Browsing: Africa

Cellulant’s Agrikore platform – an online marketplace for smallholder farmers, agricultural input and produce traders is tapping into Africa’s emerging Agritech market valued at €5.3 billion (US$5.9 billion) according to a new report by the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) and Dalberg Advisors.

This comes as 94 per cent of the continent’s emerging Agritech market remains untapped, according to the survey.

The State of Digitalisation of Agriculture in Africa 2019 report identifies online marketplace solutions such as Agrikore as significant use cases of how digital tools are being built to tackle major challenges of attracting and retaining a significant number of buyers and sellers, and in thus doing, help to solve the problem of inefficient and fragmented agricultural markets.

READ ALSO:Kenyan fintech Cellulant sells $47.5M stake to American investors

The Agriculture market in Africa is projected to grow to US$1trillion by 2030. It continues to be …

Kenya’s Equity Bank has been named as the most ‘Socially Responsible Bank in Africa’ at the most prestigious Africa’s banking and financial sector event – The African Banker Awards 2019.

This affirms Equity’s social and environmental leadership on the continent.

The award recognises Equity’s initiatives steered through the Equity Group Foundation (EGF) programmes that are positively impacting communities.

READ ALSO:Renewable energy attracts IFC loan for Equity Bank

The programmes are across five thematic areas that include education and leadership development, entrepreneurship and financial education, health, agriculture and agribusiness, and energy and environment.

The efforts they are geared towards, go beyond the philanthropic use of funds to use of overall knowledge, resources and reputation to improve livelihoods.

Through EGF, the bank has had successful initiatives, key among them being the improvement of secondary school education access for 16,168 students under the Wings to Fly program; Financial Literacy training that …

Africa recorded the highest growth in internet users globally between 2005 and 2018…

Liquid Telecom plans to equip 5,000 western Kenyan farmers with the sensors and app by the end of 2019…

Investors are keen on new developments at the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) as the market opens its counters for derivatives trading.

The NSE Derivatives Market (NEXT) futures start trading today with the official launch of the market slated for Thursday, July 11, 2019.

“NEXT provides new opportunities to investors, enabling them to better diversify their portfolios, manage risk, and deploy capital more efficiently,” NSE Chief Executive Geoffrey Odundo said.

Futures contracts provide investors with risk management tools in the wake of unexpected volatility in asset prices.

READ:NSE gets green light for Derivatives Market

NEXT will also enable Kenya to consolidate its position as a leading financial services hub offering a wide variety of investments products.

The  NEXT will commence with index futures and single stock futures on selected indices and stocks respectively, the bourse’s management said.

The Exchange will initially offer index futures contracts on the NSE25 Share Index …

Russia has been striving quietly to become a major player in Africa starting with diplomatic efforts on African countries the Soviet Union supported in liberation struggles…

Africa’s total merchandise trade in 2018 had a value of over USD997.9 billion and the continent remained one of the fastest growing regions in the world during that time.…

Software Group, a global software company that provides digital financial solutions with African operations run from Kenya, has appointed Mr. Connor Hanan to the role of Chief Executive Officer (CEO).

Founded in 2009 and headquartered in Sofia, Bulgaria, it currently serves a worldwide client base in more than 70 countries from 9 regional offices located in Australia, Bulgaria, Egypt, Ghana, India, Kenya, Mexico, the Philippines.

Prior to his appointment, Mr. Hanan was the company’s Key Global Accounts Manager. He has had a successful career focused on financial services specific to affordable shelter in developing contexts. Within this sector he helped establish operations, Small Businesses and partnerships across roughly 35 markets in Europe, Central Asia, the Middle East and Africa.

Mr. Hanan has over 11 years of experience with FSPs, client-focused product design, and market analysis, a seasoned professional in Investor/Client Relations, as a Program/Project manager, and as a Director of …

The East African region has recorded a marked increase in the number of PE funds looking to invest in the region from 72 in 2016 to 97 in 2018, according to a new report released by KPMG and the East Africa Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (EAVCA).

In 2017 and 2018, 84 PE-backed deals were reported at an estimated value of US$1.4 billion.

According to EAVCA Executive Director Eva Warigia, the region recorded a 12 per cent increase in the amount of funds sourced from the domestic market largely driven by participation by pension funds.

“Local participation by pension funds is one way to mitigate against the risk attached to investing in Africa,” Warigia said during the release of the report.

“Participation of pension funds in private equity investments is improving access to capital for small businesses whilst enabling the funds to tap into new sectors for their portfolio …

EFG Hermes, the leading financial services corporation in frontier emerging markets (FEM), has for the second year running been ranked the number one frontier market brokerage firm in the Extel Survey 2019.

The firm also remains the second highest ranked brokerage firm in the Middle East and North Africa(MENA).

Prior to this accolade, EFG Hermes was also named, for the second time in as many years, the leading Africa (Ex-South Africa) Equities House by the Financial Mail, attesting to the success of its expansion into African markets.

EFG Hermes launched its operations in Kenya in 2017 and has been using its Nairobi office as the hub for its East African research coverage and trading execution.

“As the most dynamic and leading economy in the region, we strongly believe that Kenya is the most appropriate hub for the region,” said Kato Mukuru, EFG Hermes’ Head of Frontier Research.

“Holding our ground …