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Fawry’s fortune is partly due to the COVID-19 pandemic that caused more people to place a high demand for its e-payment offerings. Being the leading fintech company in Egypt, Fawry’s revenue for the first half of 2020 increased by 47% to EGP 549.26M, from EGP 373.33 generated in 2019.Fawry has joined the rank of African companies that have become unicorns. Jumia was the first to attain unicorn status after listing on the New York Stock Exchange. Interswitch also became a unicorn after Visa acquired minority stakes last year. All three have attained global recognition, credibility, and reputation. The unicorn status creates a good public perception for investors and potential customers.

Fawry’s fortune is partly due to the COVID-19 pandemic that caused more people to place a high demand for its e-payment offerings. Being the leading fintech company in Egypt, Fawry’s revenue for the first half of 2020 increased by 47% to EGP 549.26M, from EGP 373.33 generated in 2019.

Ashraf Sabry and Mohamed Okasha founded Fawry in 2008. It has an online payment gateway for business owners to transact with customers via cash, credit cards, and e-wallets. In 2019, Fawry listed about 36% (254.6M) of its ordinary shares on the Egyptian Stock Exchange. It initially sold at EGP 6.46 per share, and then it tripled to EGP 18.78 at a market cap of EGP 13.3B in July 2020. After going public, other investors took an interest that led to a significant increase by over 300% in its stock price since its debut at the Egyptian Stock Exchange.

Savings and investing is a critical part of building wealth and economic development, and Egypt’s youth needs a mobile-first platform like Thndr to open the floodgates of investing in the coming decades. Platforms like Thndr have seen great success in other markets across the world, and Thndr is built with keen attention to the local nuances and preferences of the Egyptian investor in mind.

Egyptian mobile investment app, Thndr has become the first brokerage firm to receive regulatory approval from the Financial Regulatory Association (FRA) in the last 12 years. The financial startup allows users to link their Egyptian bank account, and trade, invest, and profit from Egyptian stocks, bonds, and indices. The decision by FRA to give the startup regulatory approval comes after Egypt reforms its financial regulations on new companies with the recently approved Banking Act passed last month which allows more companies to become involved with financial trading and investment.

Before the passing of the Banking Act in July 2020, the only financial apps available for Egyptians were applications that helped you put aside money for saving. However, that is set to change as companies like Thndr take advantage of the new space given to financial technology companies to allow users to invest in the Egyptian stock exchange from their homes. Stock investment apps have become popular in the last few years as a way to not only save money but to make savings grow over time. While there is always risk involved with stock trading, Thndr hoping to provide users with education on how to invest in order to be more financial secure.

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.

Stock trading app Thndr has completed its registration with the EGX, the company announced on its website. The no-commission equities trading platform last month became Egypt’s first company to obtain a new brokerage license since 2008.

EasyEquities aims to disrupt and remove the barriers to entry in local and international stock markets, making the purchase of shares easy, cheap and fun, and ensuring that anyone can own shares in the companies they love.

EasyEquities (EE), a subsidiary of JSE listed Purple Group Limited (PPE), is an online platform which allows anyone to buy shares in the brands and companies they love. For as little as R5, $10 or whatever amount they have available to invest (and with no monthly brokerage fees) newbie and seasoned investors alike can grow their wealth. EE powered by First World Trader (Pty), as an authorized financial services provider, has a strong focus on customer satisfaction. Our mission is to be a respected and recognized financial services provider. Treating our customers fairly is a primary objective of the conceptualization, creation and launch of the platform.

For wealth management, Abacus is perhaps the most visible platform. The five-year-old NSE-licensed company offers users the ability to deposit, buy, sell, and trade unit trusts, bonds, and equities on their platform.Another startup is the earlier-mentioned Abojani which is an agent of AIB Capital for the purchase of local stocks. Founded in 2018, Abojani claims to have up to KES 40 Mn (roughly USD 400 K) under management for 150 clients in both stocks and mutual funds, as its CEO revealed to WeeTracker.Other platforms for wealth management in Kenya are Britam Asset Managers for mutual funds and Scope Markets for offshore stocks via Contract for Difference (CFD).

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.

Founded in 2019 by Uber Egypt’s former General Manager Ahmad Hammouda, Thndr is starting with a Robinhood-like mobile-first equities trading platform that enables people to invest in stocks in The Egyptian Exchange.

Ahmad Hammouda, the co-founder and CEO of Thndr, said, “Our vision is to put wealth in the hands of everyday individuals. With the rise of technology, and the foresight of a very supportive Financial Regulatory Authority, we can make this vision come to life — Egypt is expected to be the 7th largest economy by 2030 and has more than 100 mn people, most of which are young and are looking for a convenient and digital way to invest their money. That’s why we are excited to bring a new breed of young investors to the market.”

EasyEquities clients won’t be able to buy Nokia shares, while the fight between retail investors and Wall Street hots up.Millions of small investors have been buying GameStop shares to squeeze large hedge funds, who bet big money that the US retailer’s share price would fall.

EasyEquities clients were informed that they won’t be able to buy Nokia shares for now.

Easy Equities is an easy to use platform where you can buy equities, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and exchange-traded notes (ETNs), as well as other baskets and bundles. If the term ‘safe’ in your question means that it’s a legitimate and licensed platform, and the person running Easy Equities is not going take your money and buy themselves a Ferrari and post it on Instagram, then yes, Easy Equities is ‘safe

Fawry saw a record surge in stock price during the first two months after their initial debut. The price then flattened until March – where it dropped to a record low of EGP 7 per share. As COVID-19 took center stage, the price shot up to its record high.

CAIRO (Reuters) - The initial public offering for Egyptian digital payments company Fawry was oversubscribed by 30.3 times at a price of 6.46 Egyptian pounds (39 U.S. cents), data from the Egyptian stock exchange showed on Monday.

Fawry plans to list 36% of its share capital, worth up to 1.6 billion Egyptian pounds ($97 million), in the flotation.It said Actis, Banque Misr and National Bank of Egypt would each be offered about 7% of the stock, and 5% would be offered to retail investors.A private placing representing the remaining 10% of the share capital was 15.9 times oversubscribed, raising about 360 million Egyptian pounds, investment bank EFG Hermes said last Thursday.

“The subscriptions for both the public and private offerings for Fawry were large and strong because the industry itself is new to the market and has greater than average growth,” said Radwa El-Swaify, head of research at Pharos Securities Brokerage.

An Egyptian digital payments firm has quadrupled in value during the pandemic, helped by a government push to reduce citizens’ heavy reliance on cash. Investors and analysts are split on whether the stock rally has further legs.

A 300% rally from a mid-March low has boosted its market value to 20 billion Egyptian pounds ($1.3 billion). That puts Fawry among the country’s 10 most valuable companies alongside firms such as Telecom Egypt Co. and Elswedy Electric Co., which generate many times more revenue and profit.

STARTUP WATCH- Cairo-based investment platform Thndr was awarded Egypt’s first new brokerage license since 2008, according to a company statement (pdf). The mobile-first equities trading platform offers three zero-commission plans, including one unpaid scheme and two plans priced at EGP 15 and EGP 55 per month. Thndr secured a pre-seed funding round last December from Y-Combinator, 4DX Ventures, Endure Capital, the Raba Partnership, and MSA Capital, Co-founder and CEO Ahmad Hammouda (Uber Egypt’s former general manager) said, without disclosing the size of investment.

Abacus is a web and mobile software that lets you keep tabs on whatever is going on with the Nairobi Securities exchange in real time. And now, the team behind it has launched an Android app. The app was launched today and users now have access to regular updates from activities on the Nairobi Securities Exchange. The Abacus team, led by Joel Macharia as the CEO and Kevin Omwega as the director, have more than ten years of market experience. Abacus was one of the startups that participated in 2015 DEMO Africa event.

This is a super exciting time for Egyptian fintechs. For Fawry to reach a market cap of $1 billion within one year of its IPO is quite impressive and is a moment to celebrate. This will help the whole industry and will open more doors for fintechs to receive funds and make partial exits.

Commenting on the news, Okasha told WAYA: “This is a super exciting time for Egyptian fintechs. For Fawry to reach a market cap of $1 billion within one year of its IPO is quite impressive and is a moment to celebrate. This will help the whole industry and will open more doors for fintechs to receive funds and make partial exits.”Fintechs and electronic banking companies have seen a huge increase in demand as a result of the pandemic. Fawry saw an increase of more than 50% of the company’s value before the Covid-19 crisis. This number grew exponentially during the crisis.The company went public on the Egyptian Exchange in August 2019, since then its stock price has increased by over 300%. The initial cost of one share at the company was EGP 6.46.According to Fawry’s website, it handles around 2.1 million transactions daily and collected $2.43 billion last year. It has approximately 20 million customers.

The company is keen to work with companies specialising in the financial technology (fintech) solutions field, to contribute to the development of the Egyptian capital market sector.The most prominent of these partnerships includes a contract with the Egyptian Company for Information Dissemination (EGID).

Startup and equities trading platform, Thndr Securities Brokerage, has obtained approval from Egypt’s Financial Regulatory Authority (FRA) to practice securities brokerage activities.Thndr is the first company in the Middle East to announce the provision of a zero commission on securities trading service.Its activities take place through an advanced electronic platform that enables dealers in the Egyptian Exchange (EGX) to view the latest developments and indicators at zero cost.

The future is really exciting for us and links into why we participate in these fintech festivals. We think what we’ve proven in South Africa is scalable to other markets, especially those with similar setup to South Africa five years ago. Our focus is largely on emerging markets and seeking to partner our capability into a market opportunity, where the partner brings local knowledge and regulatory understanding and we bring platform capability. There needs to be a level of maturity and fintech support that enables our business model. There must be a very strong payments layer and smartphone penetration rates must be good. If those are in place and there’s a low propensity for retail stock investors to be investing in the local stock market, we start to be interested.