaction value grew 51.5% y/y to KES13.7Tn with volumes up 42.0% y/y to 7.3Bn. Two other factors were at play in the revenue performance: The lapse of zero-rated transactions (as expected) and a 31.3% y/y rise in 30-day active M-Pesa average revenue per user …

Because outside of the governments, politicians, civil servants, lobbyists and pressure groups that thronged the Conference there is a cohort of entrepreneurs that are passionate about reversing climate change, that have fantastic commercially viable and innovative ideas, but who require funding and strategic support to make these ideas a reality.  

And so I want to suggest that as well as taking personal responsibility for our carbon footprint and doing all that we can to minimise our negative impact on Planet Earth, we should also be investing in line with environmental, social and governance principles at all times – and ensuring that 20% of our investments in 2021/22 should be directly targeted at investments that will have a positive environmental impact. …

Mergers and acquisitions worth US$52B were completed in South Africa during the first half of 2021, with the value of deals growing by 958% from 2020 with the tech sector in the lead according to Refinitiv Data that provides financial markets and infrastructure data . According to Digest Africa, the value of mergers and acquisitions in the African tech ecosystem in 2018 was US$504M with 24 out of the 39 deals taking place in South Africa making it the country with the most mergers, acquisitions and exits among the KINGS countries. …

East African Breweries Plc is seeking to raise KSh11Bn shortly after they retired their KSh6Bn Medium Term Note (MTN) on the 28th of June. (The early redemption was averred as part of their balance sheet and costs of funds optimization).

The five-year tenure – with an interest rate of 12.25 per cent p.a. – was in line with our projection of a near term corporate bond issue.

The rationale behind this was the contemporary high costs attached to the alternative sources of income against the backdrop of the pandemic impact on the macroeconomic environment.…