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Savings and investing is a critical part of building wealth and economic development, and Egypt’s youth needs a mobile-first platform like Thndr to open the floodgates of investing in the coming decades. Platforms like Thndr have seen great success in other markets across the world, and Thndr is built with keen attention to the local nuances and preferences of the Egyptian investor in mind.

Egyptian mobile investment app, Thndr has become the first brokerage firm to receive regulatory approval from the Financial Regulatory Association (FRA) in the last 12 years. The financial startup allows users to link their Egyptian bank account, and trade, invest, and profit from Egyptian stocks, bonds, and indices. The decision by FRA to give the startup regulatory approval comes after Egypt reforms its financial regulations on new companies with the recently approved Banking Act passed last month which allows more companies to become involved with financial trading and investment.

Before the passing of the Banking Act in July 2020, the only financial apps available for Egyptians were applications that helped you put aside money for saving. However, that is set to change as companies like Thndr take advantage of the new space given to financial technology companies to allow users to invest in the Egyptian stock exchange from their homes. Stock investment apps have become popular in the last few years as a way to not only save money but to make savings grow over time. While there is always risk involved with stock trading, Thndr hoping to provide users with education on how to invest in order to be more financial secure.

Thndr, a YCombinator backed investment platform, makes it easy to invest in stocks, bonds, and funds completely commission free. Thndr aims at solving Egypt and the region’s painful, outdated and time consuming process to open, fund and actively manage investment accounts. Thndr’s first product is a mobile first equities trading platform in Egypt. The startup just acquired the necessary licensing from the Financial Regulatory Authority (FRA) making the fast growing startup the first company to acquire a brokerage license in Egypt since 2008. Issuing a license to a tech company is a testament to the regulator’s strong commitment to seek modern methodologies to enhance the investment landscape in Egypt.

Thndr pre-seed funding involved an array of distinct investors such as Y-Combinator, 4DX Ventures, Endure Capital, The Raba Partnership, MSA Capital, along with some other notable investors that include Tom Stafford, Managing Partner, DST “Savings and investing is a critical part of building wealth and economic development, and Egypt’s youth needs a mobile first platform like Thndr to open the floodgates of investing in the coming decades.

“Common investor wisdom is to stay in your market and dominate. This assumes that you are expanding on your own but we believe that by collaborating and partnering deliberately, Carbon and other tech companies can scale faster and build more enduring platforms,” Chijioke Dozie, chief executive officer (CEO) and co-founder of Carbon, said. 

Nigerian fintech startup Carbon has set up a US$100,000 pan-African fund to address the lack of funding and support holding back entrepreneurs on the continent.Consumer lending platform Carbon, which rebranded in April as parent company OneFi continues to transition into being a full digital banking platform after raising US$5 million in debt funding and acquiring Nigerian payments startup Amplify, has been busy expanding its offering, and has also moved into new markets with a Kenyan launch.Its “Disrupt fund” is the first of its kind by an African fintech startup, and will invest up to US$10,000 per startup for five per cent equity. Portfolio companies will also be given access to Carbon’s API, allowing them to leverage Carbon’s growing customer base and innovative technology platform to get to market faster. Carbon expects the initiative to spark more collaboration and further investment that should drive growth across the ecosystem, and is accepting applications from companies with operations in Uganda, Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast and Egypt. Startups looking to apply for the fund must have a functioning product, be post-revenue, and be looking to operate in multiple countries. The fund has a wide investment mandate but target sectors include insurance, health and education.“There are many excellent companies across the continent looking for the kind of scale Nigeria offers and we are excited to partner with them to provide the support and financial investment they need. We are equally excited to expand beyond Nigeria and Kenya by working with a new generation of innovators across the continent and sharing our experience to tackle common obstacles to growth.”

Nigerian fintech startup Carbon has set up a US$100,000 pan-African fund to address the lack of funding and support holding back entrepreneurs on the continent.

Judging by the recent set of results from Purple Group, their easy-to-use and cost effective EasyEquities trading platform is well on its way to becoming one of the leading platforms of the investing world. This relationship enables Satrix, the largest equity index tracking provider in South Africa, to employ the same innovative technology driving the EasyEquities platform to offer ETF’s to the nation.

EasyEquities aims to disrupt and remove the barriers to entry in local and international stock markets, making the purchase of shares easy, cheap and fun, and ensuring that anyone can own shares in the companies they love.

EasyEquities (EE), a subsidiary of JSE listed Purple Group Limited (PPE), is an online platform which allows anyone to buy shares in the brands and companies they love. For as little as R5, $10 or whatever amount they have available to invest (and with no monthly brokerage fees) newbie and seasoned investors alike can grow their wealth. EE powered by First World Trader (Pty), as an authorized financial services provider, has a strong focus on customer satisfaction. Our mission is to be a respected and recognized financial services provider. Treating our customers fairly is a primary objective of the conceptualization, creation and launch of the platform.

Financial planning is the backbone for every type of business to operate efficiently with achieve targeted objective. A single mistake in the financial records or planning can drag the growth of an organization to zero. As a solution, Robo-Advisors serve a digital platform with automated functions backed up with algorithm-driven financial planning services. This digital platform allow to automate the procedure with least or can be said no human supervision. A question might be nudging your mind, “How a digital platform can be able to plan financial operations?” It is a worth question that must be answered before using such a high tech platform.

As you may know, Ethiopia well Africa, in general, has skipped the laptop and computer phase of technology straight into the mobile phase of technology this is commonly known as the leapfrog model.

Our platform plans to use the leapfrog model to leverage our technology and give the 45 mill users around Ethiopia a new way to manage bills and provide the over 2.5 million Ethiopian diasporas in the United States a way to help their families

The online equity investment platform has reached a tipping point, with more than 150-thousand active users. Purple Group has reported a strong rise in first-half earnings as its EasyEquities online investment and trading platform reached tipping point. The fintech group owns 70% of EasyEquities and Sanlam Investments holds the remaining 30%.

The next six months will, no doubt, prove to be unpredictable. In many ways perhaps some of the toughest months experienced in the investment world in decades lie ahead with the world economy in unchartered waters," Purple Group said. "But that suits us just fine. Firm in the knowledge that we simply must, every minute of every day, be there for our partners and clients on their financial journey."

EasyEquities grew revenue by 140% to R28.6 million in the six months to end-February as the number of funded retail investment accounts more than doubled to 199,491. The platform generated a R76,000 profit for the period from a R12.4 million loss previously. Platform assets quadrupled to R15.8 billion.

As mentioned in the last article, it is not possible to define exactly what a robo-advisor is, as the individual providers offer a range of services of varying breadth. In fact, robo-advisors have long since ceased to offer mere recommendations or advice, and most providers are steadily expanding their services into a fully integrated solution. Accordingly, people now associate a robo-advisor with a platform that can also be used to make an investment directly (see [Bloch/Vins 2017, 114]). However, this service, for example, is linked to certain regulatory requirements, which are presented below. It should be noted here that this is the regulatory framework in Germany. In terms of regulation, four business models can be distinguished in the area of robo advisory services:

A Dutch company technology company developed an application that enables buyers to order, pay and receive a shipment. Belcash Technology Solutions Plc launched the e-commerce platform, HelloMarket shipments, with an estimated investment of one million dollars. The application, which was designed with the major aim of allowing local suppliers and manufacturers to promote and sell their products, will provide leather products, crafts, traditional clothing, souvenirs, homemade seasonings and other similar items manufactured by small and medium-sized enterprises. The e-commerce platform, integrated with Hellocash, a mobile and agent banking app for the purpose of making electronic payments, has a delivery system in place through Belcash agents around the country.

Belcash successfully piloted the app for three months and officially launched it in July 2019. It has supplied 200 tablets to its agents. Thus far, 50 small and medium enterprises have signed up and placed their products on the HelloMarket platform.

Belcash successfully piloted the app for three months and officially launched it in July 2019. It has supplied 200 tablets to its agents. Thus far, 50 small and medium enterprises have signed up and placed their products on the HelloMarket platform.

EasyEquities is an investment platform specialising in fractional investing. With the democratisation of technology and the rise of the Internet of Things, investing now has too become democratised. With EasyEquities, you can now enjoy the economic benefits of buying whole shares (price dividends and other corporate actions) through the purchase of fractional shares. Fractional shares – indicative of the democratisation of investment opportunities – are fractions of whole shares purchased at no minimum cost. Once you acquire fractional shares through the EasyEquities platform, you earn Fractional share rights (FSRs). As you make further investments in FSRs and ultimately end up with a whole share, the whole share is delivered to you. EasyEquities gives you the opportunity to enjoy the same diversification benefits through fractional shares as you would have with a large share portfolio, making every Rand and Cent count

GreenTec, headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany, will invest an undisclosed amount of money in Bismart to enable the company upscale its digital and online platforms to connect customers to insurance and investments solutions available in the African market.The agreement, announced in Frankfurt, will see Bismart benefit from GreenTec’s expertise and experience in funding start-ups in Africa through capacity building, and process optimization.GreenTec will also avail to the Kenyan company a team of international experts to help implement adapted latest technology to the model in order to extend its local value chain and have more impact.

GreenTec, headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany, will invest an undisclosed amount of money in Bismart to enable the company upscale its digital and online platforms to connect customers to insurance and investments solutions available in the African market. The agreement, announced in Frankfurt, will see Bismart benefit from GreenTec’s expertise and experience in funding start-ups in Africa through capacity building, and process optimization.

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

Bismart is a leading Kenyan insurance aggregator. We leverage on digital platforms and technologies which enables us to connect our clients to the best insurance and investments solutions available in the market. Most importantly we provide our clients with education and information; this irrevocably gives power to the client to freely decide on the best premier insurance and /or investment solution to stick with. And all this in front of their computer screen or smartphone.Insurance is just a click away...Be smart, Buy smart.

We leverage on digital platforms and technologies which enables us to connect our clients to the best insurance and investments solutions available in the market.

AgroCenta's innovation focuses on the post harvest value chain. The suite of services within AgroCenta provides an end-to-end solution that ensures that it provides a win-win situation for the smallholder farmer and all active players in the value chain. If a smallholder farmer wants to know the latest market price of maize in the nearest market to enable him price competitively, he uses AgroInfo to request for information via SMS and Voice solutions. After the farmers has made a decision on how much to sell, the farmer's commodity information are uploaded onto the AgroTrade platform to connect him to buyers. When a trade agreement is reached between the farmer and a buyer, the farmer requests for TruckR, which is the truck delivery service component of AgroCenta, in real time using mobile phone. After the commodities are sold to the buyer, the farmer is paid via the AgroPay solution, which is the financial inclusion platform within AgroCenta

AgroCenta targets about 10 million smallholder farmers in Sub Saharan Africa within the next 5 years to help them trade fairly. Over 90% of these smallholder farmers live under $1 and are not able to make enough money from sales proceed to take care of their families and re-invest a percentage of the money raised back into their farms.

AgroCenta's value proposition lies in the advantage of providing the last mile market access for smallholder farmers in the staple food value chain through extensive collaboration with many partners who play an active role in the value chain.

STARTUP WATCH- Cairo-based investment platform Thndr was awarded Egypt’s first new brokerage license since 2008, according to a company statement (pdf). The mobile-first equities trading platform offers three zero-commission plans, including one unpaid scheme and two plans priced at EGP 15 and EGP 55 per month. Thndr secured a pre-seed funding round last December from Y-Combinator, 4DX Ventures, Endure Capital, the Raba Partnership, and MSA Capital, Co-founder and CEO Ahmad Hammouda (Uber Egypt’s former general manager) said, without disclosing the size of investment.

The solution is a mobile app that helps customers to get access to financial investment solutions through their mobile phone regardless of an internet connection. Customers can select either long or short term investment solutions through our app or via our USSD platform

The solution is a mobile app that helps customers to get access to financial investment solutions through their mobile phone regardless of an internet connection. Customers can select either long or short term investment solutions through our app or via our USSD platform. The app intelligently integrates with the mobile money account of the subscriber and an agreed amount is deducted from the account daily, weekly or monthly and invested into financial investment instrument on behalf of the customer.