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The Smartel Money customers and services include retail banking, individuals, insurance agents, retail grocery, retail clothing, retail cell phone services and utility services among others. These include checkout services such as the Smartel Money Point of sales system (sPOS); the Smartel Money Mobile point of sales systems (smPOS). These systems have access to the Smartel Money central engine for processing payments. “Businesses owners can finally give true convenience to customers by using My Wallet as a contactless payment option. They can also take advantage of our free business tools which include, point of sale, human resource management, and customer relationship management,” Mr Nchai said.

Last year the startup clinched several accolades including the Environment and Green Energy category at the World Summit Awards, the Young Entrepreneurs Competition at the World Export Development Forum and the Africa Social Good category at Tech Crunch Startup Battlefield Africa. In addition, Seedstars World recently selected AgroCenta for its Seedstars Growth Programme, an investment arm of the Swiss organisation which provides high-growth startups with $50 000 as well as access to business advisory and marketing services. Based on this wide acclaim, this startup is clearly onto something.

Agrocenta, a Ghanaian agritech startup has won a $500,000 investment for coming first globally at the just concluded 2018 Seedstars Global competition in Lausanne, Switerland. The final leg of Seedstars World early-stage pitching competition took place on Thursday with 21 African startups among the 65 finalists competing in Switzerland. At the live final pitching showdown, 12 shortlisted startups went head-to-head, with Agrocenta eventually being crowned the overall global winner of the contest, taking home a $500,000 investment from Seedstars World.

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.

Through AgroCenta’s CropChain platform, smallholder farmers can execute transactions with accurate information and provide reliable access to financing, inputs and knowledge on agricultural best practices. AgroCenta has increased crop yields of farmers by 40% and increased the average CropChain farmer’s income by 35%.

Kiva expands access to and lowers the cost of capital for small business owners by providing 0% interest, crowdfunded loans, raised from its network of 1.6 million supportive lenders around the world. Many of these lenders become borrowers' new customers, brand advocates, and biggest fans.

WE NYC has partnered with Kiva, a platform specializing in crowdfunded loans, to help more women entrepreneurs achieve crowdfunding success. Participating in WE Fund Crowd means WE NYC will be your first lender, pledging 10%, or up to $1,000, of your crowdfunding goal. Friends, family, and new supporters who see your campaign will know that WE NYC believes in your business and your dreams.

thndr is Egypt's mobile first investment platform with 0% commission, no account minimum, access to real time news, market data and easy account setup and funding processes.

According to SimbaPay, China is Kenya's largest trading partner with businesses in Kenya importing more than $4 billion worth of goods from China last year alone. As it stands, sending money to China from Kenya takes several days, in some cases requiring a person to physically visit an agent to access their money. The new service overcomes those barriers. The companies also said it will result in traders in Kenya being able to replenish stock faster, which in turn will bolster trade between the two nations.

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.

The announcement was made at the 2017 LendIt USA Conference in New York. The three investment transactions include Series C financing round in Trumid, an electronic trading platform for the bond market; Series B financing round in WeConvene, an online corporate access management ERP provider for capital markets; and Seed Round financing round in WorldCover, an innovative peer-to-peer insurance network.

Kiva has promoted itself as a link between individual lenders in the developed world and individual borrowers in the developing world, allowing visitors to its Web site to learn about and lend money to people in poor nations seeking small loans for specific purposes.

the loans made by individual lenders through the Kiva site do not actually end up in the pockets of individual borrowers. Instead, those loans are aggregated and used to backstop microfinance institutions that have already paid out microloans to the borrowers featured on the site.

Kiva president Premal Shah said he could foresee a day when Kiva really did provide a direct person-to-person connection, once certain legal hurdles are cleared and as more individuals in the developing world began using mobile phones to access credit and make electronic payments. In the meantime, the organization has changed the wording on its homepage from "Kiva lets you lend to a specific entrepreneur, empowering them to lift themselves out of poverty" to "Kiva connects people through lending to alleviate poverty."

Despite the fact peer-to-peer lending has numerous benefits over the classic model, it also has certain potential drawbacks, such as lower level of security and personal guarantees as compared to bank loans. This is why only the most reputable P2P lending marketplaces with a positive track record are potentially able to boost the entire fintech industry.

Family Bank Limited, a leading bank in Kenya, has partnered with London-based financial technology firm SimbaPay to launch an instant money transfer service from Kenya to China through WeChat – a service that will help boost Kenya-China trade. Over seven million customers and businesses in Kenya will now access SimbaPay’s international money transfer service to send money to China’s WeChat Pay from Family Bank’s PesaPap mobile banking application and USSD service. Non-customers too will enjoy the service via a dedicated PayBill number 261059 on MPESA.

In addition to the China (WeChat) service, SimbaPay also supports money transfer to Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, Ghana, Nigeria, Madagascar, Niger and India. 

China is Kenya’s biggest trading partner. In 2017 alone, businesses in Kenya imported well over USD 4 billion worth of goods from China. The current existing solutions for sending money to China take multiple days to reach the recipient’s bank account, with some requiring the supplier to physically visit an agent to collect their money. This new service easily overcomes these barriers.

“With Masterpass, we’re enabling consumers to make secure and simple everyday payments wherever they are and from any connected device, without needing to physically carry their bank cards with them,” says Mark Elliott, Division President, Mastercard, South Africa. “Thanks to our collaboration with SnapScan, we are pleased to offer consumers even more places to pay using Masterpass, which is now the most widely accepted digital wallet in South Africa.”Since its launch in 2013, SnapScan has grown its acceptance exponentially, especially among small businesses that traditionally did not have access to traditional Point of Sale devices and relied on cash payments. It makes accepting digital card payments cheap and easy, with merchants simply needing to display a QR code at the till, online or on a bill.“Given SnapScan’s extensive acceptance footprint, the ability to offer merchants a single QR code, which will accept payment from multiple mobile wallet solutions such as Masterpass, is the driving force behind creating interoperability,” says Lincoln Mali, head of group card and payments at Standard Bank. “We believe that interoperability between digital payments platforms is one of the keys to driving digital payments usage and acceptance in South Africa.”

Each Masterpass transaction is classified as an Authenticated Mobile Transaction by South African banks, ensuring that consumers enjoy the highest protection from fraudsters.

Distributed-ledger technology (DLT) enables safer, faster and cheaper transactions in an ever-increasing number of sectors. The Commission considers DLT as a breakthrough technology that is key for the EU's competitiveness.

JUMO offers a wide range of services to users in emerging markets via partnerships with other financial institutions

JUMO offers financial services infrastructure to third parties and has served over 15 million customers across countries, including Ghana, Kenya, Pakistan, and Tanzania, and it plans to use the fresh capital to launch new products and expand into new markets: It's set to launch in Bangladesh, India, Côte d'Ivoire, and Nigeria soon, per its website.

South African fintech JUMO scooped up $55 million in funding

Yes! SnapScan is safe to use on multiple levels: The app requires a PIN to be entered before any transaction can be completed. This prevents anyone who has your phone from making transactions, as your PIN should be known only to you.  Your card details are also encrypted and stored safely and securely on your phone. Even if your phone is stolen, nobody will be able to see or access your card details.

SnapScan is a new innovative mobile payment App on a smartphone. It provides a cashless, card-less payment app that consumers can use at thousands of merchants across South Africa or to make donations to CANSA.  It can be used for customers of any bank in South Africa (not just Standard Bank).