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M-Pesa is Africa's most successful mobile money service and the region’s largest fintech platform. M-Pesa is the preferred way to make payments across the continent both for the banked and unbanked due to its safety and unmatched convenience.

In 2019, our 41.5 million active customers carried out over 12 billion transactions

M-Pesa is Africa's most successful mobile money service and the region’s largest fintech platform. M-Pesa is the preferred way to make payments across the continent both for the banked and unbanked due to its safety and unmatched convenience.

M-Pesa is Africa's most successful mobile money service and the region’s largest fintech platform. M-Pesa is the preferred way to make payments across the continent both for the banked and unbanked due to its safety and unmatched convenience.  It also provides financial services to millions of people who have mobile phones, but do not have bank accounts, or only have limited access to banking services.

Established on 6th March 2007 by Vodafone's Kenyan associate, Safaricom, M-Pesa is Africa's leading mobile money service with more than 430,000 active agents operating across the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Mozambique and Tanzania.

3. Regulators finally make the pivot to supporting the FinTech ecosystemBitX, a bitcoin startup in Singapore, was looking to enter the UK and European markets. Instead of having an arduous journey gaining the required licenses and approvals as it would have expected in the past, BitX was accepted into the regulatory sandbox of the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority. This enabled it to test its services and build its product with the backing of the regulator. This kind of thinking reflects how in the past few years we have seen regulators move from hindering innovation and new services, to proactively supporting and strengthening the FinTech ecosystem.It is a challenging line to take, particularly in the

world of finance – to help create the framework and environment for innovation, while also protecting consumers and businesses. However, increasingly we see regulators getting this blend right.For example, the European Union’s Directive on Payment Services (PSD2) will create an EU-wide single market for payments. This will drive new opportunities and innovation in the payment sector, because it will force financial institutions to provide secure access for a third-party service provider to a customer’s online account. Meanwhile, we have seen regulatory sandboxes emerge not just in the UK, but in locations from Singapore to Australia. The US Treasury meanwhile recently announced it will start issuing special purpose national bank charters to FinTech companies.In the future, expect to see the emergence of “RegTech”. This will enable real-time interaction and analysis between regulators and financial institutions. Indeed, thi

ch as in New York, London or Singapore. So, although the UK dominates the world of fintech (generating an estimated £6.6billion in FinTech related revenue), leading organizations are looking for inspiration among the innovative services, products and ideas being created from Guadalajara, to Laos, to Kenya.In many cases we can see that the unique financial environment of these locations is resulting in novel ideas. For example, Guadalajara based start-up Kueski uses a person’s digital footprint to assess their credit worthiness – a particular challenge in Mexico where credit is not available to large swathes of the population. In Latin America Tigo Cash is a mobile financial service which already handles more cash than many financial institutions in the region. We will see markets and services emerging which are currently not on anyone’s map, and become some of the most important financial organizations in the world.

software platform between itself and the banks, so it can view and analyze information in real-time.4. Look beyond the hubs to find innovative ideasAcross Kenya, mobile money has become ubiquitous – being used by at least one person in 96% of Kenyan households. But what is the real impact of mobile money in such countries? One study estimated that M-PESA, the Kenyan mobile money system which enables money to be stored on a phone and be sent via text, has helped lift 2% of Kenyan households out of poverty.What this example demonstrates is that the impact of FinTech innovation is often created and experienced outside of the usual hubs of finance su

In the past few years we have seen the rapid evolution of FinTech from generating novel ideas which solve customer problems, to offering core financial services. We have seen the shift from digital startups, characterized by a lack of financial wherewithal and which operated on the edge of tightly regulated markets, to the emergence of mature financial digital organizations at the heart of the traditional financial world.We can describe the development and maturing of FinTech in 3 main waves:The early emergence of digital startups helping consumers. Originally FinTech solutions were the preserve of B2C markets which solved specific customer problems such as offering home loans faster and easier. They used new technologies such as mobile and cloud computing, and were characterized by a laser focus on the customer with all the hall-marks of a digital Silicon-Valley style start-up.Transition to B2B markets. Today FinTech plays a role at the core of B2B innovation in financial markets, and industry observers widely expect B2B FinTech revenues to dwarf those in consumer markets within the next couple of years. Organizations such as Currency Cloud (cross border B2B payments), Payoneer Escrow (escrow services), and Hummingbill (B2B invoice platform) all reflect a maturing industry.The creation of an ecosystem between FinTech and traditional players. FinTech organizations are realizing that the required go-to-market investment, economies of scale, and regulatory needs, means it makes sense to partner with traditional financial institutions. On the other side, established players recognize the value, innovation and potential of FinTech in a world which is increasingly mobile-first. These financial institutions are also adopting many of the methods that FinTechs use so successfully, from a focus on the customer, to using Agile software development, to holding hackathons, and forming accelerators and innovation programs.

ch as in New York, London or Singapore. So, although the UK dominates the world of fintech (generating an estimated £6.6billion in FinTech related revenue), leading organizations are looking for inspiration among the innovative services, products and ideas being created from Guadalajara, to Laos, to Kenya.In many cases we can see that the unique financial environment of these locations is resulting in novel ideas. For example, Guadalajara based start-up Kueski uses a person’s digital footprint to assess their credit worthiness – a particular challenge in Mexico where credit is not available to large swathes of the population. In Latin America Tigo Cash is a mobile financial service which already handles more cash than many financial institutions in the region. We will see markets and services emerging which are currently not on anyone’s map, and become some of the most important financial organizations in the world.

It’s 2020 and to apply for a loan, instead of going to your local bank branch, you quickly ask Facebook for approval. This is far from fanciful thinking. Even as of today, PayPal is arguably one of the largest retail banks — it has more money in deposits than all but the largest 20 US banks, and offers services from payments, to loans and credit cards (albeit currently via partners). But we believe that one of the major tech companies, whether that is Facebook, Amazon, Google, or Ant Financial (the financial arm of Alibaba) will not only transform retail banking, but rapidly become the largest retail bank in the world.

SimbaPay transfers funds to 11 countries — nine in Africa then to China and India. “Early next year we’ll increase this to 29 countries,” said Sagini. This includes offering the WeChat China payment service elsewhere in East Africa.

SimbaPay and Family Bank will generate revenues on the WeChat-based transfer service through a fee share arrangement on transactions. “We have a sliding scale of charges [for the service]. For example, to send the equivalent of $80 will cost $3.50,” said Sagini.This presents a significant reduction of fees and opportunity cost for Kenyan traders who import from China, according to Sagini and Family Bank.Current available payment methods to China for Kenyan businesses are less secure and more expensive options, such as traditional money transmitters (Western Union), SWIFT and off the grid services, according to Sagini and Family Bank Chief Operation Officer (COO) Godfrey Kamau Kariuki.

SimbaPay and Family Bank estimate over seven million customers and businesses will be able to access their China WeChat payment service, based on projections of Kenya’s current SMEs.

SimbaPay and Family Bank will generate revenues on the WeChat-based transfer service through a fee share arrangement on transactions. “We have a sliding scale of charges [for the service]. For example, to send the equivalent of $80 will cost $3.50,” said Sagini.

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

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.

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.

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.

Belcash is the proprietor and provider of the 'Hello' brand. We attempt to find the perfect fit for our customers and partners. This heavy focus on customer service, innovation and professionalism means that our stakeholders are proud to identify themselves with us. Though each Hello brand represents a different service, they all share one key feature - the mobile phone is the access point for their service.

A farmer has no bank account and wants to deposit his commodity sale proceeds of 1,000 shillings goes to an M-Pesa outlet and deposits the money with the kiosk agent or attendant. The agent, in turn, uses her phone to access the client’s account with the client’s registered phone number and credit the account for 1,000 shillings.

M-Pesa is a mobile banking service that allows users to store and transfer money through their mobile phones. M-Pesa was introduced in Kenya as an alternative way for the population of the country to have access to financial services. Safaricom, the largest mobile phone operator in Kenya, launched M-Pesa in 2007. The service is a blend of two entities where M means mobile and Pesa means money or payment in the Swahili language.

Financial inclusion is an initiative that seeks to include residents who have no access to banks or who can’t afford the required minimum deposits in the digital banking era. In order for this initiative to succeed, different sectors must collaborate in sharing data with each other and build a meaningful digital platform.

Through mobile payment services like M-Pesa, the standard of living in Kenya has improved greatly. Market traders, debt collectors, farmers, and cab drivers don’t need to carry around or transact in a large amount of cash. This means that the occurrence of theft, robbery, and fraud is reduced. Also, individuals and business owners don’t have to wait in long lines for hours to make their electricity and water bill payments because these can be made using M-Pesa.

To combat fraud, Safaricom mandates that users of a Safaricom SIM card who want to register for M-Pesa have to do so with a valid government ID such as the Kenyan national identification card or a passport. This way, each transaction is marked with the identification of the party transferring, paying, depositing, or withdrawing money from an account.

To combat fraud, Safaricom mandates that users of a Safaricom SIM card who want to register for M-Pesa have to do so with a valid government ID such as the Kenyan national identification card or a passport. This way, each transaction is marked with the identification of the party transferring, paying, depositing, or withdrawing money from an account.

M-Pesa is one of the innovative tools that have been birthed from the collaboration of telecommunication and banking sectors in East Africa.M-Pesa began in Kenya and is being utilized in 10 countries, including India and Romania. Emergent technology in the financial sector, or Fintech, has made it possible for financial services and products, like M-Pesa, to be more accessible at small costs.M-Pesa makes it possible for unbanked people to pay for and receive goods and services using a mobile phone instead of utilizing a brick-and-mortar bank.

This cross-communication tactic used by M-Pesa is developing rapidly in sub-Saharan Africa, where the telecommunication and banking sectors are working together to create mobile banking services for those with limited access to traditional banking.

AgroTrade : Which is a sales platform that connects smallholder farmer directly to a larger market to trade fairly. AgroTrade matches smallholder farmers in rural areas to small, medium and large buyers in the urban areas.

Francis Obirikorang is the CEO/Co-founder of AgroCenta and Michael Ocansey is the CTO/Co-founder of AgroCenta. Francis and Michael are both ex-employees of Esoko, one of the largest market information platforms in Africa for smallholder farmers.

AgroPay is the financial inclusion platform for smallholder farmers where farmers in rural areas, without bank accounts, receive payments for goods and services via mobile money technologies.

AgroCenta provides the “last mile” approach for the smallholder farmers, going a step further to help farmers sell competitively after the get market information only from existing e-agriculture products on the market.

Share7KTweetShareWhatsAppEmail7K SharesEgyptian electronic payments company Fawry now has a market cap of over $1 billion. It achieved the feat during the intraday trading, with its share price rising to EGP 22.69 which gives it a market cap of EGP 16 billion or $1 billion (for the first time). With this, Fawry has become the first technology company in Egypt to get to the billion-dollar valuation.

Egyptian electronic payments company Fawry now has a market cap of over $1 billion. It achieved the feat during the intraday trading, with its share price rising to EGP 22.69 which gives it a market cap of EGP 16 billion or $1 billion (for the first time). With this, Fawry has become the first technology company in Egypt to get to the billion-dollar valuation.

Its revenue for the first half of 2020 has increased by 47 percent (year-on-year) to EGP 549.26 million ($34.41 million) from EGP 373.33 million ($23.38 million) for the same period of 2019. The net profit of the company in H1 2020 has increased by over 135 percent YoY to EGP 85.9 million ($5.38 million) from EGP 36.47 million ($2.29) in H1 2019.

Its stock price has increased by over 300 percent since its debut at The Egyptian Exchange in August last year. It had gone public with its shares priced at EGP 6.46 (per share).

Egypt's Fawry is now a billion-dollar company

Its stock price has increased by over 300 percent since its debut at The Egyptian Exchange in August last year. It had gone public with its shares priced at EGP 6.46 (per share).

Its revenue for the first half of 2020 has increased by 47 percent (year-on-year) to EGP 549.26 million ($34.41 million) from EGP 373.33 million ($23.38 million) for the same period of 2019. The net profit of the company in H1 2020 has increased by over 135 percent YoY to EGP 85.9 million ($5.38 million) from EGP 36.47 million ($2.29) in H1 2019.

Fawry is the Leading Egyptian Digital Transformation & E-Payments Platform, offering financial services to consumers and businesses through more than 194,000 locations and a variety of channels.

Fawry is an Egyptian company that started in 2009 with the purpose of offering electronic payment services through several payment channels. The service started at banks and a big network of outlets all over the republic as well as Egypt post. Now we are covering about 60 types of bills, where we cover the telecommunications sector and lately we covered all electrical companies in the country and some water companies. We also offer our services at universities and syndicates. Adding to that, users can now buy their airline tickets through us.

With over 1 billion subscribers, WeChat is the largest payment and social media app in China. This initiative therefore connects Africa’s largest mobile money ecosystem to China’s largest payment service in real-time.

This cloud and AI-powered technology stack connects banks with traditionally inaccessible customers in cost-effective, low-risk and responsible ways. Today our partners deploy loans, savings and insurance services from Africa to Asia, helping entrepreneurs in emerging markets to grow and prosper.

With a population of over 100 million people, Egypt is a land of opportunity for consumer services providers. In a country where payment procedures are often slow, fragmented and complex, Fawry identified a gap in the market for a simple, secure omnichannel payment gateway.

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.”

Fawry Putting Egypt on the global digital payments map

Fawry has a long history with IBM, having chosen IBM solutions to underpin its business again and again over the last decade. The company relies on both IBM Db2 and Oracle database software running on IBM Power Systems to support its bespoke electronic financial platform, processing 2 million transactions per day. “Together, IBM Db2, Oracle database and IBM Power Systems solutions give us the ability to process huge transaction volumes,” comments Abbas. “They provide a powerful foundation for our business, and have scaled seamlessly as we’ve grown.”

This is the first time the service has been introduced in Egypt and MasterCard cardholders will be the first to enjoy this fast, easy, secure and convenient bill payment channel. MasterCard and Fawry opted to launch this service in Egypt as a key market in the Middle East and Africa regions.

Recognizing the need to continue providing our customers with innovative payment options, we worked closely with MasterCard to offer cardholders a new and convenient method for bill payments,” said Ashraf Sabry, CEO, Fawry

Jumo is a disruptive fintech business that is rapidly reshaping how ethical financial products reach consumers and SMEs in emerging markets. Its mission is to build and operate inclusive digital banking marketplaces to advance financial inclusion for the 80 per cent of the world’s population who are excluded or underserved by traditional financial services.

By creating a customer-centric platform that enables the distribution of leading-edge financial offerings instantly and on-mobile, JUMO is generating access at an unprecedented rate

Advancing inclusive access to and usage of affordable formal financial services is vital to promoting vital financial health, economic empowerment, financial stability and sustainable growth. Yet emerging markets have negligible penetration of formal financial services: savings is chronically underdeveloped and the majority of the world’s 2 billion unbanked adults are found in low- and middle-income emerging markets.

SmartelMoney | About Us

SmartelMoney | About Us