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Hailed as the “Kenyan technology success story”, many have claimed M-PESA to be a testimony to the greatness of the East African country’s technology scene, producing world-class technology companies that rival those in South Africa. However, is the acclaimed mobile money service really Kenyan at all? The answer is no. M-PESA is British.

By any stretch of the currently available facts, the service that accounts for more than 60 percent of Kenya’s GDP in transactions was conceived by British professionals. The company commissioned with developing the idea, Sagentia, into a workable technology was British. Additionally, the company that owns the intellectual property rights to the idea, Vodafone, is British and, lastly, it was funded in its initial stages by the British Government.

Nyagaka Anyona Ouko, a Kenyan from Nairobi, claims he is the innovator of M-Pesa and claims that Vodafone and its representatives stole the idea of Mobile Cash Transfer from him.

The investment will allow FarmDrive to scale to US$13 million of loan originations in 2019 with minimal losses and exceptional returns using RiPe, a customisable lending engine that will allow lenders to plug in and access low-cost loan origination channels such as USSD, credit scoring, identity verification, and a portfolio management suite that includes recovery and collections, payments, customer support, and advanced real-time data analytics.

African fintech startup Jumo has pulled in a fresh $12.5 million to add more fuel for its expansion into Asia Pacific.

Jumo specializes in social impact financial products, such as microloans, savings and insurance.

It started in Tanzania, and today claims to have originated more than $1 billion in loans.

CEO of Jumo, Andrew Watkins-Ball, comments: “We have a proven business model, evidenced in the strategic partnerships we have built with forward-thinking banks, mobile money operators and partners like Uber."

Since launch in 2014, more than 10 million people have saved or borrowed on the Jumo platform, with nearly 70% of these being micro and small business owners across Africa and Asia. To date, the company has originated almost US$1 billion in loans and maintained savings growth of over 50% month-on-month on its platform, which manages over 45 million customer interactions per month.

Jumo currently has offices in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Ghana, Zambia, Pakistan, United Kingdom, Singapore and South Africa. It set up its Asia Pacific headquarters in Singapore earlier in the year and has plans to enter several new Asian markets in 2019.

Nigerian fintech firm Carbon — an early-stage financial services startup based in Lagos — has posted on its website financials audited by KPMG.This comes four months after the company obtained a credit rating as a pre-IPO venture. Carbon — which recently rebranded its OneFi holding company and PayLater product titles into one name — plans to continue releasing its financial results on an annual basis, co-founder and CEO Chijioke Dozie told TechCrunch.This may not be totally unheard of in other global tech markets, but for startups in Africa’s big tech hubs — such as Nigeria — it’s a rarity.One of the first glimpses into startup financials in Nigeria came when Jumia shareholder Rocket Internet went public in 2014, which required it to include limited Jumia data in its annual report. The accompanying prospectus to Jumia’s listing this year on the New York Stock Exchange offered the most expansive financial data to date on a tech venture operating in Africa.Prior to this — and still for the most part — companies in the continent’s (mostly) pre-public (earlier-stage) startup hubs — such as Nigeria — provide little to no financial performance info.“Typically, in the local market, we have not seen a lot of voluntary transparency or the availability of data,” said Lexi Novitske — a Lagos-based VC investor at Acuity Venture Partners.“Most startups are concerned such disclosure could expose losses, give market intel to competitors or attract unwanted attention from regulators. It could also lead to negative negotiation leverage if partners saw that they were making good returns.”So why’d Carbon go to the trouble of putting its pre-public accounting out in the open for anyone to see?

Clients and recruiting were two reasons. “From a customer perspective, we are trying to get people to trust us with their financial services…so they can see this is the institution I’m dealing with and this is their financial position,” explained Carbon’s Dozie.Carbon has evolved from its original focus as an online lender to offer a broader array of mobile-based financial services — including payments, investment products, credit reports and business banking services. In March, the company acquired Nigerian payment solutions company Amplify for an undisclosed amount.By stats offered by Briter Bridges and a 2018 WeeTracker survey, fintech now receives the bulk of VC capital and deal-flow to African startups, many of which are attempting to reach the continent’s large unbanked and underbanked populations.Carbon fits into that category and its CEO believes being upfront about the startup’s financial position will attract top talent. “From a recruitment perspective, we want recruits to know we have good prospects — that this is a company that’s doing well and wants to keep doing well,” said Dozie.That impression is buoyed by Carbon’s initial results, which were fairly positive for a Series A-stage startup. The company had revenues in 2018 of $10 million, according to its online annual report, and turned a profit of around $500,000.It’s helped with recruiting interest, according to Dozie, who said he’d marked an increase in candidates inquiring about open positions since the results were posted.

we don’t get considered because investors don’t really think that you can get the results or this performance in the markets that we’re in,” he added — noting that Carbon has operations in Nigeria, Ghana and South Africa and is considering expansion in Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, DRC and Egypt.Investor Lexi Novitske thinks Carbon offering financial performance data is a good thing for Africa’s tech ecosystem. “The move builds trust from clients, partners or investors in a market where there is not a lot of openness,” she said. “I am encouraged to see how other companies will react. My hope is that more will openly report their own metrics…”Dozie says the company will continue to post audited financials on an annual basis, even if they show losses. If the startup continues to expand, attract capital and talent and grow revenues, other Nigerian fintech firms may follow suit.

As early as 2016, established banking and mobile phone companies were competing alongside specialist start-ups to become leaders in fintech, especially in Africa.In November last year, Nairobi-headquartered Prime Bank launched an international money transfer service in collaboration with London-headquartered SimbaPay, giving Prime Bank customers in Kenya access to mobile payments.

Founded by Peris Bosire and Rita Kimani, FarmDrive delivers productive digital loans and lay away savings products to smallholder farmers in Kenya, helping them grow their incomes and resilience.

As part of Lumkani’s mission to mitigate the loss of life and property caused by fires in South Africa and across the globe, we implement large scale roll-outs of our fire detection system into urban informal settlements and townships.

Before Lumkani introduced Fire Cover in 2016, there was little hope for households and businesses that had been excluded from insurance cover, to quickly rebuild, refurnish and return to a state of dignity.

South Africa-based financial technology firm JUMO plans to expand in high-growth Asian markets after securing the backing of Goldman Sachs GS.N in an equity funding round, the company's chief executive said.

Since its founding in 2014, JUMO, which helps individuals and small businesses access savings and credit products through their mobile devices, has mainly focused on Africa where the adoption of mobile money has transformed the banking landscape.

JUMO uses behavioural data such as mobile telephone use to help financial services providers and mobile network operators assess lending risk and tailor financial products to those living in developing countries where credit information is scarce.

#SolidariTECH The CGEM continues to invest in startup development. In collaboration with the Moroccan Start-up Ecosystem Catalysts (MSEC), it has launched a social initiative called #SolidariTECH. It orientates the startups to develop agile solutions to the COVID19 and quarantine issues for the benefit of civil society, companies and the Government. They provide new solutions in the fields of health, education and even DabaDoc medical consultation online. Now this initiative is welcoming a new stakeholder, the International Finance Corporation. It also aims to deploy the solutions proposed by these startups in neighboring countries such as Algeria and Tunisia and identify new synergies between #SolidariTECH and similar initiatives carried out in the Maghreb region.

The CGEM continues to invest in startup development. In collaboration with the Moroccan Start-up Ecosystem Catalysts (MSEC), it has launched a social initiative called #SolidariTECH.

For instance, the platform “DabaDoc “offers citizens the option to have a medical consultation online. Now this initiative0.959

If you would have told me 10 years ago that I would be running a company that does agriculture insurance, I would not have believed you. Agriculture has not been an area that people have invested in across Africa. Many of my cousins and childhood friends still work on their farms, but they are reluctant to invest, putting in only what they can afford to lose.The reason they don’t invest is simple. The chance of them losing their money due to the vagaries of the weather is huge. Working in insurance got me to understand about probabilities of loss early on — probabilities that cause our continent to be food insecure.

Pula’s mission is to give farmers confidence by providing risk mitigation. Our solutions protect a farmer’s investment by pairing it with insurance. We build business cases to persuade Fortune 500 companies, seed and fertilizer suppliers, lending institutions, and governments in Africa, that embedded insurance will help deliver better results for both businesses and food security.

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.

Thndr has simplified the investment process to encourage more investment in stocks, bonds, and funds without hefty commissions or strings attched. Thndr has already opned free trading accounts where users can sign up using the app and get notified once approved.

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.

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.

Women constitute the majority of remittance recipients globally and remittances have an impact on both women’s actual income as well as on social normsRemittances are believed to directly touch the lives of 1 billion people globally, maintaining millions of receiving families above the poverty line with remittances often representing 60 per cent or more of household income.

Remittances are believed to directly touch the lives of 1 billion people globally, maintaining millions of receiving families above the poverty line with remittances often representing 60 per cent or more of household income. Globally, women represent almost half of the 258 million migrants and back home in the countries of origin, women represent the majority of remittance recipients.

data from WorldRemit indicates that in 2014, 20.46 per cent of their female customers globally would use mobile money as payout mechanism compared to only 13.99 per cent of men.

Nigerian digital financial platform, Carbon (formerly Paylater) is taking big steps to introduce its revamped financial services into Ghana. The online lender is looking to hire a new country manager for Ghana and this suggests the company is looking to introduce its new services like PayVest into Ghana.

SimbaPay is a UK-based digital money transfer service serving Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, and Ghana that delivers money via existing mobile money wallet services and using its SimbaPay app. Simbapay and Kenya’s Family Bank recently launched an instant payment service from East Africa to China. Users can send funds to China through Family Bank’s PesaPap app or Safaricom’s M-Pesa.

Founded in 2009, Paga offers digital bank services (peer-to-peer money transfer, bill payments, online payments, and payroll), achieving a wide reach in Nigeria.

Financial intermediation and financial inclusion in sub-Saharan Africa remain low, despite progress in recent years. Helped by reforms, the depth and coverage of financial systems in sub-Saharan Africa—as measured by the standard indicators of financial development, such as the ratios of private sector credit to GDP and broad money to GDP—have significantly improved over the period 1995 to 2013 (Kasekende 2010). However, on average, countries in sub-Saharan Africa continue to have a shallower financial system than those in other developing regions of the world (Figure 1). In terms of financial inclusion, only 20 percent of the population has a bank account compared to 92 percent in advanced economies and 38 percent in nonadvanced economies (Table 1). Underinvestment, poor infrastructure, and comparatively low levels of financial literacy have contributed to the region being underbanked.

Across the globe, smallholder farmers lose between $50 billion and $100 billion annually, often from natural disasters, but reportedly only 1% is insured from these accidents. As an example, in Feburary 2019, the company made several payouts to farmers in Kenya as poor rainfall caused large amount of crop failure.

Jason Schapiro, WorldCover Lead Engineer, said “Our algorithms are specifically calibrated to rainfall events by region and crop type, automatically triggering instant payouts to insured farmers through mobile money services like M-Pesa.”

Microfinance practices were originally developed in offline contexts. Modern microfinance practices were based on development models for the financial and social empowerment of the poorest of poor in developing countries. Several of these practices drew from existing traditions of money lending within local communities that were reformed to be in sync with rural development and the empowerment of the underprivileged individual. In present ‘postmodern’ times, microfinance providers are using online tools in the hopes of broadening the reach and extending the advantages provided by such a model of micro-lending and micro-borrowing. In this article, we examine an online peer-to-peer lending and borrowing website, Kiva.org, which uses online social networking tools in microfinance. The study is thus a close look at the actual content of the website with a view to understanding the representational practices of online space through Internet mediated microfinance.

JUMO partnered with Uber to create JUMO Drive, a first-of-its-kind digital vehicle asset finance product for rideshare drivers.

JUMO partnered with Telenor and Telenor Microfinance bank to launch the first commercial product in Asia.

The first funding partner was introduced to the operating platform. JUMO’s partnership with Letshego Bank in Ghana enabled payment and capital providers to work together to build products.