“I hope that Pula continues in the future and that we can continue to improve our future through its benefits.” Festus Mutio, farmer, Kitui County, Kenya

Pula uses satellite data and farm yield measurements to understand how weather patterns affect a smallholder farmer’s yield, and uses this information to automate compensation in case of loss. The company also provides farmers with targeted agronomic advice via SMS messaging, helping them grow more from their existing landholdings.

Pula is solving this problem by using technology and data. Through its Area Yield Index Insurance product, the insurtech startup leverages machine learning, crop-cut experiments and data points relating to weather patterns and farmer losses, to build products that cater to various risks.But getting farmers on board has never been easy, Goslinga told TechCrunch. According to her, Pula has understood not to sell insurance directly to small-scale farmers, because they can suffer from optimism bias. “Some think a climate disaster wouldn’t hit their farms for a particular season; hence, they don’t ask for insurance initially. But if they witness any of these climate risks during the season, they would want to get insurance, which is counterproductive to Pula,” said the founder in a phone call.

Pula uses insurance and digital products to help smallholder farmers endure climate risks, improve their farming practices, and bolster their incomes over time. LEARN MORE

Most Ghanaians who use MTN have said that hours after the country’s largest mobile network operator introduced new data packages they were unable to purchase data bundles.

The Ghanaian unit of African telecommunication giant MTN Group Ltd. is petitioning the highest court to review a declaration that it is a significant market power. Failure could result in stricter regulation.

In 2017 MTN Ghana – the local subsidiary of the South African mobile operator, and the market leader – redefined what constitutes a subscriber, removing 3.4m inactive lines from its network in the first quarter of the year. However, in the same quarter the company gained more than 800,000 new active customers. The net effect was a drop of 2.5m in its subscriber base, leaving it with 16.9m voice subscribers, according to the NCA.

MTN embarks on a journey to lead and deliver to its customers a bold new digital world, by transforming itself from being a traditional Communications Service Provider to a Digital Services Provider.

In its full year 2019 financial results, MTN saw revenue grow 9.7%, while service revenue increased 9.8% and subscriptions grew by 18.2 million to reach 251 million. Further, the group’s chief executive Rob Shuter, announced he will step down at the end of his current contract, in 2021.

MTN is in the middle of a 25 billion rand ($1.67 billion)divestment plan aimed at simplifying its portfolio over the next three to five years. Part of this entailed selling its 49% holdings in Ghana Tower Interco B.V. and Uganda Tower Interco B.V. to AT Sher Netherlands Coöperatief U.A. for $523 million last year.

MTN has 232 million mobile subscribers and 20 million mobile money subscribers throughout operations in Afghanistan, Benin, Botswana, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Cyprus, Ghana, Guinea Bissau, the Republic of Guinea, Iran, Liberia, Nigeria, the Republic of Congo (Congo-Brazzaville), Rwanda, South Africa, Sudan, South Sudan, Swaziland, Syria, Uganda, Yemen and Zambia. MTN’s vision is to lead the delivery of a bold new digital world by building a best-in-class experience for customers.

According to the World Bank, Ghana is the fastest-growing mobile-money market in Africa. Mobile operators MTN, AirtelTigo and Vodafone currently lead the industry. Banks are pushing digital banking in Ghana, but with less success, according to a report from Tellimer in September. Banks such as Ecobank, Fidelity, Zenith and Standard Chartered can use Ghana’s improving digital infrastructure to widen inclusion, Tellimer says. But the firms points to downside for banks through possible loss of deposits and lower margins on digital products due to the competition. Mobile money may lead to the “cannibalisation” of some banking products, Tellimer says. “Banks will have to fight for transactions and deposits.”

Vodafone and MTN’s Ghanaian units are allowed to share subscriber data with the government to help it track down the contacts of coronavirus cases, a high court in Accra ruled Tuesday.

The National Communications Authority (NCA) has sanctioned Mobile Network Operator (MNO), MTN Ghana for failing to comply with directives which were sent to them following some challenges with their network recently. In the directive, the Authority directed MTN to submit a report on the challenges within 24 hours of receipt of the directive among other directives. 

Fawry gets CBE nod to partner with state-owned bank for transfer service: E-payments platform Fawry has received preliminary approval from the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) to set up a bank transfer service for Egyptian expats; the service will be offered in partnership with an unnamed state-owned bank, CEO Ashraf Sabry tells Al Mal. Fawry has been in talks with several local and regional banks — including the National Bank of Egypt (NBE), Bank of Alexandria, Banque du Caire, and ADIB — to set up the remittances service for Egyptians living in the Gulf since last year, former managing director Mohamed Okasha said in December, saying at the time that the service would initially be rolled out in the UAE, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia. Remittances, particularly from expats in the GCC, are a key source of foreign currency for Egypt and helped to narrow its current account deficit through the worst of the pandemic in 3Q2019-2020.

Although Fawry, Egypt’s top e-payment platform and leading fintech, became Africa’s latest ‘unicorn’ this year via a listing on an African bourse, it will not be the last to emerge from the country’s burgeoning tech scene, according to the International Finance Corporation (IFC). “Egypt will produce further unicorns one day, absolutely,” says Walid Labadi, the IFC’s country manager for Egypt, Libya and Yemen. “We fundamentally believe in the power of the entrepreneurial spirit and its ability to address fundamental market needs, which will eventually create significant economic value and can become a driver for creating future entrepreneurs. Advertisement

AIG Insurance Company has signed an agreement with Fawry, a digital payment platform.The partnership concerns the marketing of "Qershak el Abyad", an electronic policy managed by Fawry Insurance Brokerage.The product will thus be available through Fawry's network of 151 000 sales outlets and numerous distribution channels (banks, telephone operators, etc.) used by more than 30 million consumers.

The digital transformation and e-payments company Fawry became the first listed tech company in Egypt with a market capitalisation of $1 billion last week. At the end of trading on 17 August, the market value of the company had jumped to LE15.56 billion (around $1 billion), meaning it is now rubbing shoulders with the likes of CIB (Egypt), QNB Al-Ahli, the Eastern Company, the Abu Qir Fertilisers Company, Telecom Egypt, and Al-Sewedy Electric in the EGX index billionaires’ club.

“Time is of the essence, and Fawry saves me a lot of it,” says Shawky, who owns three electronics stores in the Egyptian capital.

“Egypt needs fintech, specifically after the success story of Fawry, since our financial markets are not properly regulated at the level of payments and e-commerce – all of it is more informal, so any solutions would boom,” Sharara says.