Browsing: fintech innovation

On 1^st of April, as I was publishing my Uniconization of African Fintech piece[1], Mastercard was busy announcing their $100 million investment into Airtel Money (Airtel Africa’s mobile money subsidiary) to acquire a minority position – half what TPG Capital did[2]. Even though I had gotten wind of the transaction knowing that Mastercard was already in bed with Airtel Money[3] – some part of me thought of it as an April fools joke…. On the 12^th of April 2021, Mobile Telecom Network (MTN) announced the valuation of their mobile money business at $5 billion making it the 7^th African fintech unicorn with plans to bring in minority shareholders before going public[4]. Given that Visa is already in bed with MPESA (Vodacom and Safaricom’s mobile money business)[5], it is a matter of time before Visa also invests. The unicornization …