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JUMO reaches 15 million customers across Africa and Asia

JUMO has disbursed over USD 1.6 billion in funding and is growing its base of savings products. “By empowering MSMEs, we’re also positively impacting communities, families and employees. Technology is removing barriers to financial inclusion making it possible to responsibly provide everyone with access to good financial choices,” Watkins-Ball added.

“We are working to connect every entrepreneur to the financial products they need to grow and prosper,” says Watkins-Ball. “Our technology enables our partner banks and payments companies to help millions of underserved people access financial services.”

Customers, when purchasing, simply need to scan a QR (quick response) code in store using their phones. And the customer can use any MasterCard or Visa card to sign up. Ehlers added: “We tried to design a product which allowed absolutely everybody to be part of the formal side of the economy.”

In an interview with How we made it in Africa, Ehlers explained: “A sizable part of why we built the product the way we did really relates to how the economy of South Africa functions. So to give one example, we built SnapScan so the merchant selling the products doesn’t need any special hardware at all. No point of sales system is required.” Merchants who don’t have bank accounts can redeem payments at any Standard Bank ATM or selected supermarkets.

SnapScan’s partnership with Standard Bank has allowed the company to grow faster. But Ehlers and his team are still required to adapt to the differences between the corporate and start-up worlds. He explained: “A start-up can quickly make a decision and then two hours later start implementing, whereas in a large corporation there is a process, things move a lot slower. Politics are involved and different people – and that’s not necessarily a bad thing, just the reality.”

The overall benefits for businesses and customers include: Safety and security: Customers can pay via their mobile phone and retailers can rest assured knowing that extensive security measures are in place. Speed: It’s fast, as customers simply need to scan the display code at a till point. Convenience: There is no need to carry cash around and paying via SnapScan offers a frictionless experience. Cashless: As customers won’t be using cash, it is easier for businesses to authenticate and formalise transactions. SnapScan is a mobile payments solution with a variety of payment options available for retailers.

The overall benefits for businesses and customers include: Safety and security: Customers can pay via their mobile phone and retailers can rest assured knowing that extensive security measures are in place. Speed: It’s fast, as customers simply need to scan the display code at a till point. Convenience: There is no need to carry cash around and paying via SnapScan offers a frictionless experience. Cashless: As customers won’t be using cash, it is easier for businesses to authenticate and formalise transactions. SnapScan is a mobile payments solution with a variety of payment options available for retailers.

SnapScan offers quick, easy, and secure mobile payment solutions to retailers so their customers can enjoy the convenience of paying on the fly. Mobile payments can also mean that staff spend less time processing payments, as SnapScan can be integrated with a variety of leading point-of-sale systems. Businesses that offer delivery services can give their drivers a lanyard with a SnapCode (unique QR code) so customers can pay for goods or services during delivery. Retailers that have an online store can use SnapScan to offer a streamlined and consistent experience to their customers across multiple platforms.

Moving forward, banks are now able to partner with fintech startups with ease. Most noteworthy, startups are developing as cloud-native from the very start. The global fintech market size expects to grow to $124.3 billion USD by the end of 2025 at a Compound Annual Growth Rate of 23.84%

As an increasing number of businesses make the move to adopt a digital payment system, the demand for fintech solutions is only expected to grow and drive market growth.

South African fintech startup Jumo closed a $55 million round from a diverse group of investors, the company confirmed.

Nigeria, in particular, has become Africa’s unofficial capital for fintech development, surpassing Kenya in 2019 for drawing the most fintech specific and overall VC on the continent

Jumo joins a growing list of African digital-finance startups raising big money from outside investors and expanding abroad.

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.

It will take other players a “lot of marketing and effort or very innovative strategies” to compete with MTN,

In its full year 2019 financial results, MTN saw revenue grow 9.7%, while service revenue increased 9.8% and subscriptions grew by 18.2 million to reach 251 million. Further, the group’s chief executive Rob Shuter, announced he will step down at the end of his current contract, in 2021.

Nigerian telecom operator MTN has received regulatory approval for the sale of its 49% stake in ATC Ghana. The sale is expected to generate $384 million with funds due to be transferred over the coming week. It follows the sale of MTN’s 49% stake in ATC Uganda.

In 2019, Fawry became the first fintech company to IPO in the region and since taking that step, the price of its stock has risen by 300 per cent. In August, Fawry became Egypt’s first tech ‘unicorn,’ born during a global pandemic and what is quickly becoming a global economic meltdown of massive proportions.

Helios completed the acquisition of a 76% stake in TPAY, a fast growing direct carrier billing provider in the Middle East and North Africa from A15, a leading tech investment fund based in Egypt. With offices in Cairo and the UAE, TPAY currently operates across 16 countries with almost half of its total transaction volume coming from African markets such as Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco.

TPAY provides a much-needed mobile payment solution in markets with low banking penetration and high mobile adoption.

Helios completed the acquisition of a 76% stake in TPAY, a fast growing direct carrier billing provider in the Middle East and North Africa from A15, a leading tech investment fund based in Egypt. With offices in Cairo and the UAE, TPAY currently operates across 16 countries with almost half of its total transaction volume coming from African markets such as Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco.

Fawry now supports millions of transactions daily for consumers and business through more than 90,000 locations (including groceries, pharmacies, stationaries and post offices), as well as through multiple alternative channels, including online, ATMs, and mobile wallets. The company’s client base and service offerings continue to expand, leading to rapid data growth. Abbas comments: "Our data has doubled in just the last eight months, and we expect it to grow even faster in the years to come.”

The technology offers data compression and deduplication features that enable Fawry to boost utilization of storage resources. Abbas adds: “IBM FlashSystem A9000R offers much greater performance than our previous storage platform, meaning that we get both optimized data economics and short response times. We were able to achieve a seamless migration to the new platform with zero downtime.”

Each day, Fawry processes 2 million financial transactions, giving Egyptians an easy, secure payment alternative to the complex, time-consuming procedures that are the norm. To help grow customer satisfaction and speed the roll-out of new services, Fawry deployed IBM® Storage, IBM Db2® and Oracle database on IBM Power Systems™ solutions.

UN Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) is pleased to announce that JUMO has won their Sprint4Women Design Competition for women’s financial inclusion in Zambia. JUMO was one of three finalists competing for a grant to roll-out digital financial services (DFS) solutions for the rural women of Zambia, alongside Fenix Zambia and Hobbiton Investments.

There are 430 million people in Africa who save $301 billion in saving groups, every year. Our entry market, Ghana, the fastest growing mobile money market in Africa, has about 24 million people in the informal sector. This consists of market traders, farmers and commercial drivers who are having access and the ability to build savings and an online credit history.

There are 430 million people in Africa who save $301 billion in saving groups, every year. Our entry market, Ghana, the fastest growing mobile money market in Africa, has about 24 million people in the informal sector. This consists of market traders, farmers and commercial drivers who are having access and the ability to build savings and an online credit history.

Fawry service can immediately be used by Egyptians to receive and pay their bills electronically among an ever growing list of billers and supporting banks. Consumers can already use Fawry for bill presentment and payment for telecommunications services including Etisalat, Mobinil, and Vodanfone.

FarmDrive is a Kenyan ¬based social enterprise that is unlocking access to financial services for over 50 million smallholder farmers in Africa. Using simple mobile phone technology, alternative data sets, and sophisticated data analytics, FarmDrive is closing the critical information gap that keeps smallholder farmers from getting loans that would allow them to grow and diversify their businesses. Potentially creditworthy smallholder farmers are often denied loans because they lack the traditional credit profiles that lenders rely on to evaluate borrowers.FarmDrive bridges the funding gap between smallholder farmers and financial institutions in two ways. The first step is to bring together multiple streams of data to create yield-predictive agronomic algorithms specific to each farming vertical and geographical region. T hese streams of data can be classified into three categories: 1. Agronomic Data: crop portfolio, soil health, drainage, weeds, pests, etc. 2. Remote Sensing Data: vegetation, weather conditions, climate trends, etc. 3. Market Data: offtake security, price trends, etc. FarmDrive then creates credit profiles for farmers by combining the agronomic algorithm with behavioral data. The behavioral data is obtained from farmers through a simple SMS/Android mobile phone application. With this application, Farmers can track their revenues and expenses, and also send demographic information to FarmDrive.

Get the ability to provide banking services to people who were previously unreachable, thanks to a lower cost of risk and the ability to accurately predict future behaviour.

Unlock the value of individuals’ digital footprints and power a generation of entrepreneurs, small businesses and communities with real financial choice.

Credit Our lending products give entrepreneurs quick access to funds or asset finance. The loan amount, life cycle and repayment method can be configured to fit the needs of the individual. Savings JUMO builds and operates short-term, structured and long-term savings products that bear interest. They’re available to anyone who needs a safe place to store and grow their money. Insurance JUMO is able to work with underwriters and insurers to create standalone or wrapped insurance products to safeguard incomes, families, assets and businesses, no matter how small. Points We’re developing a white label points programme that can be used as a tool to drive and incentivise mobile transactions and empower people to build a personal, digital financial profile.

Funded through a government innovation agency and a successful crowdsourcing campaign, the start-up has also won several awards and grants, including best start-up in 2014's Global Innovation through Science & Technology competition.Last year, it was chosen by the International Red Cross as a provider for its Fire Sensors initiative, a project that has distributed 900 of the devices along with extensive market research.Julie Arrighi, Innovation Advisor at the American Red Cross, said that using networked heat sensors like Lumkani is crucial to mitigating the growing risk of slum fires around the world.

AIRO: There is a growing demand among Egyptian consumers for more convenient payment methods, according to a recent survey conducted by Fawry, the first nationwide electronic payment service in Egypt. Over 90 percent of Egyptians said that saving time was their primary concern when it comes to paying bills.

Ashraf Sabry, CEO of Fawry, said, “Research conducted for Fawry by IPSOS showed that 85.6 percent of respondents surveyed are seeking more efficient payment methods for household bills. The average Egyptian family has between 15 to 17 regular payments to make. These include mobile and landline bills, utilities, insurance, school or university fees and much more.

Fawry was established in response to growing consumer demand for alternative payment methods that simplify the process of receiving bills and paying them. Fawry today has 12,000 Fawry payment points across the country, that form one-stop-shop, instant, multiple-bill payment locations