Group items tagged

We provide both local and international investors with the tools they need to understand and invest in Kenya's financial markets. Via web and mobile apps, we provide news aggregated from different publishers and fed through sorting and analysis artificial intelligence, real time data from the the securities exchange, charting and analysis tools and order placement for shares currently, but will carry bonds, derivatives and investment funds as well. We have partnered with local banks and stock brokers to leverage their back-end infrastructure and for provision of liquidity.

​​Stellenbosch University (SU) is the first university in South Africa to make use of the SnapScan in-app payment solutions for payments on its campuses, so that students no longer have to carry cash with them for certain payments.

SnapScap is a mobile application that enables cashless payments. Initially two of SnapScan's in-app payment mechanisms will be available for students to do bill payments for their student fees, as well as for pre-paid internet and printer credits. These payments previously had to be made (in cash or with card) at the University's cashiers in the central administration building

Apart from SnapScan in-app payments, students also have an online option on the SU's website where they have the options of pre-paids (for internet, meals, washing, printing credits and rides) and bill payments (for student fees).

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

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

In Ghana there is currently just one sharia-compliant financial institution – Ghana Islamic Microfinance, which began as an NGO – though there is significant scope for growth. Part of this is due to the country’s demographic make-up. Although Muslims are far from the only potential client base for IFS, as evidenced by the rollout of Islamic financing instruments in countries like the UK and Japan, sharia-compliant products could prove attractive for the roughly 17.6% of Ghana’s population that identifies as Muslim, according to the 2010 census.

Smartel Money or My Wallet TM   are financial technology products by Smartel Money Ltd. The company is a payments service provider allowing payments and money transfers to be made through the modern information technology platforms including the mobile and non-mobile platforms. Mobile Money or electronic money is defined by the Mobile Money Guidelines issued in 2013 by the Central Bank of Lesotho (CBL) as a payment instrument that contains monetary value that is paid in advance by the user to the mobile money issuer. The user of mobile money can make payments for goods and services to agents who accept the mobile money as payment.

Smartel Money goes live - Lesotho Times

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.

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.

Voda-Idea explores M&A for Vodafone M-Pesa

MUMBAI: Vodafone M-Pesa Ltd. (VMPL), the payments wallet owned by Vodafone Idea, is considering merging its business with an associate company or a third party, but in the interim, has applied to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for extension of its prepaid payment instrument (PPI) license.

The moves are prompted by the fact that Vodafone Idea - created by the merger of Vodafone India and Idea Group – holds 100% of Vodafone M-Pesa Ltd. (VMPL) besides 49% shareholding in Aditya Birla Idea Payments Bank Limited (ABIPBL).

Lending through a pandemic COVID-19 has prevented them settling into Kenya, where there are no less than 50 digital lending platforms competing for an adult population that is over 80% financially included.  Reports of predatory lending have increased red tape in the East African country. A newly gazetted directive bars digital lenders from reporting defaulting borrowers below certain amounts to credit bureaus, among other rules.  It increases the time it will take for a new entrant like Carbon to comfortably express its various services. “We haven’t really had a chance to test the engine,” Dozie says, but they have given out enough loans to calibrate their algorithm. In Nigeria, they have reduced lending to shore up against the uncertainty caused by the pandemic, revising the repayment schedule for 9,016 loans. However, Dozie says they are currently at more than half the level achieved last year, in value and volume. Another profitable year ahead? Carbon’s products need overall improvement, in responding to customer complaints (see responses to this tweet) about deductions, and notification lags, among others. The pandemic’s impact on the Nigerian economy could have an effect on the company’s bottom line. Profit in the next report might as well be less impressive than what this year’s report contains. “It will be easier to beat [this year’s] numbers in naira terms, but we are all at the mercy of macroeconomics on the dollar terms,” Dozie says. He says they will report whatever happens, as part of a long-term pitch to customers who, he believes, will be impressed by an honest expression of financial strength. Otherwise, focus remains on leveraging other strategic moves from 2019, notably the acquisition of payments startup Amplify.  The latter’s intellectual property has gone into developing an SME platform, as well as in developing Carbon Express, a smartphone keypad button that can be used for instant transactions within any app. Carbon acquired Amplify particularly for this feature and their engineering. Maxwell Obi, one of Amplify’s two co-founders who joined Carbon as part of the deal, has left the company, but the others have been instrumental in building valuable aspects like an iOS app.

Another value-adding space is credit reporting. Carbon doesn’t produce the reports; they source from partner bureaus, and make them available to customers. 

In an audited report published this week, Carbon, the Nigerian fintech company, declared that it made the naira equivalent of $312,905 in profit after tax in 2019. 

Smartel Money customer base comprises banked and unbanked people and societies, insurance, retail grocery, retail clothing, retail cell phone services, utility services etc. We aim to provide to individuals, institutions, organizations, multi-industry sectors and governments with the cutting edge, fresh and innovative financial management system in this ever changing world.

Are acronyms for the Smartel Money Point of sales system and the Smartel Money Mobile point of sales systems respectively. These are the application systemsthat have access an access to the Smartel Money central engine. The sPOS runs on the normal desktop or a laptop computer, This system is connected to the Smartel Money central system, this system is used by the stationery merchants such as the grocers and has the capacity to parse smartel money as a payment instrument. The merchant may also chose to have the ERP linked to their sPOS. The smPOS is meant for the non-stationery merchant, as it runs on a mobile platform that is the iOS and android OS. Both the sPOS and the smPOS can use the CPEM and the security code scanning/tagging parsing technologies.

Smartel Money customer base comprises banked and unbanked people and societies, insurance, retail grocery, retail clothing, retail cell phone services, utility services etc. We aim to provide to individuals, institutions, organizations, multi-industry sectors and governments with the cutting edge, fresh and innovative financial management system in this ever changing world.

CEO of Abacus Wealth Management, an online investment brokerage. Abacus allows investors to make and execute faster, smarter, more informed decisions on instruments in Kenya's financial markets. CEO of Capital Associates, an investment and holding company with interests in financial services, real estate, agriculture and technology. Previously started and built Kenya’s largest consumer financial news and information site. Experience in mobile money, having led teams that developed mobile banking solutions for Kenyan branches of global banks such as Barclays and Standard Chartered, and several local banks and financial institutions. I keep up to date with changes in the industry and get involved through consulting and advisory. Actively involved in Kenya’s start-up scene as an entrepreneur, a member of the iHub and Venture Capital for Africa (VC4A) communities, as an advisor to several web and mobile start-ups and a writer. My focus is on business and revenue models, financing and venture capital.

Mobile money, a technology-driven innovation in financial services, has profoundly penetrated the financial landscape in Sub-Saharan Africa, including banks. Yet, besides anecdotal evidence, little is known about whether mobile money adoption enhances or worsens bank performance. Combining hand-collected data with balance sheet data from Bankscope for a panel of 170 financial institutions over the period 2009-2015, we find a strong positive and significant relationship between the time elapsed since banks’ adoption of mobile money and their performance considering an array of proxies of bank profitability, efficiency and stability. In further investigations, we show how bank specialization and size alter such an association. Our results are robust to using instrumental variables, controlling for bank and macro level confounding factors, bank fixed effects and considering alternative measures of bank performance and mobile money adoption. Furthermore, we show that enhanced income diversification and broadened access to deposits are possible channels through which banks involved in mobile money improve their performance. Overall, our findings highlight the bright side of cooperation between banks and mobile network operators in the provision of mobile money.

MyWallet is a financial technology (fintech) product that allows for payments and money transfers to be made through modern information technology platforms such as mobile phones.Mobile money or electronic money is defined by the Mobile Money Guidelines issued by the CBL as payment instruments that contain monetary value that is paid in advance by the user to the money issuer.