Browsing: Innovation

• Through its app, Zenda allows parents to pay fees directly to schools, all while streamlining collections by enabling schools to accept and manage online payments
• Parents do not necessarily need to provide bank deposit slips as proof of payment because all transactions on Zenda happen in real-time
• Zenda’s users have increased 20 fold, with the app reaching over US$100 million in annual contracted payment volumes by the close of last year

UAE- based startup Zenda is now eyeing Africa as its next frontier market for growth. 

The company which is looking to change how parents pay school fees and the way in which educational institutions manage the collection of fees is looking to expand its reach to Africa. 

Formerly known as nexopay, the firm plans to penetrate the African market through Egypt in the coming months as the firm embarks on a growth drive accelerated by a US$9.4 million seed …

• There is a huge need for business owners, policymakers, and African leaders, in general, to capitalise on the investment in more research, higher education and science
• Academic institutions need to build skills and knowledge of young professionals in areas of research, innovation, science and technology in order to benefit from the natural resources and improve the livelihoods of East Africans
• Africa has the strongest growing scientific production currently at 38.6 per cent since the start of 2012 with the number of authors subsequently growing at a slightly higher rate of 43 per cent over the same period

The Academic Public-Private Partnership Forum (APPPF) has called for more funding to be availed to Africa’s researchers and innovators. This will largely drive up the continent’s sustainable economic development.

According to data by statista.com, despite Africa comprising 12.5 per cent of the global population, the continent still only accounts for less than 1 …

World Bank further notes that the unified digitisation of the East African economy is estimated to generate up to a US$2.6 billion boost in GDP and 4.5 million new jobs that will largely benefit those at the bottom of the pyramid.

Data by GSMA reveals that by the end of 2020, 495 million people subscribed to mobile services in Sub-Saharan Africa, representing 46 percent of the region’s population, an increase of almost 20 million on 2019.

GSMA revealed that smartphone connections will more than double by 2025 in Sub-Saharan Africa with the East African Community registering the largest incremental growth, led by Rwanda and Tanzania. …

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 …