M-PESA is a virtual banking system (mobile money service) that offers transaction services through a SIM card on a mobile phone. In Kenya this must be with a Safaricom SIM card. The SIM card is inserted into the card slot of the mobile device and users can receive and store money, as well as make payments and transfer money to vendors and family members using SMS messages.

Financial inclusion is an initiative that seeks to include residents who have no access to banks or who can’t afford the required minimum deposits in the digital banking era. In order for this initiative to succeed, different sectors must collaborate in sharing data with each other and build a meaningful digital platform.

M-Pesa is a branchless banking service; M-Pesa customers can deposit and withdraw money from a network of agents that includes airtime resellers and retail outlets acting as banking agents.

It also provides financial services to millions of people who have mobile phones, but do not have bank accounts, or only have limited access to banking services. Now, M-Pesa provides over 42 million people with a safe, secure and affordable way to send and receive money, top-up airtime, make bill payments, receive salaries, get short-term loans and much more.

We are a global fintech pioneer, providing solutions for the financially excluded one product at a time We are all about convenience for our customers, growth for our partners, and financial access for all. The need to solve wicked problems is what drives our innovative spirit.

Cassava FinTech is a pan-African business using an integrated model to drive financial inclusion and digital transactions across the continent. Our core operations in Mobile Money, Social Payments Services, Digital Banking, International Remittances and Mobile Micro Insurance with presence in Zimbabwe, South Africa, Burundi, Lesotho and UK and partnerships in other African countries.

It combines instant messaging, social media and mobile payments into one App which will be available for download on Google Play and iOS app stores from 1 August 2019. A similar social payments platform model is already active in Asia, where payment apps are bundled with e-commerce, chat and ride-hailing services offered by firms such as Alibaba and Tencent in China. Imagine a WeChat of Africa!

In July 2018, Start-Up Nation Central hosted a delegation from Cassava Fintech, Africa who are leading Africa’s Fintech Transformation Revolution. Cassava Fintech provide inclusive access to digital financial services across Africa, helping drive financial inclusion, digital payments and the adoption of mobile e-commerce.

Cassava FinTech is a pan-African business using an integrated model to drive financial inclusion and digital transactions across the continent. Our core operations in Mobile Money, Social Payments Services, Digital Banking, International Remittances and Mobile Micro Insurance with presence in Zimbabwe, South Africa, Burundi, Lesotho and UK and partnerships in other African countries.

Cassava is a specialised Pan-African Fintech company that delivers innovative digital transaction solutions across the mobile ecosystem. The organisation endeavors to operate wherever money changes hands, with an ambition to drive financial inclusion, digital payments and lead the adoption of e-Commerce in Africa. They are the catalyst to providing millions of people in Africa with access to digital financial solutions that empower them to move and progress in life. Cassava Fintech is a subsidiary of Econet Group, a TMT company with its beginnings in Zimbabwe. Cassava Fintech is known for its flagship product, EcoCash, that was named Best Mobile Payment Solutions at the GSMA Glomo Awards 2017 in Barcelona.

In this interview with Nairametrics, Femi Oshinlaja COO, Cassava Fintech, disclosed that the company is also open to embracing digital currencies as long as there’s a use case that benefits people and businesses across the continent.

Cassava is a specialised Pan-African Fintech company that delivers innovative digital transaction solutions across the mobile ecosystem. They endeavor to operate wherever money changes hands, with an ambition to drive financial inclusion, digital payments and lead the adoption of e-Commerce in Africa. Cassava is constantly looking for ways tointroduce solutions that bring developmental impact to a diverse range of African communities, thereby improving their quality of life. These solutions are delivered through our strategic partners such as mobile operators, whom we support in attaining their immediate and long-term strategic goals.

Our integrated platform offers multi-mobile financial services programmes, which depending on the target market, can be tailored to suit banked, unbanked and under-banked customer segments. We offer a rich pipeline of innovative use cases, including micro-loans, micro-savings (for individuals or groups), mobile business wallets, international remittances, and merchant payment solutions.

A uniquely integrated international fintech ecosystem that allows customers to make online money transfers using mobile money, bank account transfers, and cash pick-up services. We built Africa’s first truly global super app to help drive our ‘financial inclusion for all’ vision. A multi-service technology platform that brings together digital payment solutions, on-demand services, instant messaging, and digital media services in a single, easy-to-use mobile application. In some of our key markets across Africa, we have been able to drive financial inclusion from under 10% to 70-80% through solutions that have helped to create thousands of jobs and business opportunities for young entrepreneurs.

Lumkani functions as a social enterprise that aims to diminish or lessen the loss of life and property caused by potential shack fires in the township areas across South Africa and the world. 

Lumkani is a small fire alarm that registers the rate at which heat rises within a small residence indicating when there might be a fire risk. It then connects with neighboring devices, setting off a chain of alarms so that neighbors can intervene. Newer versions also communicate with home owners via SMS, as well as with local emergency services.

Lumkani is a tech company and social enterprise that delivers insurance services dedicated to customers who suffered loss of property or life following slum fired in South Africa and beyond. The company got its name from local Xhosa language, “lumkani” meaning “be careful”. Their main product is a small blue box fire alarm that responds to a rise in temperature rather than smoke with the aim of decreasing false alarms. Its associated network alerts houses within a 200 foot radius if the alarm is not shut off within 30 seconds. In 2014, the company reported having distributed 7000 of these devices across slums in South Africa, and 5000 in 2015 to its highest fire risk neighborhood in Cape Town.

Lumkani is a social enterprise known for its fire detector and system designed to overcome the shack-fire challenge in urban slums in South Africa and across the globe with the use of a heat detection technology. It measures the incidence of harmful fires and alert families inside the shack of the danger, using the rate-of-rise of temperature

The device is a heat detector and not an ill-suited smoke detector. In a fire situation, the device will ring alerting the family inside enabling them to be proactive before the fire becomes unmanageable. After 20 seconds the device transmits a signal to all devices in neighbouring homes up to 60 metres away creating a community-wide response to the fire

Destructive fires are a regular, and potentially devastating, occurrence for the approximately 10 million South Africans that live in informal settlement communities. These townships are particularly susceptible to the threat of fires due to the use of flammable building materials, the ubiquity of open flame fires, limited space between dwellings, and a lack of road infrastructure for adequate emergency response.