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Kiva Microfunds is based in California and registered as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. All donations made to Kiva go to support Kiva Microfunds and are used to cover the operating costs of running Kiva.

strategy development process, especially when the various units and individuals in the network must collectively execute that strategy. The key issue is this: balancing act between collaborating and competing is delicate and crucial” (Prahalad and Ramaswamy, 2004, p. 197).If co-creation is fundamental to the industry, this needs to leverage on a wider customer perspective that requires introducing the idea of developing ecosystems where the customer is truly free to move and choose the best deal in more competitive markets able to let consumers' ability to make informed decisions against any possible market concentrations among market providers.A business ecosystem (Moore, 1996) reflects the new paradigm of competition in a better way. Traditional management models aimed at gaining competitive advantage, such as vertical or horizontal integration, economies of scale and scope, are not effective anymore. The value of today's companies is determined by the size of its ecosystem (Tewari, 2014). Business ecosystems consist in crossovers of a variety of industries, of which companies cooperate and embrace open innovation to satisfy new customers' needs an

evaluation, others were quite lucky and suffered less.There are many and different feelings on the way FinTechs will exit this situation, which as far as we understand has overall accelerated some strategic choices.First of all, there are many and different FinTechs in the market. What is critical is to look at the fundamentals of the business. All of them are about answering what society is going to look like in the future (attitudes, behaviors, habits, etc.), so that if we no longer need to go to retail stores anymore, why do we need some services based on this situation? This, again, underlines that banking is a people business (Omarini, 2015) and this requires a business to be resilient to become adaptive to consumer changes or moves into a different market where you can still apply the service because the society is not yet ready to shift somewhere else, which means the same business in different markets. Just think of the ongoing situation where the recent wave of people is rethinking and restructuring their finances, so that they have decided to switch rates to digital banks. In this scenario, the winners are those that have enough liquidity—or better still cash-rich—to buy good technology and invest in new directions, also taking the opportunity to use the pandemic to its advantage. This is especially true for payments that are going to be increasingly contactless. However, some more les

sons can be learnt from difficult times especially due to external factors such as the following:- People costs and per-customer contribution margin are key factors, and valuable indicators. They are valuable for incumbents too. When staff costs rise, then this becomes a burden if growth is not going to move on. Then, if we move on the per-customer contribution margin (revenue, minus variable costs including credit losses), then this makes a FinTech earn more money per bank account than the cost of running those bank accounts.- One more point has to do with the way a FinTech makes its revenues per customer, and net income is the figure to look out for here. This means that the more sources of revenues a company holds, the better it is for it. If we think of some of the best-known FinTechs, they gather their net income from interchange fees, ATM withdrawals, which can diminish during the pandemic, but gathering revenues from other sources such as lending, investing, or again from referring customers to third-party services, and earning commissions from these referrals.Under this oncoming market structure configuration, a focus on control and ownership of resources is giving way to the importance of accessing and leveraging resources through unique ways of collaboration. “The co-creation process also challenges the assumption that only the firm's aspirations matter. (…) Every participant in the experience network collaborates in value creation and competes in value extraction. This result in constant tension in the

One more point has to do with the way a FinTech makes its revenues per customer, and net income is the figure to look out for here. This means that the more sources of revenues a company holds, the better it is for it. If we think of some of the best-known FinTechs, they gather their net income from interchange fees, ATM withdrawals, which can diminish during the pandemic, but gathering revenues from other sources such as lending, investing, or again from referring customers to third-party services, and earning commissions from these referrals.

The emergence of new technologies and players, along with a favorable regulatory framework (PSD2 Directive), is changing the banking industry. FinTechs and TechFins have allowed the introduction of new services and changed the way customers interact to satisfy their financial needs. The FinTech landscape is constantly evolving in the market. Different business value propositions are entering the financial services industry, moving from increasing the user's experience to developing a time to market framework for banks to innovate products, processes, and channels, increasing the cost efficiency and looking for a “partnering on order” to lighten the regulatory burdens for banks. The many businesses of banks are changing their value chains, and banks' business models should do the same accordingly. Strategists could no longer take their value chains as a given; choices have to be made on what needs to be protected and maintained, what abandoned and the new on coming to make banks evolve and become more resilient in doing their job. Banking is shifting significantly from a pipeline, vertical paradigm, to open banking business models where open innovation, modularity, and ecosystem-based bank's business model may become the ongoing mainstream and paradigm to follow and develop. Opportunities and threats for banks are many and new ones to re-gaining their role in the market throughout a re-intermediation process.

They have brought to the traditional banking industry a wave of competition and broken pipeline value chains, unbundling them into different modules of products or services, which may be combined among themselves. These companies on the one hand and the BigTechs (Google, Facebook, Apple, Samsung, Alibaba, etc.) on the other have been forcing the industry to change, transform, and evolve in a set of new financial intermediation directions. Use of data and customer experience are both FinTechs' major assets and threats as well. On the one hand, they please the customers as individuals and introduce the paradigm of contextual banking. On the other, the two selling points are threatening both the incumbent players and regulators in different ways. For banks, it is even more urgent to react actively because their “no fee zone” is expanding, due to new regulations from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureaus (CFPB) and similar entities in different countries.

Customers who sign up for the M-Pesa service can convert between e-cash and real cash (these are called cash-in / cash-out transactions), and can transfer e-cash from their account to that of another account holder via SMS. Cash-in / cash-out operations take place at one of many designated M-Pesa retail outlets, also known as “agents”. These agents are not employed by Safaricom, but are simply retailers / regular businessmen and women that are ‘authorized’ to trade e-cash for real cash.

Although some of M-Pesa’s initial success could be attributed to a uniquely favorable context for mobile-payments (strong customer need, welcoming regulatory environment, support from banks, strong brand awareness of Safaricom), its rapid and sustained growth was only possible due to a thoughtful operating model design, particularly regarding M-Pesa’s “agent network.”

Revenue from transaction fees that Safaricom collects via the agent during cash withdrawal operations and transfer operations (depositing money into mobile wallet is free). Reduce Safaricom customers’ churn, improve engagement, lifetime value etc.

SimbaPay transfers funds to 11 countries — nine in Africa then to China and India. “Early next year we’ll increase this to 29 countries,” said Sagini. This includes offering the WeChat China payment service elsewhere in East Africa.

SimbaPay and Family Bank will generate revenues on the WeChat-based transfer service through a fee share arrangement on transactions. “We have a sliding scale of charges [for the service]. For example, to send the equivalent of $80 will cost $3.50,” said Sagini.This presents a significant reduction of fees and opportunity cost for Kenyan traders who import from China, according to Sagini and Family Bank.Current available payment methods to China for Kenyan businesses are less secure and more expensive options, such as traditional money transmitters (Western Union), SWIFT and off the grid services, according to Sagini and Family Bank Chief Operation Officer (COO) Godfrey Kamau Kariuki.

SimbaPay and Family Bank estimate over seven million customers and businesses will be able to access their China WeChat payment service, based on projections of Kenya’s current SMEs.

SimbaPay and Family Bank will generate revenues on the WeChat-based transfer service through a fee share arrangement on transactions. “We have a sliding scale of charges [for the service]. For example, to send the equivalent of $80 will cost $3.50,” said Sagini.

Kiva started as a pioneer in crowdfunding in 2005, and is constantly innovating to meet people’s diverse lending needs. Whether it’s reinventing microfinance with more flexible terms, supporting community-wide projects or lowering costs to borrowers, we are always testing and learning.

We envision a financially inclusive world where all people hold the power to improve their lives.

This cloud and AI-powered technology stack connects banks with traditionally inaccessible customers in cost-effective, low-risk and responsible ways. Today our partners deploy loans, savings and insurance services from Africa to Asia, helping entrepreneurs in emerging markets to grow and prosper.

We let customers send money to family and friends in Africa in a fast, convenient and cheap way. Users in the UK & Europe can use our app to have money delivered instantly to mobile wallets or bank accounts of their loved ones in Africa.

The tech startup was built as a unique platform to help facilitate digital financial services such as credit, and savings in emerging markets, and has handed out over $1.8 billion prior to date since its founding in London in 2015.

“We’re optimistic about the  possibilities in these markets and continue to see huge growth  opportunities in Africa, with the potential to replicate our successes  in other markets over the longer term.”

JUMO Empowers Asian And African Market With Over $2.5 Billion, Eyes Nigeria, 2 Others

JUMO is one of South Africa’s next-generation fintech companies offering emerging market entrepreneurs financial services.

The tech startup was built as a unique platform to help facilitate digital financial services such as credit, and savings in emerging markets, and has handed out over $1.8 billion prior to date since its founding in London in 2015.

SnapScan may make mobile payments easy for users, says Ehlers, but the reason why the company has been so successful in South Africa is that it makes processing the payments easy—and cheap—for sellers. With traditional credit card systems, and even Apple Pay, vendors have to buy expensive equipment to process the payments—something small businesses can rarely afford. But SnapScan only requires an upfront investment of the less than five cents it costs to print out their Quick Response [QR] Code, a square, camera-readable version of a traditional bar code that resembles a mosaic tile, and tape it to the cash register. “If someone wants to buy from you and you don’t have a credit card machine, and the person doesn’t have cash, our payment system is the difference between closing the sale and not closing the sale,” says Ehlers. Registration is free, and the company charges retailers an average fee of three percent, on par with most credit card companies.

SnapScan customers don’t have to worry about sending their credit card details to online vendors that may not have the latest fraud protection. They just scan the QR code at the virtual checkout like they would in the real world.

As a result, SnapScan has been adopted by about 12,000 small and medium businesses in more than 17,000 outlets across South Africa.

SnapScan has 150,000 registered users, and processes hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments every day for everything from airline tickets to handcrafted wicker baskets at roadside curio stalls.

A free app available for any smartphone, SnapScan works almost like a pocket ATM linked to the user’s debit or credit card account. Instead of handing over a card, customers scan a unique SnapScan logo posted at the cash register with their camera-enabled phone.

SnapScan may make mobile payments easy for users, says Ehlers, but the reason why the company has been so successful in South Africa is that it makes processing the payments easy—and cheap—for sellers.

For all the talk of a new cashless society ushered in by the likes of Apple Pay in the United States, it’s going to be a while before a swipe of a phone will buy a meal in most cities. But in Cape Town, it’s already happening. I’ve used my phone to pay for parking, cover a medical bill, order take out, buy groceries at my local farmers market and give money to the homeless woman selling the South African version of Street News at the traffic light. Churchgoers use their phones for donations. My facialist just informed me that I could pay for Botox treatments with SnapScan. I’ll take that as her endorsement of an increasingly popular payment service, and not a hint.

Belcash is the proprietor and provider of the 'Hello' brand. We attempt to find the perfect fit for our customers and partners. This heavy focus on customer service, innovation and professionalism means that our stakeholders are proud to identify themselves with us. Though each Hello brand represents a different service, they all share one key feature - the mobile phone is the access point for their service.

“We are delighted for this investment from strategic investors to enable us to build financial identities for more smallholder businesses and scale our low cost distribution model. We are going where banks haven’t reached and are creating a trust ecosystem in the most unstructured sector in sub Saharan Africa – Agriculture,” said Bosire.

Kenyan agri-tech startup FarmDrive has accessed further financing as it expands operations to provide access to credit for three million smallholder farmers.

Through the platform, customers can easily check the status of their policies, approvals, and lodge insurance claims from online platform.