Browsing: remittance

• Grey’s expansion in the East African Market follows $2 million seed funding of the West African company.
• Grey CEO AIdorenyin Obong says the Kenya office will help the firm navigate its planned operations across East African Community. 
• The company has also privately launched Grey Business, a borderless business banking for startups. 

Nigerian Fintech startup Grey has picked Kenya as its East African hub as it expands operations into the largest economy in the East African Community. The move follows $2 million seed funding the West African company raised as it eyes Uganda and Rwanda in the near future.

Already, the firm’s platform is live in Tanzania and Kenya with over 300,000 users. Grey CEO AIdorenyin Obong says opening offices in Kenya will help the firm navigate the markets in the East African Community. 

“Kenya’s Diaspora remittance is very vibrant as remittance inflows to Kenya have increased tenfold in the last …

Remittance to Kenya increased by 10 percent to $3,095 million in 2020 from $2,796 million in 2019 while in Uganda they dropped to $1.1 billion in 2020 from $1.4 billion in 2019.

According to the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK), the increase accounted for three percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The remittance was projected to decrease in 2020 due to the pandemic.

Financial innovations such as mobile money which have opened more convenient transactions highly contributed to the increase in remittance flow to Kenya.

With the restriction measures which were put in place to curb the spread of the virus, mobile money made it easy for people to send and receive money.

“The rapid acceleration of digitalization has been the ‘silver lining narrative’ of the pandemic. Remittances have been one of the key beneficiaries of digital transformation as members of the diaspora sent funds to their loved …

The Covid-19 pandemic continues to rage. African countries have so far recorded fewer cases than most other continents. However, a new, more infectious variant of the virus has surfaced in South Africa. This new strain is a significant threat to continental health. Given that the bulk of African countries’ health systems leave a lot to be desired, this is a heavy blow. 

That said, the effects of Covid-19 on African economies extend beyond the immediate impact on health. It goes to the effects of lockdown measures, interference with external trade as well as interruption of foreign inflows particularly, remittances from the diaspora, that have a considerable effect on most economies. 

Diaspora remittances to Africa

Driven by economic and other challenges, a sizeable number of Africans are living and working in different countries across the world. According to research by the Pew Research Center, over 25 million sub-Saharan Africans were living …