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Big DataIn addition to traditional financial data collection, new data sources such as mobile banking and the Internet of Things (IoT) provide an additional layer of data gathering. Combined with Artificial Intelligence, Big Data analytics utilize large amounts of old and new data to discover hidden patterns for better risk management and fraud detection. New insights from big data improve the understanding of customer behaviors and help banks to create better and more customized products and services.

AI helps banks to analyze their Big Data to improve existing solutions and make better decisions. A more recent AI trend is to use its cognitive abilities to go through a large amount of unstructured text and data to generate more insights and to learn natural language. A more intelligent AI chatbot or virtual assistant can take over repetitive “low-value” operations, such as performing small amount transactions, explaining financial products and providing basic financial advice to customers.

According to MarketsandMarkets, the global big data market is currently valued at almost $140 billion. By 2025, it’s expected to grow to $230 billion at a CAGR of 10.6%. This makes FinTech app development a priority for companies that are transforming financial services with big data analytics.FinTech is one of the industries that uses big data extensively due to its complex services, use of IoT technologies, and need for risk analysis and security, which requires fast operations on large amounts of data.Big data developers help FinTechs gather an overwhelming amount of information and derive insights that really matter in the decision-making process.

They conducted a technical evaluation of the Mojaloop platform. While Mojaloop seemed to provide the required functionality, for a live deployment it lacked definition around auxiliary requirements to move into production.

EthioPay wanted to continue adding value for the Ethiopian banking sector through additional services and products. They wanted to add a number of different switch use cases (e.g. merchants, CICO, etc) to their ATM switch.

WorldRemit is just one of many different money transfer services that have become increasingly popular, especially since coronavirus has taken hold. Money transfer services are perfect for moving funds around, and thanks to quite a lot of competition they're now a relatively cheap and easy way of getting the job done. WorldRemit was set up in 2010, is headquartered in London and sits in the same marketplace as the likes of Azimo, Transferwise, CurrencyFair, Lebara Money Transfer, PayPal, Zelle and other competitors.

Our Cropchain and LendIt platforms solve these two problems. Cropchain is our user-friendly integrated agricultural supply chain management platform that allows organizations to manage everything in the agricultural supply chain from outgrower schemes, logistics, traceability to digital trading, quality assurance and data analytics. LendIt, our financial inclusion platform enables farmers access digital services such mobile money payments for commodities sold, micro-lending/input financing, crop insurance and pension scheme for the informal sector.

Our Cropchain and LendIt platforms solve these two problems. Cropchain is our user-friendly integrated agricultural supply chain management platform that allows organizations to manage everything in the agricultural supply chain from outgrower schemes, logistics, traceability to digital trading, quality assurance and data analytics. LendIt, our financial inclusion platform enables farmers access digital services such mobile money payments for commodities sold, micro-lending/input financing, crop insurance and pension scheme for the informal sector.

Onboarding smallholder farmers onto the AgroCenta platform. Agents visit communities where smallholder farmers who deal in sorghum, rice, maize, millet and soybean are registered onto the AgroCenta platform to trade. Agents also work with farmer based organizations (FBOs) to carry out trading activities. 2 Facilitating trade deals on behalf of Smallholder farmers. Agents deal with buyers who wish to purchase directly from smallholder farmers. AgroCenta agents are trained in the field of technology, sales and marketing to effectively help smallholder farmers who have little or no knowledge of technology trade easily. 3 Gathering market information and statistical data. Agents are assigned to major trading markets across the country to collate data on market pricing for various commodities. This information is relayed to smallholder farmers via Voice technologies in languages they read and understand.

TPAY MOBILE makes it easy for digital service providers to access over 600 million customers and accept payments across MEA and Turkey. Through one simple API integration, TPAY MOBILE’s full service mobile payment platform enables rapid business growth and drives financial inclusion.

Hood is designed to rest assure your mind by collecting a big cloud of data that keeps track of your car’s mileage, gas usage, performance, and its engine health to save your money, time and energy . also, Hood informs you of every little detail about your cars; drivers’ driving habits The device also keeps track of each driver’s driving score to keep you aware of possible bad driving habits

Hood provides a device for users’ cars that is synced with Hood’s mobile application. The app informs the user when an error is detected and whether it is minor or requires immediate attention. Users can also check and clear the code of the engine light, track their trip history, locate the nearest car shop, keep their gas expenses in check, monetize the car’s movement and have a big cloud of data

The financial services industry today is characterized by change. Investor interest and capital is pouring into fintech companies – digital banks, insurtechs, wealthtechs, proptechs and every option in between are shifting how financial services are created, offered and evaluated. New changes, new challengesThis shift has spurred many traditional financial institutions to take action. Yet, changes aren’t always straightforward. Financial institutions know they need to embrace innovation, and they also have to find better ways to understand and respond to their customers.At the same time, the shift has put a spotlight on a new area of opportunity for big tech companies like Alibaba, Apple, Google, Tencent and others. These companies have incredible reach, deep roots into their customers’ lives, and robust customer data. Big techs are also constantly looking for ways to provide their customers with more value, to enhance customer loyalty by providing a more integrated ecosystem. Most already offer payments solutions, so extending their offerings to include financial products makes sense. However, there are no strong indicators that the big tech companies want to become banks. The regulatory burden is so far considered too high for their appetite1. Forging strategic alliancesBig tech and financial institutions are already investing in fintechs to help advance their strategic goals. For example, Tencent led a $35 million investment in open banking focused TrueLayer in the UK this year2.What they are realizing that partnerships don’t have to be limited to start-ups – working together with established institutions can create value. Over the past 6 months, there have been a number of strategic business relationships announced, such as Google’s partnership with Citibank and Stanford Federal Credit Union, to offer smart checking accounts3 and Apple’s announcement of a partnership with Goldman Sachs to offer the Apple Card credit card4. These will likely only be the beginning. 

Nigerian fintech firm Carbon — an early-stage financial services startup based in Lagos — has posted on its website financials audited by KPMG.This comes four months after the company obtained a credit rating as a pre-IPO venture. Carbon — which recently rebranded its OneFi holding company and PayLater product titles into one name — plans to continue releasing its financial results on an annual basis, co-founder and CEO Chijioke Dozie told TechCrunch.This may not be totally unheard of in other global tech markets, but for startups in Africa’s big tech hubs — such as Nigeria — it’s a rarity.One of the first glimpses into startup financials in Nigeria came when Jumia shareholder Rocket Internet went public in 2014, which required it to include limited Jumia data in its annual report. The accompanying prospectus to Jumia’s listing this year on the New York Stock Exchange offered the most expansive financial data to date on a tech venture operating in Africa.Prior to this — and still for the most part — companies in the continent’s (mostly) pre-public (earlier-stage) startup hubs — such as Nigeria — provide little to no financial performance info.“Typically, in the local market, we have not seen a lot of voluntary transparency or the availability of data,” said Lexi Novitske — a Lagos-based VC investor at Acuity Venture Partners.“Most startups are concerned such disclosure could expose losses, give market intel to competitors or attract unwanted attention from regulators. It could also lead to negative negotiation leverage if partners saw that they were making good returns.”So why’d Carbon go to the trouble of putting its pre-public accounting out in the open for anyone to see?

Clients and recruiting were two reasons. “From a customer perspective, we are trying to get people to trust us with their financial services…so they can see this is the institution I’m dealing with and this is their financial position,” explained Carbon’s Dozie.Carbon has evolved from its original focus as an online lender to offer a broader array of mobile-based financial services — including payments, investment products, credit reports and business banking services. In March, the company acquired Nigerian payment solutions company Amplify for an undisclosed amount.By stats offered by Briter Bridges and a 2018 WeeTracker survey, fintech now receives the bulk of VC capital and deal-flow to African startups, many of which are attempting to reach the continent’s large unbanked and underbanked populations.Carbon fits into that category and its CEO believes being upfront about the startup’s financial position will attract top talent. “From a recruitment perspective, we want recruits to know we have good prospects — that this is a company that’s doing well and wants to keep doing well,” said Dozie.That impression is buoyed by Carbon’s initial results, which were fairly positive for a Series A-stage startup. The company had revenues in 2018 of $10 million, according to its online annual report, and turned a profit of around $500,000.It’s helped with recruiting interest, according to Dozie, who said he’d marked an increase in candidates inquiring about open positions since the results were posted.

we don’t get considered because investors don’t really think that you can get the results or this performance in the markets that we’re in,” he added — noting that Carbon has operations in Nigeria, Ghana and South Africa and is considering expansion in Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, DRC and Egypt.Investor Lexi Novitske thinks Carbon offering financial performance data is a good thing for Africa’s tech ecosystem. “The move builds trust from clients, partners or investors in a market where there is not a lot of openness,” she said. “I am encouraged to see how other companies will react. My hope is that more will openly report their own metrics…”Dozie says the company will continue to post audited financials on an annual basis, even if they show losses. If the startup continues to expand, attract capital and talent and grow revenues, other Nigerian fintech firms may follow suit.

In addition to the validated farm-level data collected through the app, FarmDrive also collects big data from satellite companies, weather stations, government agencies, and more. Using these aggregated data, the model generates credit scores and provides automated decisioning tools that enable financial institutions to develop loan products that fit the economic and agronomic needs of smallholder farmers.

In 2016 FarmDrive completed the initial phase of product-market fit in partnership with a Kenyan MFI. Through this pilot over KES 15 mil (USD 150,000) in loans were disbursed throughout 16 counties in Kenya. The pilot served as a proof point that better risk assessment can unlock capital for smallholder farmers, and informs the product development we’re doing today to drive more capital to farmers

our solution is based on high technology and based on Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) standard. We are highly available and our system is scalable as it can carry huge numbers of transactions. We are now certifying for the Payment Application Data Security Standard (PA-DSS) for security development and we’re following the standards of the Interactive Financial Exchange (IFX), ISO27001 and other different standards related to technology and security. Our solution is based on applying the latest technology, following the latest standards and being reliable. Moreover we allow easy access through more channels than competition to satisfy our customers’ needs. Also we’re covering more sectors and providing more services than our rivals.

Fawry is an Egyptian company that started in 2009 with the purpose of offering electronic payment services through several payment channels. The service started at banks and a big network of outlets all over the republic as well as Egypt post.

Fawry is an Egyptian company that started in 2009 with the purpose of offering electronic payment services through several payment channels. The service started at banks and a big network of outlets all over the republic as well as Egypt post.1 Now we are covering about 60 types of bills, where we cover the telecommunications sector and lately we covered all electrical companies in the country and some water companies. We also offer our services at universities and syndicates. Adding to that, users can now buy their airline tickets through us.

Two thirds of the African population work in agriculture, yet just 1% of commercial loans go to the sector, and very few of these are allocated to smallholder farmers. Kenyan company FarmDrive is using data from ESA's Food Security Thematic Exploitation Platform (TEP) to help smallholder farmers access the funds they need.

Artificial intelligence technologies are permeating financial services sectors around the world. The application of these technologies in emerging markets allows financial service providers to further automate their business processes and to leverage new and big data sources to overcome obstacles, including the high cost of serving rural and low-income customers and establishing customer identity and creditworthiness, that prevent the delivery of financial services to many consumers.

Robos came on the scene about a decade ago, and two early startups were Wealthfront and Betterment. Today, there are dozens of robos in the market, Fisch said. There are pure robo services, as well as those that offer the option of talking to a human advisor, with or without an extra fee. Since they’re automated, robos can more easily avoid conflicts of interest that could beset a human advisor, who might push investments that pay the highest commissions.

Artificial intelligence is changing the world of retirement planning. By using improved datasets and algorithms to efficiently deliver solutions tailored to people’s needs, AI can help them save, invest and retire better. One of the hottest trends to emerge in this area in recent years is the use of robo-advisors. These are software programs that use the data supplied by clients to create and automatically manage their investment portfolios

Another startup is Apollo Agriculture which raised $6 million Series A, akin to Pula. Not only did the pair raise the same round, Apollo Agriculture and Pula both deal with providing financial resources to smallholder farmers.

Pula is solving this problem by using technology and data. Through its Area Yield Index Insurance product, the insurtech startup leverages machine learning, crop-cut experiments and data points relating to weather patterns and farmer losses, to build products that cater to various risks.But getting farmers on board has never been easy, Goslinga told TechCrunch. According to her, Pula has understood not to sell insurance directly to small-scale farmers, because they can suffer from optimism bias. “Some think a climate disaster wouldn’t hit their farms for a particular season; hence, they don’t ask for insurance initially. But if they witness any of these climate risks during the season, they would want to get insurance, which is counterproductive to Pula,” said the founder in a phone call.

Pula, a Kenyan insurtech startup that specialises in digital and agricultural insurance to derisk millions of smallholder farmers across Africa, has closed a Series A investment of $6 million.The round was led by Pan-African early-stage venture capital firm, TLcom Capital, with participation from nonprofit Women’s World Banking. The raise comes after Pula closed $1 million in seed investment from Rocher Participations with support from Accion Venture Lab, Omidyar Network and several angel investors in 2018.

Women constitute the majority of remittance recipients globally and remittances have an impact on both women’s actual income as well as on social normsRemittances are believed to directly touch the lives of 1 billion people globally, maintaining millions of receiving families above the poverty line with remittances often representing 60 per cent or more of household income.

Remittances are believed to directly touch the lives of 1 billion people globally, maintaining millions of receiving families above the poverty line with remittances often representing 60 per cent or more of household income. Globally, women represent almost half of the 258 million migrants and back home in the countries of origin, women represent the majority of remittance recipients.

data from WorldRemit indicates that in 2014, 20.46 per cent of their female customers globally would use mobile money as payout mechanism compared to only 13.99 per cent of men.

FinTechs and the Value Chains in the Financial IndustryIt is beneficial to remember how things worked before and after FinTechs and TechFins or big techs in the financial industry.Banking models are shifting significantly from a pipeline, vertical, paradigm, to modular solutions that pave the way to new banking paradigms that entail higher levels of openness toward third parties and a growing number of modular services bundled together.Value is created in platforms through economies of scope in production and innovation (Gawer, 2014). In order for platforms to work, adoption and network effects are essential. Models can go to mere compliance with the prescriptions of openness of PSD2, to the inclusion of new services, the opening of the banking core and data, and the aggregation of those within a platform experience. In particular, we assist both to the evolution of a Bank-as-a-Platform model and a tech-platform-driven model supporting banking and financial intermediation, which both constitute a new interesting field of analysis.Since the wave of digital transformation started entering the financial industr

, banking-as-a-business has started moving from a product/service perspective to more contextual solutions where providers are customer needs-driven. This is because customer-driven companies outperform the shareholder-driven ones, and this requires an outside-in approach.Having said that, it is beneficial to remember that digital transformation implies four main categories of innovation (product, process, organizational and business model) (Omarini, 2019, p. 340); all of them require rediscovering that a new strategy paradigm exists. This regards the concept of co-creation, and because of this no single firm can unilaterally carry out a process of continuous experimentation, risk reduction, time compression, and minimizing investment while maximizing market impact. Co-creation requires access to resources from extended networks (suppliers, partners, and consumer communities).Under these new market conditions, FinTechs have become an important piece of a bigger puzzle, each one in its own area of business (payment, lending, etc.), while at the beg

inning most of them started as mono-business companies. Only a few of them may become leaders in the market. On the one hand, there are those that make their strategy become international, and on the other, there are FinTechs which enlarge their services-scopes. However, the majority of them will become part of ecosystems where the direction could swing from banks to tech companies or to FinTechs as well, able to manage the network by developing kinds of conglomerate-as-a-service.Another interesting point to outline regards this recent period where all of us have experienced lockdowns around the world, and some effects have also impacted FinTechs as well. The valuations of most unicorns have crashed overnight, while on the FinTechs side there are different situations. Some of them have experienced a dramatic reduction in their

Across the globe, smallholder farmers lose between $50 billion and $100 billion annually, often from natural disasters, but reportedly only 1% is insured from these accidents. As an example, in Feburary 2019, the company made several payouts to farmers in Kenya as poor rainfall caused large amount of crop failure.

Jason Schapiro, WorldCover Lead Engineer, said “Our algorithms are specifically calibrated to rainfall events by region and crop type, automatically triggering instant payouts to insured farmers through mobile money services like M-Pesa.”

So far JUMO has analysed more than 33 terabytes of data to serve more than nine million customers in seven countries across Africa and Asia, including Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Ghana, Zambia and Pakistan.

Its mission is to build and operate inclusive digital banking marketplaces to advance financial inclusion for the 80 per cent of the world’s population who are excluded or underserved by traditional financial services.

As an investor partner, LeapFrog’s financial services expertise is being used for product design and multi-country rollouts, to turbocharge Jumo’s growth and spur financial inclusion across Africa.