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nourserghini

Swvl's co-founder and former COO is building a fintech to offer commercial credit solut... - 0 views

  • Capiter, according to its website, offers on-demand cash flow solutions to small businesses and vendors, paying vendors immediately for the goods they sell to small business buyers and then collecting payments from the buyers using flexible payment plans. There are not a lot of details on the website but it would be safe to assume that Capiter makes money by charging a fee, interest, or a combination of both from the small businesses using its solutions.
    • aminej
       
      I like this service provided by Capiter because it helps young entrepreneurs and SMEs to maximize their profit. Transactions between supplier and customer happen in a smooth way so that each one is happy. They still have some concerns when it comes to raising money but I'm sure they gonna make it because it is an innovative service that would help a lot of people
    • nourserghini
       
      This article precisely describes how Capiter pays vendors immediately for the sold merchandise and collects small business' payments all while allowing a flexible payment and charging an extra fee or interest.
  • “Capiter’s unique technologies and sophisticated ML models empower businesses to increase their sales, grow their customer base and improve their cash flow,” the startup notes on its LinkedIn page.
    • nourserghini
       
      According to the startup notes, Capiter has a unique and sophisticated machine learning models that help it perform efficiently and increase their cash flows. It would be very interesting to discover the uniqueness of their model.
kenza_abdelhaq

Even in a world of global super platforms, local innovation still matters | Accion - 0 views

  • Lumkani provides residents in South Africa’s informal settlements with fire insurance and an internet-connected heat sensor that notifies all users if a fire is detected nearby. Eighteen months after launching, Lumkani demonstrated that, in 73 percent of cases, its technology helped prevent fires from spreading beyond the first home.
    • kenza_abdelhaq
       
      Lumkani's technology was proved to be efficient since in more than 70% of the cases the technology helped prevent the spread of fires.
  •  
    "Lumkani provides residents in South Africa's informal settlements with fire insurance and an internet-connected heat sensor that notifies all users if a fire is detected nearby. Eighteen months after launching, Lumkani demonstrated that, in 73 percent of cases, its technology helped prevent fires from spreading beyond the first home."
kenzabenessalah

Snapscan Payment Method - Accept SnapScan Online - PayGate - 0 views

  • Let your shoppers scan to pay for goods or services purchased on your website.
    • kenzabenessalah
       
      This allows society to minimize long queues and crowds around markets, shops, and other commercial shops.
kenzabenessalah

The Great FinTech Robo Advisor Race - 0 views

  • By now, the robo advisors are familiar to almost all fintech watchers.  These are the startups which have garnered media attention and customers given digital native investment accounts.  Their services include automated portfolio planning, automatic asset allocation, online risk assessments, account re balancing and other digital tools. Fees are competitive and range between 15 to 35 basis points of AUM.  Well known players include Betterment, Wealthfront, Motif and Folio, among others.
    • kenzabenessalah
       
      The reason why I think Robo advisors would be a great additional strategy to EasyEquities is because they are familiar with the procedures of startups. They would help enhance the quality, secure, and efficiency of the company.
nourserghini

Bismart Insurance - VC4A - 0 views

  • Bismart is a Kenya-based company developing Africa’s first blockchain-powered InsureTech platform to address the primary pain points for African Insurance consumers, namely trust and affordability. The platform will include innovating savings and financial planning tools to help consumers save for and manage premium payments as well as leverage blockchain technology to increase transparency and efficiency. 
    • tahaemsd
       
      Bismart is capturing the upward mobile youth by adressing some points like trust and affordability.
  • Bismart Insurance – VC4A Original: vc4a.com Insurance Penetration in Kenya is at 2.7% due Lack of education/Knowledge, Mistrust, inaffordability and lack of transparency.
    • nourserghini
       
      This article shows that Bismart insurance is trying to promote the concept of insurance in order to enhance its penetration in Kenya which is now estimated at only 2.7%.
hindelquarrouti

WorldRemit Review, Rates & Fees 2021 | Save Today | MoneyTransfers.com - 2 views

  • 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.
    • samielbaqqali
       
      WorldRemit is a good example of how a digitalized service should be quick and effective. The versatility of the service lets us realize that digitalization is in safe hands for the future, even though, of course, there is still a way to enhance the service.
  • WorldRemit is an online money transfer service that allows people to transfer money to their families in a secure, fast and affordable way.
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  • Sending money to Somaliland Ismail’s home country was difficult. Most money transfer companies and banks charged exorbitant rates and took longer to complete transfers. Convinced that technology would help cut transaction costs and send money faster, Ismail started WorldRemit. General Payment Options Supported Currencies Support
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    I believe that WorldRemit is a good example of how fast and efficient a digitalized service should be. The flexibility of the service makes us understand that the future is in safe hands with digitalization even though there's always a way to improve the service of course.
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    Worldremit is known for providing its users with affordable money transfers with fees that are often lower than average, yet the transfer is secure affordable and rapid. The main components that made the company successful
samiatazi

Role of FinTech in the post-COVID-19 world - Financier Worldwide - 0 views

  • Digital financeAs the global economy recovers from COVID-19, one particular area of focus for FinTech is financial inclusion. According to the World Bank, there are currently around 1.7 billion unbanked individuals worldwide, and FinTechs will be central to efforts to integrate these people into the global banking system.Doing so will help to mitigate the economic and social impact of the pandemic. According to Deloitte, FinTechs, in strategic partnerships with financial institutions, retailers and government sectors across jurisdictions, can help democratise financial services by providing basic financial services in a fair and transparent way to economically vulnerable populations.Digital finance is also expanding in other areas. Health concerns in the COVID-19 era have made physical cash payments less practical, opening the door to an increase in digital payments and e-wallets. Though cash use was predicted to decline in any case, COVID-19 has hurried that decline, due to concerns that handing over money can cause human to human transmission of the virus. According to a Mastercard survey looking at the implications of the coronavirus pandemic, 82 percent of respondents worldwide viewed contactless as the cleaner way to pay, and 74 percent said they will continue to use contactless payment post-pandemic.In addition, improved ‘know your customer’ services are required to counter the rise in digital fraud and cyber crime since the beginning of the outbreak. As more of the global economic and financial system continues to move online, cyber defences will become even more crucial to protect data. Security-conscious FinTechs are designing their products with this in mind – even if face-to-face meetings and processes do return. Given the rising reliance on technology, digital transformation will be a primary focus for FIs in the months and years ahead. Whereas previous efforts to integrate technology may have been limited in scope, many FIs are awakening to the fact that in order to deliver an efficient, effective and sustainable banking service, they must adopt a more holistic approach to digital transformation, which includes utilising FinTech.
    • samiatazi
       
      In 2018, the world market for FinTech has been worth roughly 127.66 billion dollars, and is projected to hit 309.98 billion dollars by 2022. Just 1 percent of FinTechs have suffered from COVID-19 and 2 percent severely. Physical cash transfers have become less feasible because of health issues, opening up the road to a rise in digital payments and Fintechs.
kenza_abdelhaq

M-Pesa: A Case Study in Financial Inclusion | by Matt ฿ | ChainRift Research ... - 0 views

  • M-Pesa was launched in 2007, and it’s still going strong. The concept of a phone-based money transfer service originated back in 2002, when researchers realized the popularity of the market for phone airtime — individuals in a handful of African nations often transferred it to friends and family for subsequent use or resale.
  • Their analysis found that, as a result of M-Pesa’s proliferation, 2% of Kenya’s households had been lifted out of poverty. Moreover, the study established (due to the lack of hard cash in said households) that money was better managed and less prone to being allocated to unimportant endeavors (I feel there’s a loose parallel to be drawn to the HODL/long time preference mentality here).
  • When M-Pesa (launched by Safaricom) made its debut a few years later, it had initially been conceived as a solution for microfinancing — allowing institutions to distribute and collect loan payments without the hassle of cash. However, during this pilot, its widespread adoption in a myriad of alternative use cases caused the company to reconsider and relaunch with a focus on ensuring individuals could send money to their families and execute payments.
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  • Whilst things like Apple Pay and Google Pay leverage some interesting technologies, they still rely on the participant being ‘banked’ in the first place. That, and they’re about ten years too late to the party.
    • kenza_abdelhaq
       
      Unlike Apple pay and Google Pay, M-Pesa does not need its customers or users to have a bank account.
  • Clearly, there are benefits to virtual currency that physical fiat can’t mirror. Beyond convenience and security (no need to carry cash), the M-Pesa offering allows for remittance across long distances cheaply and without a bank account.
    • kenza_abdelhaq
       
      In addition to being convenient and secure, M-Pesa provides easy solutions for remittance or money transfer across long distances with low cost.
  • M-Pesa has proven that relatively low-tech ‘dumb phones’ can be transformed into tools for better wealth control. The leap from virtual money to cryptocurrency isn’t a massive leap from there. Indeed, tools such as BitSIM (development appears to be stalling, though the concept is simple; overlaying a SIM card with a small sticker so that even archaic phone models can transact in BTC), Samourai’s PonyDirect and CoinText (currently aimed at Bitcoin Cash) facilitate entry into the Bitcoin ecosystem with cellphones.
    • kenza_abdelhaq
       
      M-Pesa is setting the example in how regular phones can be used for virtual money transfer and how this could incorporate in the same sense cryptocurrencies.
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    The organization becomes exceptionally well known among the low-income local area. It furnished people with a simple solution to send money from any location.
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    It's quite fascinating to see that 2% of Kenyan households were lifted out of poverty just because they start using M-Pesa services. I think that M-Pesa has some great potential in dealing with poverty as people get to manage their money more efficiently when they use mobile money.
  •  
    M-pesa was launched in 2007 and it is based on the concept of phone based money. It was established for the main purpose of allowing institutions to distribute and collect loan payments without having to deal with actual cash, yet they were smart and made it a company that has the main goal of giving people the opportunity of making payments and send money.
ayoubb

Fintech in Africa: Reshaping the financial sector - CGTN - 0 views

shared by ayoubb on 13 Feb 21 - No Cached
  • In the last decade, the impact of financial technology (fintech) on Africa's financial sector and other key sectors has been phenomenal. As a key driver of growth in the region, fintech is a viable alternative to traditional banking in urban and rural areas. In Africa, fintech creates an enabling environment that opens up the financial sector's value chain and promotes efficiency gains
    • ayoubb
       
      Fintech and Africa
samielbaqqali

Startup Guide Cape Town: how this African city has become a magnet for international en... - 2 views

  • JUMO advances financial inclusion solutions in seven countries. Karri Payments offers mobile payment collection for schools and community organisations.
  • The book begins with an overview of Cape Town facts such as culture (melting pot of local and international cultures), spoken languages (English, Afrikaans, Xhosa), travel destination (one of the top in the world), cuisine (exquisite), bars and cafes (excellent), customs (braai barbecue), nature and sports (fantastic), wildlife (diverse), locals (chatty, friendly), and transportation (great but fragmented),
    • samielbaqqali
       
      The seven financial inclusion products of JUMO are a clear example of the range of solutions provided by this organization. I like the way JUMO innovates and grows in order to offer a product/service that is very effective across the continent.
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    JUMO's seven financial inclusion products are a good example of the variety of solution that this company provides. I like the way JUMO innovate and expand in order to deliver a very efficient product/service in all the continent.
samiatazi

SnapScan rolls out 'frictionless' payment feature called SnapBeacons - Ventureburn - 2 views

  • South African payments startup SnapScan is today announcing its first major update since its QR code payments feature was popularised in 2013. The new payment channel, called SnapBeacons, is meant to provide users a frictionless alternative solution to pay for stuff. Instead of just being able to pay by scanning a QR code, SnapScan customers can now simply tap a button in the app to initiate the transaction via Bluetooth. A message on the customer’s phone will alert them when the option is available.
  • South African payments startup SnapScan is today announcing its first major update since its QR code payments feature was popularised in 2013. The new payment channel, called SnapBeacons, is meant to provide users a frictionless alternative solution to pay for stuff.
    • samielbaqqali
       
      Finally, SnapScan is offering a new payment option to its customers. I think this is a really brilliant strategy because they realized that their product might become old school, so providing consumers with an alternative payment method will draw them more to the company.
  • Instead of just being able to pay by scanning a QR code, SnapScan customers can now simply tap a button in the app to initiate the transaction via Bluetooth.
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  • SnapScan is today announcing its first major update since its QR code payments feature was popularised in 2013.
  • “The key difference is essentially the ability to provide even more convenience and speed to
  • improve the payment process,” CEO of SnapScan Kobus Ehlers explained in a phone interview. “They can now complete the payment anywhere within the range of the store’s beacon.”The new functionality is already available at 30 SnapScan merchants in Cape Town and 20 others around the country which have iBeacons. See the list here.“If you have the feature enabled, and you walk into the range of one of these beacons, it’ll simply display a Pay Here button,” he explained. iPhone users will even have a Merchants icon on their lock screen which means that you don’t even have to open the app to pay.
  • South African payments startup SnapScan is today announcing its first major update since its QR code payments feature was popularised in 2013. The new payment channel, called SnapBeacons, is meant to provide users a frictionless alternative solution to pay for stuff. Instead of just being able to pay by scanning a QR code, SnapScan customers can now simply tap a button in the app to initiate the transaction via Bluetooth. A message on the customer’s phone will alert them when the option is available.
    • samiatazi
       
      I am amazed by the new release of SnapScan which is another installment channel called SnapBeacons through which Clients can basically tap a catch in the SnapScan application to start the exchange through Bluetooth. The installments startup is upheld by the Standard Bank-sponsored Standard Bank and is situated in Johannesburg, South Africa. Since it's an equipment based item, it might be viable with telephones like the iPhone 4S and up.
  • Several major international companies like Virgin Atlantic, Apple, Macy’s and Walmart are already adopting beacon technology and proximity-based products are a growing trend. “We’re the first in South Africa to roll this technology out and we want to see how we can improve the user experience accordingly,” Ehlers boasted.An added feature, not a pivot
  • Ehlers noted that from the beginning, the Standard Bank-backed company wasn’t tied to just QR codes. It’s always been looking at new technologies to make mobile payment processes better. “To that end, we constantly play with a whole host of different technologies in the payments channel, of which the one that really got us excited was iBeacons.”An added bonus, the CEO notes that SnapBeacons will only be available to those who are keen to try it out. You can disable the feature if you want to.Read more: From stores to the streets: SnapScan’s road to a cashless society
  • “We’ve decided not to turn it on by default because we’re quite sensitive that people may want to consider whether they want this feature and reassure themselves that it’s not a big change that will happen over night.” It’s worth noting that this isn’t a complete transition. In some occasions SnapBeacons will make sense, while in other, it won’t.Furthermore, because it’s a hardware based product, it will only be compatible with a certain range of phones like the iPhone 4S and up or most smartphones running Android 4.3 and up.
  •  
    SnapScan is finally providing its customers with a new payment alternative. I think that this is a very brilliant strategy because they realized that their product might get old school, so providing an alternative payment possibility for the customers can attract them more to the company.
  •  
    It was a smart move from the Snapscan company to stay up to date and continue introducing new innovative features. After the introduction of QR code, now it has made an app, that allows transaction via Bluetooth ,available to customers in order to be more efficient and faster
kenza_abdelhaq

Ethiopay Places in the Top 25 Undergraduate Teams for e-Fest - Entrepreneurship and Inn... - 3 views

  • Their website allows individuals from North America and Europe to send payments for electricity bills, health insurance, school fees, and more to individuals in Ethiopia. Ethiopay fits the unique financial technology needs of Ethiopians. They hope to help Ethiopians in the diaspora reach individuals at home by providing seamless payments. Hadgu and Yohannes entered this year’s competition to share their innovative venture and gain exposure.
    • kenzabenessalah
       
      It is important to know that EthioPay is not a service that functions only in Ethiopia, but individuals from North America and Europe are also able to help Ethiopians with their finances.
  • Their website allows individuals from North America and Europe to send payments for electricity bills, health insurance, school fees, and more to individuals in Ethiopia. Ethiopay fits the unique financial technology needs of Ethiopians. They hope to help Ethiopians in the diaspora reach individuals at home by providing seamless payments. Hadgu and Yohannes entered this year’s competition to share their innovative venture and gain exposure.
    • sawsanenn
       
      This excerpt is important because we can see that the goal of this fintech company is to increase growth and meet customers' needs especially Ethiopian customers from all over the world. Additionally, They found a fundamental solution to several financial services issues that the Ethiopians used to face.
  • They are a centralized global payment platform that currently enables users a simple and convenient way to transfer and/or purchase cross border bill pay, money transfer, mobile data, and mobile minutes between the United States and Ethiopia. Ethiopay co-founders Daniel Hadgu (B.B.A. ‘20) and Minas Yohannes (B.B.A. ‘20) are Eritrean descent while Michael Gizachew is of Ethiopian descent and they all struggled to send funds between the U.S. and their family abroad. Together they created a way to affordably and efficiently transfer money overseas.
    • nouhaila_zaki
       
      This excerpt is important because it enumerates the different products and services covered by the Ethiopay platform, notably the transfer of cross-border bill money, money transfer, mobile data and mobile minutes between the US and Ethiopia.
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  • Co-founder Daniel Hadgu states, “In my journey of understanding what it truly means to help others and become an effective leader, I have uncovered the power of innovation.”
    • ghtazi
       
      helping others is the major motto of the company. the platform allows individuals living in North America and in Europe to send payments for any bills to help their family in Ethiopia
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    "Their website allows individuals from North America and Europe to send payments for electricity bills, health insurance, school fees, and more to individuals in Ethiopia. Ethiopay fits the unique financial technology needs of Ethi"
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    Ethiopia aims to resolve Ethiopian citizens' rising global challenges. Hadgu and Yohannes are excited to join the race next year to end in the hopes of taking home the Georgia State University and Ethiopay trophies.
hibaerrai

PressReader.com - Your favorite newspapers and magazines. - 0 views

  • “When you look at the in­ter­net bank­ing ser­vices avail­able at the mo­ment, it is very ex­pen­sive to just log in and check one’s bal­ance,” said Mr Nchai.“Also, most of the mo­bile money ser­vices are not user friendly. So our aim is to sim­plify life for our clients with dif­fer­ent prod­ucts.“We aim to pro­vide our ser­vices to in­di­vid­u­als, in­sti­tu­tions, or­gan­i­sa­tions, multi-in­dus­try sec­tors and gov­ern­ments with a cut­ting edge, fresh and in­no­va­tive fi­nan­cial management sys­tem in this ever chang­ing world.”
    • hibaerrai
       
      The financial services provided by the application are cheaper, efficient and more innovative. Also, businesses can extract or send bigger amounts easily without any problem.
sawsanenn

10 Things You Thought You Knew about M-PESA - 2 views

  • The M-PESA cash merchants (or ‘agents’ in M-PESA parlance) pre-buy mobile money so that they can sell it against cash to the customers who come to their retail store for cash-in operations. They are investing their own working capital and are not intermediating someone else’s funds. For cash-out operations, they sell their cash and buy mobile money instead. Consequently, the cash and M-PESA balances that cash merchants manage and store are always their own.
    • tahaemsd
       
      Cash merchants are mainly super users, who resell their own working capital balances, with no more access to the M-PESA platform than any other customers, except that they have higher transaction limits.
  • Each and every transaction done on the M-PESA platform is electronic and can therefore be monitored by Safaricom, which runs its own bank-grade anti-money laundering system. Even a cash-in or a cash-out operation has an electronic leg and is captured by the system. The Central Bank of Kenya gets regular reports on M-PESA transactions, as it does from other payment service providers.
  • Cash merchants are mainly super users, who resell their own working capital balances, with no more access to the M-PESA platform than any other customers, except that they have higher transaction limits.
    • samielbaqqali
       
      M-Pesa is a product which is stable, fast and reliable. However, because of their fear of technology, some people still don't know the value of this business. I assume that this is the case for most of countries with high illiteracy rates.
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  • The M-PESA cash merchants are recruited by Safaricom after a due diligence process and put under specific training. They are regularly monitored and re-trained, and Safaricom aims to visit them on-site every two weeks. The same process is applied to all cash merchants so that any customer anywhere in Kenya has the same experience at any cash merchant.
    • ghtazi
       
      After a due diligence process, the M-PESA cash merchants are recruited by Safaricom and placed under unique training. They are tracked and re-trained daily, and Safaricom aims to visit them every two weeks on-site. All cash merchants are subject to the same procedure so that any customer anywhere in Kenya has the same experience with any cash merchant. which I believe will be something that will trigger its competitor.
  • The funds are deposited in several commercial banks, which are prudentially regulated in Kenya. In addition, the funds are held by a Trust and are therefore out of reach from Safaricom, which cannot access or use them. In the unfortunate event of Safaricom going bankrupt, the creditors of Safaricom would not have access to the M-PESA funds. This is a requirement from the Central Bank of Kenya which oversees M-PESA. The funds remain at all times the property of M-PESA users.
    • sawsanenn
       
      this is a good approach to gain customers trust since it's one of the main challenges of this business
  •  
    M-Pesa is a safe, fast and efficient product. However, some people still don't know the importance of this company due to their fear from technology. I believe that this is the case for most of countries with high illiteracy rates.
kenza_abdelhaq

Robo-Advisor and its key benefits in Fintech | Top TechCEO's - 1 views

  • 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.
    • kenzabenessalah
       
      Since EasyEquities is all about investing, it needs to be very secure. Robo-advisors offer a digital platform where all the data is stored . They are a must have because a single, minor mistake from a human being could put the company at great risk.
  • Investing is a boon for an organization or an individual, but hardly people have any idea about investment. So, when they plan to invest their money for a better ROI, the very first solution hit their mind is wealth advisory team. But it makes their work more tedious by adding an interaction with a team and spending team for it. Robo-Advisor has brought a revolution in the finance sector with a new approach of automation. It is a digital assistant that work on various algorithms to manage financial portfolio of clients. It gives an enhanced and secure experience. This is possible with the help of machine learning and artificial intelligence. These tools are no longer confined till chat-bots; rather it has grown in the field of fintech too with a number of finance management aspects, such as automating loan process, data management, wealth management, voice assistance, customized finance advisory, and many more.
    • nouhaila_zaki
       
      This excerpt confirms the need for Robo-advising in fintech start-ups. Robo-advising appears to be a revolution in the financial sector which replaces the regular wealth advisory team that traditional investors are accustomed to. Robo-advising is also cheap and thus could interest our eligible companies.
    • kenza_abdelhaq
       
      Easy Equities company can benefit from the incorporation of roboadvisors in their platform to enhance their customer's experience and further facilitate the investment process.
kenza_abdelhaq

Cloud Computing and its impact on Fintech Companies - Fintech Finance - 0 views

  • The banks and financial institutions are happy to use the advantages of secure storage, interoperability, scalability, and 24/7 uptime without heavy investments. This also means that scaling your business to higher user demand is much easier due to the fact that it only takes upgrading the data package that the company is contracted to use. No need to hire, train, and re-train any employees.
    • kenza_abdelhaq
       
      Cloud computing is offering a lot of advantages related to scalability, storage, speed, and efficiency with really low costs which allows banks to have access to these technologies to enhance their financial services and products.
sawsanenn

Frontiers | FinTech: A New Hedge for a Financial Re-intermediation. Strategy and Risk P... - 0 views

  • 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
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  • 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
    • samiatazi
       
      Digital transformation implies four main categories of innovation: product, process, organizational and business model. FinTechs have become a significant piece of a greater riddle, every one in its own zone of business. The victors are those that have sufficient liquidity and money to purchase great innovation. This is particularly valid for installments that will be progressively contactless. Individuals costs and per-client commitment edge are key elements, and important markers. The more wellsprings of incomes an organization holds, the better it is for it to be a FinTech.
  • 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.
    • hichamachir
       
      Pula can benefit so much from expanding its revenues streams. It lets the customers use the product or service in different ways which can't make them feel lazy to use a specific way.
  • 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.
    • ghtazi
       
      FinTechs and TechFins have enabled new services to be launched and changed the way clients communicate to meet their financial needs. In the industry, the FinTech landscape is continuously changing.
  • 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.
    • sawsanenn
       
      Since the digitalization wave entered the banking industry, financial institutions has begun to move from a product/service standpoint to more semantic alternatives where suppliers are pushed by customer needs. This is because the customer-driven firms outclass the investor ones, and this necessitates an outside strategy.
hibaerrai

KYC and FinTech: Addressing the challenges of knowing your customer in the digital era ... - 0 views

  • ‘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.
    • hibaerrai
       
      The KYC strategy will help target one audience and know everything you need to know about it, and also the data is secured and organised. This process is more efficient in fintechs.
mohammed_ab

How Can FinTech Companies Gain Agility by Setting a Cloud Strategy - The PNR - 0 views

  • Cloud computing allows financial institutions to optimize IT resources and remove development constraints based on IT’s capacity to deliver (Cofran, 2011, p. 1). Financial institutions can respond faster to needs of customers by reducing development cycles for new products and scale products as needed because of the flexibility of the cloud (Sriram, 2011, p. 4). Furthermore, cloud computing helps financial institutions standardize applications and infrastructures which simplify the overall enterprise architecture. According to Courbe (2013), having a common infrastructure already in place worldwide enables a system to serve customers more efficiently and effectively globally.
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    Cloud computing has a lot of benefits on financial services. M-Pesa which is a fintech that offers mobile payment solutions to the unbanked population could really benefit from cloud computing. By using cloud computing, M-Pesa could improve its system reliability as it allows you to have higher data protection and recovery. It will also allow M-Pesa to optimize its IT infrastructure.
omarlahmidi

Inside SnapScan, SA's app of the year - TechCentral - 2 views

  • The company makes its money by charging a small transaction fee to the retailer on each purchase. This fee varies. “We take a small transaction fee, much like the acquiring component to merchant transactions,” Ehlers says. SnapScan has a partnership with Standard Bank, which means it can process transactions at “competitive rates”, he adds. In addition to transaction fees, SnapScan offers its customers the option of accessing analytics or running loyalty programmes, both of which are billed as add-ons.
  • SnapScan co-founder, 28-year-old Kobus Ehlers, says there are a number of benefits to this approach for retailers. “It takes about 30 seconds to sign up. We issue a QR code, which you print, and you’re done.” Merchants without bank accounts can cash out their takings at the end of the day. “Customers can pay with the app, the retailer can then get a voucher code at the end of the day that they can punch in at a Standard Bank ATM — or hand over at a Spar — and get cash.” If customers don’t have the app installed, scanning the QR code will take them to the relevant app store where they can download it.
    • samielbaqqali
       
      Low transaction fees are often a strong opportunity to draw customers and this technique is perfectly executed by SnapScan. SnapScan, in my view, plays smart because they deliver a fast and digitalized service with a special QR code technology, so they deserve to win the South African app of the year.
  • If customers don’t have the app installed, scanning the QR code will take them to the relevant app store where they can download it.
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  • To use SnapScan, consumers download the app for Apple, Android or BlackBerry, and add their credit card details by taking a picture of their card and creating a Pin. They can then use the app to scan a QR (quick response) code — a type of barcode — in a store and can make payments.
  • The company makes its money by charging a small transaction fee to the retailer on each purchase. This fee varies. “We take a small transaction fee, much like the acquiring component to merchant transactions,” Ehlers says. SnapScan has a partnership with Standard Bank, which means it can process transactions at “competitive rates”, he adds. In addition to transaction fees, SnapScan offers its customers the option of accessing analytics or running loyalty programmes, both of which are billed as add-ons. The company offers three products. The first is an “instant merchant product” aimed at informal retailers who want their takings in cash. The second is the “standard” product that settles into a bank account like a traditional point-of-sale (POS) unit. The third is an “enterprise solution” designed to integrate with existing POS systems.
  • SnapScan works with debit cards and credit cards, and there are no sign-up, setup or installation fees. There is also no monthly fee payable.
    • aymanelmamoun
       
      SnapScan enters the market by offering many facilities to attract new customers. The application supports both debit and credit cards, no sign-ups or installation fees, and payments are made monthly.
  • SnapScan falls under FireID, the company that now houses six start-up technology businesses, SnapScan being the most recently launched. FireID started life as an information security company specialising in “two-factor authentication” technology for mobile phones. It was funded by billionaire Johann Rupert, through Reinet. Justin Stanford, one of FireID’s co-founders, was instrumental in securing the initial capital injection. However, Stanford was unable to convince Reinet’s investment committee to continue investing and in 2011 it pulled its funding of FireID, forcing the company to lay off its 40 employees.
    • omarlahmidi
       
      To attract customers, SnapScan uses many facilities such as accepting credit and debit cards.
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    The low transaction fees are always a good incentive to attract customers and SnapScan are implementing this strategy perfectly. In my opinion, SnapScan is playing smart because they offer a fast and digitalized service with a unique technology which is QR code, so they deserve to win the app of the year in South Africa.
  •  
    SnapScan offered a digital service. The company has created efficiency and security with its QR code techniques.
  •  
    It is interesting and encouraging to customers the fact that they don't need to pay any sign-up, setup or installation fees in order to benefit from snapscan
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