Browsing: Africa Fintech

• The use of digital solutions is revolutionizing all kinds of financial transactions from making simple payments to borrowing and lending.
• With mobile phone and internet penetration rising at a phenomenal phase, even the remotest parts of Africa can now access financial services through their mobile phones.
• The World Bank: It is time for policymakers to embrace fintech opportunities and implement policies that enable and encourage safe financial innovation and adoption.

Financial technology or the application of digital tools to streamline financial services more commonly known in the short form Fintech, is reshaping the future of financial services and creating a boom for investors in the fast-growing segment.

The use of digital solutions is revolutionizing all kinds of financial transactions from making simple payments to borrowing and lending. Be it your next investment portfolio or your insurance, you name it, almost any financial service you can think of can now be …

• The fintech industry is Africa’s financial inclusion solution for all vulnerable groups including women.
• Sub-Sahara Africa, fintech startups recorded 894% year-on-year growth in funding in 2021
• More than 400 million new mobile subscribers expected to sign up globally by 2025

A report published by McKinsey claims that the number of tech start-ups in Africa tripled to around 5,200 companies between 2020 and 2021 and just under half of these are fintech startups.

In the report titled ‘Fintech in Africa:The end of the beginning’ McKinsey shows that in line with global market leaders, the African fintech industry enjoyed revenues of between US$4 billion and US$6 billion in 2020 and average penetration levels of between 3 and 5 percent.

The fintech industry is Africa’s financial inclusion solution for all vulnerable groups including women, the elderly, and the larger section of the population in remote rural settings.

“What you have here is not …

• In 2015, BFA Global launched the Catalyst Fund to support and manage early-stage inclusive fintech startups.
• Assuraf is an African startup that attempts to deal with the harmful norms of insurance coverage within the content.
• Located in Kenya, Octavia is one of the twenty companies building DAC technology globally.

Catalyst Fund, a pre-seed VC fund and a startup accelerator in Africa, recently announced that 10 African startups had been accepted within their program. The Fund has announced a $2 million investment in the startups that are building and improving Africa’s ecosystem.

BFA Global launched the Catalyst Fund in 2015 to support early-stage inclusive fintech startups. The Fund offers affordable, accessible and appropriate digital financial solutions.

Despite focusing its reach among African innovators, it still has a global viewpoint. Initially, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, JPMorgan Chase & Co., and fiscal sponsorship from Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors baked up the pre-seed …

According to the World Economic Forum, artificial intelligence (AI) can contribute up to USD 15.7 trillion to the global economy by 2030. However, in Africa, AI market growth has stagnated, estimated at USD 870 million in 2021, with marginal growth forecasted until 2024.

It has been argued that continents in the Global South will continue to benefit less from AI than those in the North. Oxford Insights highlights bottlenecks that have handicapped the growth of AI in Africa including governments requiring the appropriate regulatory environment to support AI development – including adequate data infrastructure, and an innovative vision to implement progress at the state level.

Nonetheless, AI adds invaluable value to multiple industries in Africa (such as fintech and agritech), and progress is being made in key areas to harness the power of AI in the continent. Through the continued development of reliable and far-reaching internet infrastructure and progressive AI …

With financial inclusion in mind, governments are taking notice and offering more supportive regulatory frameworks, ever further assuring that the African fintech industry growth rivals that of more mature markets, the likes of Vietnam, Indonesia, and India.

Despite the high potential seen in East Africa, with countries like Kenya standing out, South Africa still commands approximately 40 per cent of the industry revenues.

On the western part of the continent, too, in places like Ghana, growth is at 15 per cent per annum and will only get higher all through 2025. Then you have the larger economies coming in; Nigeria and Egypt are both expected to enjoy annual growth rates of 12 per cent over the same period.

While growth rates at this early stages are higher in less developed East African countries, economies with more mature financial systems and digital infrastructure, the likes of South Africa stand a greater …

• Tanzania has signed an energy deal to export natural gas
• Tanzania’s 4th energy summit to open new investment options
• Tanzania allays environmental concerns over offshore energy works

Following the success of the previous Tanzania Energy Congress (TEC), the organisers will now host the 4th TEC edition in Dar Es Salaam from 3 – 4 August 2022.

The two-day summit comes against the backdrop of the just signed liquefied natural gas (LNG) deal between the Tanzanian government and several international energy companies.

This June, Tanzania signed an agreement with Norway’s Equinor and Britain’s Shell to start construction of a $30bn project to export liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the East African economic giant.

In the wake of the signing, stakeholders are looking to discuss the opportunities that will arise from the deal. No other get-together will bring more stakeholders to one venue to discuss the pros and cons of this …

Over a couple of decades, cash and mobile app money transactions such as M-Pesa have dominated the financial space, but with its growth, there is a new collaboration with Fintechs set in place to capture the price-sensitive market with improved innovation and open-loop digital solutions in East Africa.

Financial technology (Fintech) is used to describe new technology that seeks to improve and automate the delivery and use of financial services. ​​​At its core, fintech is utilized to help companies, business owners, and consumers to better manage their financial operations, processes, and lives by utilizing specialized software and algorithms that are used on computers and, increasingly, smartphones.

The International President of Ukheshe Technologies Mark Dankworth, firmly believes that the region is poised for a surge in digital banking growth, with the likes of MCQR and virtual cards likely to make the biggest impact.

This follows the Kenyan retail-tech startup, Tanda which …

In mid-January, US based financial whistleblower and research organization Hindenburg Research released a report titled’ The Phantom of the turn-around’ in which it questioned the operations of Opera, the Chinese owned browser whose popularity in Africa has remained high. What has followed is a series of class-action lawsuits by a dozen law firms in US and UK against the browser.

The research firm accused Opera of “developing predatory short-term loans in Africa and India, deploying deceptive ‘bait and switch’ tactics to lure in borrowers and charging egregious interest rates ranging from 365-876%.” This, the company says is going against Google policies of charging fair rates on short term loans.

According to financial firm Hindenburg Research, Opera has launched at least four payment apps under various developer accounts. There’s Okash and OPesa in Kenya, CashBean in India, and OPay in Nigeria.

It noted that Opera has scaled its “Fintech” segment from …