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“Common investor wisdom is to stay in your market and dominate. This assumes that you are expanding on your own but we believe that by collaborating and partnering deliberately, Carbon and other tech companies can scale faster and build more enduring platforms,” Chijioke Dozie, chief executive officer (CEO) and co-founder of Carbon, said. 

Nigerian fintech startup Carbon has set up a US$100,000 pan-African fund to address the lack of funding and support holding back entrepreneurs on the continent.Consumer lending platform Carbon, which rebranded in April as parent company OneFi continues to transition into being a full digital banking platform after raising US$5 million in debt funding and acquiring Nigerian payments startup Amplify, has been busy expanding its offering, and has also moved into new markets with a Kenyan launch.Its “Disrupt fund” is the first of its kind by an African fintech startup, and will invest up to US$10,000 per startup for five per cent equity. Portfolio companies will also be given access to Carbon’s API, allowing them to leverage Carbon’s growing customer base and innovative technology platform to get to market faster. Carbon expects the initiative to spark more collaboration and further investment that should drive growth across the ecosystem, and is accepting applications from companies with operations in Uganda, Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast and Egypt. Startups looking to apply for the fund must have a functioning product, be post-revenue, and be looking to operate in multiple countries. The fund has a wide investment mandate but target sectors include insurance, health and education.“There are many excellent companies across the continent looking for the kind of scale Nigeria offers and we are excited to partner with them to provide the support and financial investment they need. We are equally excited to expand beyond Nigeria and Kenya by working with a new generation of innovators across the continent and sharing our experience to tackle common obstacles to growth.”

Nigerian fintech startup Carbon has set up a US$100,000 pan-African fund to address the lack of funding and support holding back entrepreneurs on the continent.

FinTech companies are generally well versed in the complexities of infrastructure analysis, banking and financial industry regulations, and legacy systems.

Send payments back home in an easy and secure way. Taking care of your loved ones back home does not need to be complicated. EthioPay makes it easy to send money without having to worry whether the money will reach your loved ones. Our secure platform uses bank-grade encryption meaning when you send money, your loved ones are guaranteed to receive it. You also never have to worry about your payment methods being compromised. Use our one-time payment system or set an ongoing schedule. We know that sending money home depends on multiple factors. Sometimes you will want to send a one-time amount, other times you will want recurrent payments. Ethiopay caters for both instances by offering you flexible payment options that you can adjust to your needs. This helps you ensure that you never miss a payment when it's needed. Avoid the headaches of keeping track of payments. You want to keep track of payments you make for your personal records. This can be a challenge when using other platforms. The Ethiopay User Account Dashboard offers a unified and detailed view of all the transactions you have made on the platform. Each entry shows the date and time stamp, amount, recipient and transaction status of every payment made. Pay education & utility bills back home with Ethiopay Paying utility and school fees is an important way of empowering your loved ones back home. Whether you are in North America or Europe, Ethiopay offers an easy and reliable way to do this. In addition, you can opt to set up scheduled payments so the payments are made at the beginning of each school term or any other time frame your choose.

Through Fawry, you can easily pay bills in Egypt and other services for telecommunications, tickets and tourism, online payments, various utilities, insurance, education fees, donations, financial payments and banks, pay for subscriptions and ads, and renew your car license.

Fawry is educating unbanked population to trust electronic payments. Fawry would not have existed in a mature economy, where electronic payments are dominant. In that sense, Fawry is filling a gap left by banking players in Egypt.

One of the most striking differences between banking in Europe and in Egypt is cash management. Withdrawals and deposits of cash are the dominant operations in the Egyptian banking branches. It is frequent to meet customers with big bags of money in or out of banking branches. In Europe, anti-money laundering laws and electronic payments popularity made large cash operations extremely rare.

The success of Fawry comes from leveraging the best of the 2 means of payment: cash for its reliability and availability, and electronic systems for their seamless and fast processing.

We design and deliver best in class agriculture index insurance products to protect farmers

Pula handles end to end management of the delivery of insurance to farmers, including field operations, farmer onboarding/education and claims assessment and payouts.

CEO of Abacus Wealth Management, an online investment brokerage. Abacus allows investors to make and execute faster, smarter, more informed decisions on instruments in Kenya's financial markets. CEO of Capital Associates, an investment and holding company with interests in financial services, real estate, agriculture and technology. Previously started and built Kenya’s largest consumer financial news and information site. Experience in mobile money, having led teams that developed mobile banking solutions for Kenyan branches of global banks such as Barclays and Standard Chartered, and several local banks and financial institutions. I keep up to date with changes in the industry and get involved through consulting and advisory. Actively involved in Kenya’s start-up scene as an entrepreneur, a member of the iHub and Venture Capital for Africa (VC4A) communities, as an advisor to several web and mobile start-ups and a writer. My focus is on business and revenue models, financing and venture capital.

Created in 2017, Bismart is a leading Kenyan insurance aggregator, leveraging on digital platforms and technologies to connect customers to the best insurance and investments solutions available in the market. It offers clients education and the ability to compare and buy premier insurance and investment solutions at the convenience of their palms. Bismart secured incubation from Standard Chartered and Strathmore University’s Women in Tech Programme.

In its next phase of algorithm development, FarmDrive seeks to expand the environmental arm of the algorithm by incorporating more alternative data-sets, including satellite imagery and remote sensing data. They are currently engaging with Planet, a satellite company from Silicone Valley, and The Impact Lab, a Chicago-based data analytics firm to analyze the possibilities of using satellite images in predicting a farmer’s creditworthiness.In addition, FarmDrive also plans to use these environmental data-sets, in combination with crop cycle data to predict seasonal yield and influence agricultural insurance products.The startup also uses machine learning in generating the farmer’s profile by learning from the farmer’s input. Data points about the farmer’s behaviour, education level, and their interaction with the app are all analyzed to contribute to the farmers profile score.

Smallholder farmers, especially in Kenya face difficulties when it comes to accessing loans and financing from banks and other financial institutions. The agricultural sector is the backbone to Kenya’s economy, yet banks have very little incentive to work with farmers.

FarmDrive founded in 2014 has built an innovative solution that provides “detailed risk profiles of smallholder farmers to financial institutions”. FarmDrive does this through a credit score, generated by an algorithm developed by the team, in-house. The algorithm relies on data-sets collected from the farmers through their mobile phones, alternative data and machine learning.

A whole range of companies within the banking and FinTech industries are starting to explore ways through which they can take advantage of the electronic ledger technology that powers cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin

A whole range of companies within the banking and FinTech industries are starting to explore ways through which they can take advantage of the electronic ledger technology that powers cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. This distributed system stores data chronologically in segments known as “blocks” which allow for the information to be processed and transferred almost instantaneously. Among the benefits of the blockchain technology, that make it so attractive to FinTech companies and other large institutions, is the lowered risk of fraud since the technology is notoriously difficult to hack, its speed and the fact that it eliminates intermediary steps between parties in a transaction.

The Kenyan insure-tech company, Bismart, has unveiled an online e-commerce platform that will enable insurance companies, brokers, agents to connect with their customers end to end.Dubbed Pamsmart, the cloud-based platform is tailored to cut down the costs of developing new technologies for insurance players by 90%.

337SHARESShareTweetSubscribe The Kenyan insure-tech company, Bismart, has unveiled an online e-commerce platform that will enable insurance companies, brokers, agents to connect with their customers end to end. Dubbed Pamsmart, the cloud-based platform is tailored to cut down the costs of developing new technologies for insurance players by 90%.

337SHARESShareTweetSubscribe The Kenyan insure-tech company, Bismart, has unveiled an online e-commerce platform that will enable insurance companies, brokers, agents to connect with their customers end to end. Dubbed Pamsmart, the cloud-based platform is tailored to cut down the costs of developing new technologies for insurance players by 90%.

Bismart was awarded seed capital of Sh1 million in April 2018 by Standard chartered Women in Tech programmed and office space for nine months at IBIZ Africa incubator, as the most innovative and scalable business model in Kenya.

NAIROBI, Kenya, Jul 9- GreenTec Capital, a German investment boutique focused on African start-ups, has entered into an investment agreement with Bismart, a Kenyan start-up insurance aggregator leveraging on digital platforms and technologies to educate and advice customers on the best insurance and investment solutions available in the Kenya market.

Fawry Insurance Brokerage partners with AIG Egypt Insurance Company to launch the digital insurance policy “Qershak el Abyad” through 166,500 Fawry outlets and e-wallets, allowing the insurance policy for more than 30 million Egyptian Fawry users throughout Egypt. The policy provides 75k EGP insurance coverage upon accidents of the candidate, with a monthly premium starting at 10 EGP.

The Financial Regulatory Authority agrees on delivering "Qershak el Abyad" insurance policy through e-channels - Fawry

“Fawry Insurance Brokerage, a subsidiary of Fawry, will play a genuine role in marketing and selling the insurance policies of “Qershak el Abyad” program to millions of Egyptians and payments will be available through more than 166,500 Fawry machines and through e-wallets, so that customers will receive their policies electronically on mobile phones easily, this in cooperation with AIG Egypt Insurance Company, in a step that enhances financial inclusion in Egypt according to the plans and directives of the Egyptian government.”

Morocco will become the fourth Arab state to resume relations with Israel in the back-end of the Trump presidency — after the US granted a key concession on disputed territory. Israel's PM hailed a "joyous" development.