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Fawry for Banking & Payment Technology Services SAE, an Egyptian digital payments provider, was listed on Cairo’s exchange about a year back. The company recently experienced a 300% increase in its market value to 20 billion Egyptian pounds (appr. $1.3 billion). The payments firm confirmed that its valuation has grown 4x since the COVID-19 outbreak in late February 2020. As first reported by Bloomberg, Fawry is now ranked among Egypt’s 10 most valuable firms, which include Telecom Egypt Co. and Elswedy Electric Co. However, these businesses are generating a lot more revenue compared to Fawry for now. Many locals in Egypt are still settling transactions with cash payments, despite the Coronavirus crisis which has made it unsafe to handle paper currency notes. However, the nation’s reserve bank has asked lending platforms and other financial service providers to encourage residents to make digital payments via mobile wallets. The central bank also wants Egyptians to use online payment platforms like Fawry in order to limit physical contact, so that the virus doesn’t spread further.

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.

AgroCenta brings all the stakeholders in Ghana’s agricultural value chain together to facilitate effective trading within its web and mobile platform. They target rural smallholder farmers and farmer-based organizations that have limited access to markets, logistics, or technology. AgroCenta works to improve the livelihoods of farmers by providing an all-in-one SMS based solution to access commodity pricing, offer goods for sale across Ghana, and an on-demand logistics service to ensure timely deliveries.

Business Model

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.

A consortium of international financial investors comprising the Egyptian-American Enterprise Fund (“EAEF”), Helios Investment Partners (“Helios”, acting on behalf of funds it advises) and the MENA Long-Term Value Fund (“MENA LTV”) (together, the “Consortium”) today announced it has acquired a majority stake in Fawry, the leading electronic bill presentment and payment platform in Egypt at a purchase price valuing the company at EGP 773 million, approximately US$ 100 million.Headquartered in Cairo, Fawry provides users with a secure electronic bill presentment and payment services solution, connecting consumers, merchants, governments and financial institutions on a consolidated gateway that is accessible through multiple channels, including Point of Sale (POS) machines, ATMs, post offices, online and through mobile wallets.  Since its establishment in 2009, Fawry has been at the forefront of electronic payments in Egypt, providing pioneering, innovative and convenient payment solutions to its customers. The company today processes over one million transactions a day and operates a network of over 50,000 collection points in 300 cities and suburbs across the country.

In the year 2000, we began the Safaricom journey with a view to Transform Lives. Safaricom is one of a small group of about 400 companies across Africa whose annual revenues are more than $1 billion. Many of these companies are pan-African in their operations and are active in increasingly diverse sectors.

M-PESA is restoring dignity to thousands of refugees. Through a partnership with the World Food Programme, we are leveraging M-PESA to help more refugees access food, through a product known as Chakula Chap Chap. M-PESA has enabled us to digitize food delivery for over 100,000 households. It has removed the opportunity for corruption by eliminating middle-men, and reduced the cost of distributing relief aid, creating employment and business opportunities for people in refugee camps. This initiative has shown us that our business can help bridge critical gaps for our society.

In the year 2000, we began the Safaricom journey with a view to Transform Lives. Safaricom is one of a small group of about 400 companies across Africa whose annual revenues are more than $1 billion. Many of these companies are pan-African in their operations and are active in increasingly diverse sectors.

Avec cette prise de participation de 3 millions de dollars, Proparco soutiendra la croissance de JUMO. Elle contribuera au développement de l’inclusion financière des populations exclues du système bancaire formel. Deux tiers des clients de JUMO sont issus du secteur informel.

This Global Payment Gateways Market report provides the readers with detailed figures at which the Payment Gateways market was valued in the historical year and its expected growth in upcoming years. Besides, analysis also forecasts the CAGR at which the Payment Gateways industry is expected to mount and major factors driving markets growth. The global Payment Gateways market report offers users the detailed study of the market and its main aspects. There are different marketing strategies that every marketer looks up to in order to ace the competition in the Global market. There is a target set in market that every marketing strategy has to reach. Some of the important aspects analyzed in the report include market share, production, key regions, revenue rate as well as key players.

Bisharo’s story is one of the many urban merchants who have discovered the power of digital payments for their businesses. Over the past few years, technology providers such as BelCash with their HelloCash mobile money, product working closely with the Somali Microfinance Institution, have made significant progress in helping merchants like Bisharo realize the benefits of digitizing payments.

This is why the Vodacom-Safaricom duo has created a joint venture with full powers to make M-Pesa a “super-app” to provide for various needs such as booking taxis, making various appointments or paying for various services by mobile phone.

Safaricom launched new services as early as 2013, with M-Shwari, Fuliza and KCB M-Pesa came later to provide savings and micro-loans. By 2019, these “apps within apps” will account for two-thirds of M-Pesa’s revenues (84.4 billion shillings in total). “Remittances are still performing well and are up 14.6 per cent over the previous year,” said Sateesh Kamath, Safaricom’s chief financial officer.

Being the leading the electornic payments player in Egypt, Fawry is arguably the biggest benificiary of acceleration of digital payments there. It offers hundreds of electronic payment services through its network of over over close to 200,000 service points across Egypt – whcih include ATMs, mobile wallets, retail shops, post offices, and vendor kiosks. Fawry has introduced many new payments and lending products for both consumers and businesses over the last tweleve months and is apparently on additional new services too that are expected to be rolled out within the next few months.

The Egyptian payments firm had gone public in August 2020 by listing its shares on EGX at the price of EGP 6.46 per share. The share price has surged over 7x after company’s public market debut about eigtheen months ago.

TPAY MOBILE makes it easy for digital service providers to access over 600 million customers and accept payments across MEA and Turkey. Through one simple API integration, TPAY MOBILE’s full service mobile payment platform enables rapid business growth and drives financial inclusion.

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.

Sanlam’s recent deal to acquire a 30% stake in EasyEquities for R100m sparked a lot of interest in the market. However, Sanlam-owned Satrix and EasyEquities have struck up partnerships prior to this deal with the advent of SatrixNOW, an offering that taps a white-labeled EasyEquities service. CEO of Satrix, Helena Conradie, took some time out earlier this week to chat to BizNews about the Sanlam-EasyEquities deal and the backstory to how a tweet of all things kick-started the relationship between the two businesses…

Fawry is yet to announce the results for fourth quarter of 2020 but for the first nine months of last year, the company made about $57 million (EGP 892.7 million) in revenue, an 45.2 percent increase year-on-year basis. For the same period, it doubled its net profit (on a YoY basis) to $7.5 million (EGP 119 million). The company has been witnessing decent growth over the last few years but it seems that Covid-19 has accelerated it even further.

M-Pesa has 20.5 million customers across a network of 176,000 agents and generates around one-fourth ($531 million) of Safaricom’s ≈ $2.2 billion annual revenues (2018). The company has held nearly 75% of the mobile-money market share in Kenya for nearly a decade and the country has the highest mobile-money usage rates in Africa.

AgroCenta has raised a total of $2.2M in funding over 4 rounds. Their latest funding was raised on Jan 29, 2021 from a Seed round.

MTN, Africa’s biggest mobile carrier, has continued to weather COVID-19 pressures in Nigeria, recording double-digit growth in data revenue and fintech services in the six months ending June.