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Lagos, Nigeria – Leading digital financial services company, Carbon, has released it’s 2019 financial statements audited by KPMG, detailing its product growth and $17.5mm in revenue.Carbon began operations in 2012 and within the space of six years, it grew revenue steadily, reaching an all-time high of $17.5mm in full-year 2019. In the same year, Carbon expanded its product offerings to the Kenyan market and it’s disbursement volumes have grown from N13bn (2018) to N23bn.Formerly called Paylater, Carbon pioneered instant lending in Nigeria and was the first mobile app to provide access to credit digitally and without requesting individuals to present the documents and collateral traditionally associated with accessing loans. Earlier this year, Carbon introduced its iOS app and USSD (*1303#) service. It also announced its Disrupt Fund, a $100,000 Pan-African fund to address the lack of capital for African tech startups.“The company will continue to share it’s audited financials annually, thus upholding a culture of transparency and accountability,” says Ngozi Dozie, Founder of Carbon.So far this year, Carbon has introduced multiple new features for its customer base including Carbon Express: a keyboard allowing users to make payments from any social app, periodic investments, free bank transfers, monthly wallet interest, and more.Carbon also plans to introduce debit cards, a reward program for loyal customers and SME accounts for entrepreneurs, in the months to come.You can find the full annual report here (https://bit.ly/2YNuvPw).About Carbon: Carbon (https://getCarbon.co) is a pan-African digital financial institution accessible via smartphones and which provides individuals with access to credit, a fee-free/interest-earning wallet, simple payments solutions, high-yield investment opportunities and easy-to-use tools for personal financial management.Our mission is to empower opportunity globally through friction-free finance that empowers individuals and businesses. We are a global company of over 100 employees with operations in Nigeria, England and Kenya.

Leading digital financial services company Carbon from Nigeria posted all-time high growth last year

Carbon began operations in 2012 and within the space of six years, it grew revenue steadily, reaching an all-time high of $17.5mm in full-year 2019. In the same year, Carbon expanded its product offerings to the Kenyan market and it’s disbursement volumes have grown from N13bn (2018) to N23bn.

Cassava is a specialised Pan-African Fintech company that delivers innovative digital transaction solutions across the mobile ecosystem. They endeavor to operate wherever money changes hands, with an ambition to drive financial inclusion, digital payments and lead the adoption of e-Commerce in Africa. Cassava is constantly looking for ways tointroduce solutions that bring developmental impact to a diverse range of African communities, thereby improving their quality of life. These solutions are delivered through our strategic partners such as mobile operators, whom we support in attaining their immediate and long-term strategic goals.

According to the World Bank, Ghana is the fastest-growing mobile-money market in Africa. Mobile operators MTN, AirtelTigo and Vodafone currently lead the industry. Banks are pushing digital banking in Ghana, but with less success, according to a report from Tellimer in September. Banks such as Ecobank, Fidelity, Zenith and Standard Chartered can use Ghana’s improving digital infrastructure to widen inclusion, Tellimer says. But the firms points to downside for banks through possible loss of deposits and lower margins on digital products due to the competition. Mobile money may lead to the “cannibalisation” of some banking products, Tellimer says. “Banks will have to fight for transactions and deposits.”

MTN is the dominant player with about 90% of mobile money transactions.

Mobile operators MTN, AirtelTigo and Vodafone currently lead the industry.

M-Pesa is a virtual banking system that provides transaction services through a SIM card. Once the SIM has been inserted into the card slot of the mobile device, users can make payments and transfer money to vendors and family members with SMS messages. Users with no bank accounts can access the numerous M-Pesa outlets distributed across the country. The money that needs to be stored is given to the kiosk attendant, who transfers the amount in digital form to the user’s M-Pesa’s account. Cash collected from M-Pesa is deposited in bank accounts held by Safaricom. The bank accounts serve as regular checking accounts and are insured up to a maximum of 100,000 shillings (or $1000) by the Deposit Protection Fund. M-Pesa provides receipts as proof of transaction. For a transaction to take place, both parties have to exchange each other’s phone numbers because the phone numbers act as account numbers. After settlement, both parties receive an SMS notification with the full name of the counterparty and the amount of funds deposited or withdrawn from the user’s account. The mobile receipt, which is received within seconds, helps to promote transparency for all individuals involved in a transaction.

Our Digital Banking business is anchored on a transactional banking model  with the following key services – Micro-loans, Savings, Agent Banking (designed to reach the previously excluded), Device Financing and Diaspora Banking. The Digital Bank’s flagship platform is branded “Square”.   The Square Mobile App is an integrated mobile banking solution that gives customers the ability to transact wherever they are, on services such as bill payments, funds transfer, banking services, nano loans, airtime and so forth. In line with our Diaspora thrust, we have also launched the Square World App, targeting diaspora customers anywhere in the world, offering remittances, and other suite of services as if they were back home

Feeding into the Central Bank of Egypt’s grand plans of building a digital economy and advancing digital and financial inclusion, the partnership aims to increase use of digital payment solutions such as POS terminals and QR solutions, by leveraging Visa’s global network and Fawy’s on-ground, localised solutions.

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.

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

MTN has 232 million mobile subscribers and 20 million mobile money subscribers throughout operations in Afghanistan, Benin, Botswana, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Cyprus, Ghana, Guinea Bissau, the Republic of Guinea, Iran, Liberia, Nigeria, the Republic of Congo (Congo-Brazzaville), Rwanda, South Africa, Sudan, South Sudan, Swaziland, Syria, Uganda, Yemen and Zambia. MTN’s vision is to lead the delivery of a bold new digital world by building a best-in-class experience for customers.

Founded in 1994, the MTN Group is a pan-African mobile and telecommunications operator.

MTN is headquartered in Johannesburg, South Africa, and listed on the JSE Securities Exchange under share code MTN.

For a successful model, the Arab World can look to Kenya’s development of mobile money or “M-Pesa”. In many ways, the elements that lead to M-Pesa’s success in Kenya are already present in the Arab World. Young people in MENA are digitally savvy, are active on social media and are some of the heaviest users of mobile phones in the world.

The successful adoption of M-Pesa in Kenya reverberated across the African startup scene. It acted as a catalyzer and a signal for young entrepreneurs in Kenya and Africa as a whole: revolutionary ideas could be successfully implemented in Africa and generate both business opportunities and a development path for local communities.

“Businesses, as well as Kenyans and expatriates with friends and family abroad, send over US$18 billion to other African countries, Asia and Europe annually with several billion Kenya Shillings going through the Simbapay network. Therefore, this service will offer Prime Bank’s customers a world-class fully digital international money transfer service,” added Karanja.

Prime Bank’s Director for Business Development, Vijay Kantaria, said the tier 2 lender has embarked on investment in technology through partnering with various FinTechs to accelerate its digital integration plan.

“With Masterpass, we’re enabling consumers to make secure and simple everyday payments wherever they are and from any connected device, without needing to physically carry their bank cards with them,” says Mark Elliott, Division President, Mastercard, South Africa. “Thanks to our collaboration with SnapScan, we are pleased to offer consumers even more places to pay using Masterpass, which is now the most widely accepted digital wallet in South Africa.”Since its launch in 2013, SnapScan has grown its acceptance exponentially, especially among small businesses that traditionally did not have access to traditional Point of Sale devices and relied on cash payments. It makes accepting digital card payments cheap and easy, with merchants simply needing to display a QR code at the till, online or on a bill.“Given SnapScan’s extensive acceptance footprint, the ability to offer merchants a single QR code, which will accept payment from multiple mobile wallet solutions such as Masterpass, is the driving force behind creating interoperability,” says Lincoln Mali, head of group card and payments at Standard Bank. “We believe that interoperability between digital payments platforms is one of the keys to driving digital payments usage and acceptance in South Africa.”

Each Masterpass transaction is classified as an Authenticated Mobile Transaction by South African banks, ensuring that consumers enjoy the highest protection from fraudsters.

ezoMoney provides a digital solution to informal savings schemes, allowing savings groups and individuals via their digital savings platform. BezoMoney has a wallet for each of the individuals who save with them. The digital savings platform provides access to loans and helps those saving with them create a comprehensive savings history to ensure transparency.  Bezo Money also provides investments, investment payment options, insurance, group purchase, and pensions services.

Undoubtedly, Ghana’s drive towards a cashless economy cannot be achieved without Financial Technology — FinTech. We’ve been pushed to an era where most people use mobile money services in the country, and have seen the birth of FinTech companies who render financial services and also provide foreign remittance services from countries across the world.

WorldRemit, like other money transfer companies, has its upsides and downsides. However, based on customer experience and forum reviews, the pros outweigh the cons. Pros Easy to Use -It takes approximately 5 minutes to sign up for an account on WorldRemit and make a transfer.Extensive Global Reach -You can send money to 150 countries on the WorldRemit platform. Irrespective of where your loved ones are, you can rely on WorldRemit to deliver the money to them in 30,000+ agent locations globally.Reasonable Fees -Compared to other money transfer services, WorldRemit charges fair transfer fees. It allows you to independently handle third party fees thereby, giving you control of your transfer.Flexible Payment Options-You can choose to pay for your transfer using a credit card, a debit card or a bank transfer.Multiple Delivery Channels-The beneficiary can receive money through bank deposits, cash pickup or mobile money.

Founded in 2010 in the United Kingdom by Ismail Ahmed, an economics student at the University of London, WorldRemit has grown its geographical coverage quite fast. You can now send to 150 countries around the world with thousands of well-placed payout locations. However, the company still has ground to cover in terms of partnerships with financial institutions and mobile money companies to strengthen its global footprint.

WorldRemit is an online money transfer service that allows people to transfer money to their families in a secure, fast and affordable way.

The discussion in this section is centered around mobile money and mobile financial services. These terms are not meant to exclude digital payments and digital finance from the discussion. While a systematic distinction between the terms – that are often used interchangeably in the literature, with ‘digital’, however, referring to the end user requiring access to digital devices (as opposed to a simple text-based mobile phone) – can be useful, as generally speaking access to the internet enhances possibilities [17••], we instead explicitly mention the role of the internet wherever access is critical, as most of the services outlined below (or at least some equivalents) are accessible without internet. This point has to be evaluated positively in terms of accessibility.

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.

‘KYC’ is one of the most important terms in FinTech, as ‘knowing your customer’ is a regulatory requirement for all financial institutions. The main goal is fraud prevention and constraining the ability of certain users who do not meet given acceptance criteria. Traditionally of course, this was done entirely in person, with account holders visiting their banks with the relevant ID documents. But for the past years, KYC has been moving increasingly into the digital domain. This move has brought a vast range of benefits to users and FinTech providers alike, but a number of challenges remain. Below, we outline some of these and present you with ways in which to combat them if you’re looking to set-up, or improve your digital finance platform, or to improve your customer experience.

“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.