In Ghana there is currently just one sharia-compliant financial institution – Ghana Islamic Microfinance, which began as an NGO – though there is significant scope for growth. Part of this is due to the country’s demographic make-up. Although Muslims are far from the only potential client base for IFS, as evidenced by the rollout of Islamic financing instruments in countries like the UK and Japan, sharia-compliant products could prove attractive for the roughly 17.6% of Ghana’s population that identifies as Muslim, according to the 2010 census.

The Electoral Commission of Ghana has officially declared Nana Akufo-Addo as the winner of the 2020 presidential elections. Akufo-Addo has been reelected for a second term with 51. 59% of votes, beating out former president John Mahama of the NDC.

Recently the introduction of 5G to the world has got everyone interested to find out more about it.5G is the fifth-generation mobile network. It is a new global wireless standard that is designed to connect virtually everyone and everything together including machines, objects, and devices

The 2019 Corruption Perception Index (CPI) was released worldwide on 23 January 2020, scoring and ranking 180 countries and territories by their perceived levels of corruption.  The Index put together by Transparency International ranks countries annually by their perceived levels of corruption, as determined by expert assessments and opinion surveys.

The index foresees a range between zero (highly corrupt) and 100 (very clean), and based on these points, it ranks countries from the best performing to the worst-performing.  Since CPI is a perception index, no country will ever achieve a perfect score.  

At its 26–29 January meeting, the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of Ghana decided to keep the policy rate steady at 14.50%, marking the fifth consecutive hold. The decision reflected the Bank’s assessment that despite inflation accelerating recently, it expects it to return to target in the second quarter of this year. Inflation jumped to 10.4% in December 2020 (November: 9.8%) as a result of quicker food inflation, thus landing above the Bank’s target range of 6.0%–10.0%. Although short-term risks to inflation are also emerging from fiscal expansion and rising oil prices, they remain broadly contained according to the Bank, enabling it to maintain its accommodative stance.

A person working in Ghana typically earns around 5,070 GHS per month. Salaries range from 1,280 GHS (lowest average) to 22,600 GHS (highest average, actual maximum salary is higher).

Ghana is a country of roughly 30 million people. It is a young and fast-growing country, with a relatively high population growth rate of 2.2 percent. More than half the population (57 percent) is under 25 years old. The country’s capital, Accra, is a bustling metropolitan area that is home to roughly 2 million people. Kumasi, the capital of the Ashanti Region north of Accra, is another large population center and an active commercial center with roughly the same population as Accra.

The Payment Systems and Services Act of 2019 (Act 987) provides the regulatory framework.  The Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2008 (Act 749), Data Protection Act of 2012 (Act 843), and Electronic Transactions Act of 2008 (Act 772) provide additional regulation.

A quiet but exciting revolution in surgery has been gaining ground in hospitals in the more advanced nations of the world. Robots, controlled by highly trained operators, have been very effectively carrying out a multitude of operations. Could robot-assisted surgery be the solution Africa has been waiting for in order to be able to deal with the hugecurrent unmet demand?

GreenTec, headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany, will invest an undisclosed amount of money in Bismart to enable the company upscale its digital and online platforms to connect customers to insurance and investments solutions available in the African market. The agreement, announced in Frankfurt, will see Bismart benefit from GreenTec’s expertise and experience in funding start-ups in Africa through capacity building, and process optimization.

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 is a leading Kenyan insurance aggregator. We leverage on digital platforms and technologies which enables us to connect our clients to the best insurance and investments solutions available in the market. Most importantly we provide our clients with education and information; this irrevocably gives power to the client to freely decide on the best premier insurance and /or investment solution to stick with. And all this in front of their computer screen or smartphone.Insurance is just a click away...Be smart, Buy smart.

We started Bismart as an online comparison platform that creates trasparency in the insurance Industry by allowing customers to compare benefits and price and chose insurance based on information. Through data analytics, we learnt that the new and non-traditional customer/ the digital and mobile customer has unique preference for processes and products.

We started Bismart as an online comparison platform that creates trasparency in the insurance Industry by allowing customers to compare benefits and price and chose insurance based on information. Through data analytics, we learnt that the new and non-traditional customer/ the digital and mobile customer has unique preference for processes and products.

Jamiipay has been a part of the Accelerace accelerator program, that help startup companies accelerate and scale up their business model and finetune their companies. Jamiipay is one of more than 500 companies that Accelerace already have accelerated.

WorldCover, a New York and Africa-based climate insurance provider to smallholder farmers, has raised a $6 million Series A round led by MS&AD Ventures.Y Combinator, Western Technology Investment and EchoVC also participated in the round.WorldCover’s platform uses satellite imagery, on-ground sensors, mobile phones and data analytics to create insurance options for farmers whose crop yields are affected adversely by weather events — primarily lack of rain.

African smallholder farmers face a recurring problem of access to finance and credit. Financial institutions, for their part, do not have access to many potential customers, considered as too risky. Young Kenyan computer scientists have developed FarmDrive, an application that aims to promote access to credit and financial services for smallholder farmers. banks remain to be won over, but the project is on track.

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.

There are 50 million smallholder farmers in Kenya, but less than 10 percent of this population has their economic needs fulfilled by traditional lenders. The agricultural sector makes up 32 percent of Africa’s GDP and employs 65 percent of its population, but less than 1 percent of bank lending goes to agriculture. Worldwide, there is an estimated $450 billion agricultural lending gap. African smallholder farmers face barriers to traditional lending because they are labeled high-risk borrowers by financial institutions. Traditional banks use credit scores and bank statements to determine a loan applicant’s riskiness. However, the average farmer in Africa cultivates fewer than five acres of land and owns no collateral or financial records.

FarmDrive, a Kenyan data analytics startup helping smallholder farmers in Africa access credit from local banks, has raised funding from the venture arm of Safaricom, the biggest communication company in East and Central Africa, Safaricom Spark Venture Fund.

Aujourd’hui, près de 19 millions de Kényans font un usage régulier de M-Pesa soit près de 70 % de la population adulte. Chaque seconde, environ 900 transactions sont réalisées par ce biais. Au total, M-Pesa voit transiter 68 % des transactions monétaires du pays, représentant en valeur 7 % des montants passant par l’ensemble des moyens de paiement du système bancaire et financier kényan, soit 25 Mds USD par an ou un peu plus du tiers du PIB du pays.