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Browsing: technology
A South African health-tech company Udok has sealed $613 000 (ZAR 10 million) in Venture Capital funding from FinX capital.
The money raised will be used to spearhead expansion. The Capetown-based startup has partnered with Clicks Stores to provide consultations in Click’s pharmacy clinics. With Clicks being one of the largest pharmacy retailers in South Africa, this will give the firm access to a large clientele base. (www.sullivansusa.net)
The company also plans to roll out laboratory testing using the Clicks network to provide lower-cost testing services for patients. Currently, the costs of laboratory testing are above the reach of many.
Founded in 2018, Udok enables individuals to access healthcare services via a digital platform. This includes virtual consultations with doctors, receiving prescriptions, and getting access to remote admissions.
The company uses smart technology for examinations during the consultation and allows users to access their health records from anywhere. …
NAIROBI, Kenya May 19 – APA Insurance, has launched an App for both its customers and agents in a bid to offer flexibility.
The APP dubbed ‘APA Insurance Happiness app’ will enable customers make fast and safe motor insurance purchases, renewals and report claims easily on their mobile devices anywhere and anytime.
The new free app will also provide up to date records of customers and also give location of their country wide partner garages in case of an accident.
The agent’s app will enable them to access a premium calculator, agent account management, pre-insurance inspection and renewal on the go, making them more effective and efficient when interacting with clients and potential clients.
“The Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent need to enforce social distancing has changed the way that we live, work and travel currently and has triggered a real drive across Kenya to shift from traditional channels to digital …
The impact technology has on our world is profound and, some might say, immeasurable. Outside our personal lives, it continues to change industries and global markets at a rapid pace every single day. Foreign exchange, or forex, is one of those financial institutions that are evolving with groundbreaking advancements. But before we can fully appreciate the effects of disruptive technology on forex today and possibly the future, we have to look at how it began.
How Forex Was Traded in the Past
Trading forex is as old as the history of civilizations. In ancient times, people exchanged goods and services for a price, even if that price was represented by raw materials or food. The problem was assigning value fairly — people disagreed on whether or not the items being bartered were equal to each other. To solve this, Thought Co. points out that early civilizations developed commodity money and …
Africa has some of the most expensive mobile data services in Africa. With the increase in connectivity via smartphones, people in emerging markets can use their portable devices for more things each passing day. Most of us have a smartphone with mobile data that we can carry anywhere and as soon as we step home we switch to our Wi-Fi not to overuse our mobile data; which is most of the time unfairly overcharged.
However some people do not have the privilege to afford both mobile data and internet at home, so they opt for the more expensive but more portable mobile data. Everyday, people in emerging African countries are forced to take this decision and are sometimes charged the most expensive prices in the world for mobile data. What is important to know also is the dependency and impact of smartphones in lower income communities.
With a difficulty in …
Members of Parliament in Tanzania are urging the government to consider giving tax breaks to businesses in a bid to help them stay afloat.
Alternatively, the government is encouraged, through the Central Bank, to scrap interest on loans so that borrowers do not fall into default.
At the moment, despite the global slowdown, businesses are still operational but they are operating way below their year revenue projections. Already, at the start of the second quarter, the country is facing potentially huge loan defaults by both large corporations as well as small and medium sized companies.
Big businesses are now turning to the government to intervene. While the Central Bank, the Bank of Tanzania (BoT) has already issued a stimulus package for commercial banks, the Tanzania Private Sector Foundation (TPSF) is working on an arrangement to save large borrowers from mega defaults that would in effect ripple throughout the economy.
Commercial …
At a time when physical contact is discouraged due to spread of coronavirus, Tanzania’s little town of Kilimanjaro, has set up Automated Teller Machines (ATM) for the sale of milk. There is little human contact involved apart from the exchange of money making the machines a vital game changer in curbing spread of the virus.
The move has set a global precedence in the use of digital telecommunication for commercial purposes. What stands out is the fact that the technology has not been set up in the bustling urban town of Dar es Salaam but rather on the outskirts in the small town.
“This is what technology is for…it not only for the urban centers, it should be used to make life easier in rural areas as well, and the set up of automated milk dispensers in rural Kilimanjaro is a good example,” says milk producer Ivan Mangesi.
Ivan is …
For the year 2020, Ethiopia is gearing up to open its first Stock Exchange market in over 45 years. With it, Africa will add one more stock exchange floor under its belt bringing the total number of working bourse on the continent to 30.
Almost half a century ago, back in the 70s, there was vibrant share trading at the National Bank of Ethiopia. That was in fact, one of the first, if not the very first, trading floor on the continent. Well, at least one that was not under colonial rule that is.
Now, some 45 years later after the Derg took down what would have inevitably been Africa’s main stock trading floor, Ethiopia is well on its way to re-establishing the trading floor.
Ethiopia becomes the 30th of Africa’s 51 countries to establish a stock trading institute under the auspices of the government. For one of the…
The growth and development of the banking and financial sector has been propelled by factors driven by market demand and supply forces. We have seen banks coming up with various products not only to meet client demands but also as a means of remaining competitive given the number of players within the banking sector. Comparatively, customers now have a wider range of selection when it comes to choice of a banker.
Taking advantage of the technology banks have no choice but to keep on being creative and innovative on product development and service delivery channels. A review of financial performance of most banks reveals that lending/credit accounts for over 50% of the banks’ revenues. However, lending has increasingly become riskier thus pushing banks to equip themselves more on risk management through strengthening of credit culture where everyone, regardless of their roles, understands the need to drive revenue growth while also…
Micro financing is the go to solution for small businesses as banks tighten lending conditions to stifle Non Performing Loans (NPLs). In Tanzania, as elsewhere, NPLs are no longer a problem for individual banks, rather a national economic problem managed by the Central Bank.
The Bank of Tanzania (BoT) now provides guidelines for banks to curb NPLs and to help, it has created what is referred to as Credit Reference Bureaus. These bureaus are meant to protect banks against bad credit or more directly, to protect them against bad debtors.
In Tanzania, there are now two credit reference bureaus both meant to protect banks from crippling NPLs. Rather than deal with recovery of bad loans, the bureaus are meant to keep banks from lending to potentially ‘bad debtors.’
Unchecked NPLs could bring a bank to closure, that means affecting all other bank customers, now multiply that across several banks and…
There is need for Tanzania to involve the private sector to help it fight against illegal fishing if the country is to curb the devastating economic sabotage.
The country is now grappling with illegal fishing, but with the ever depleting amount fish in Lake Victoria and other inland water masses as well, it seems to be a losing battle this far.
The already trouble sector, contributing an average of 2.2 per cent to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is taking more hits from illegal fishing. (https://mrghealth.com/)
So bad is the crisis that last month, while addressing the nation from the Lake City of Mwanza, the country’s President John Magufuli made a public appeal in to end the detrimental practice.
The president described illegal fishing as economic sabotage and warned that the nation is losing a vital natural resource, a key economic activity that provides daily livelihood for many