These inconsistent experiences frustrate consumers, who see each brand as a single entity. They don’t know or care that there are different teams putting together the advertising, working in the call centre, and looking after the mobile app. They want a consistent experience from each of these touchpoints. Increasingly, they demand a seamless and connected experience that uses the mobile phone as the hub of communication. Financial firms, especially, face competitive threats from digital disruptors such as Google, PayPal, Apple, and South Africa’s Snapscan.

Unlike a multi-channel approach, mobile should not be viewed as a silo by a brand that is committed to omni-channel experiences. With a sound mobile strategy integrated into an omni-channel approach, brands can use push messages effectively within their apps to send personalised messages to customers if they have their permission.

South Africa Market Share of Key Mobile Wallet CompaniesProvides market share by key players in value terms.South Africa Market Share by Mobile Payment Technology: Provides market share by key mobile payment technologies –SMS / USSD,NFC,Code Based, andWeb Based.South Africa Mobile Proximity Payment Market Size and ForecastMobile payment and mobile wallet market size and forecast by mobile proximity payment

South Africa Mobile Retail Shopping Market Size and Forecast (2016 - 2025)Market opportunity and growth dynamics in retail shopping by mobile payment transaction value, volume and average transaction value across following segments in South Africa

MoneyFellows has raised a total of $5.6M in funding over 5 rounds. Their latest funding was raised on Jun 22, 2020 from a Series A round.MoneyFellows is funded by 8 investors. Sawari Ventures and Partech are the most recent investors.

Today, MoneyFellows has racked up more than 500,000 users, of which 200,000 are active. Active users refer to those who have completed their accreditation by providing all of the documents required and have joined money circles. Mr Wadi estimates that a “few hundred million Egyptian pounds” have rotated through the platform.

Tackling these challenges, the EFSE Fund and the SANAD Fund for MSME, advised by Finance in Motion, have partnered with Village Capital and the LHoFT to develop the Fincluders Bootcamp 2017, unique investment readiness program designed for entrepreneurs offering inclusive financial products.

‘Financial Inclusion’ might be the most noble sector of financial technology, solving problems the traditional finance industry won’t — servicing underbanked demographics in areas with poor financial infrastructure.

In my opinion, Financial inclusion isn’t just about opening a bank for those that are unbanked, but rather being able to offer them actual financial services like lending, savings and improving their credit scoring (which is the building block for all financial services), helping them improve their actual living standards, eventually.

The MoneyFellows app is pretty simple. You create a profile and go through an onboarding process, which includes a financial assessment which determines each user’s maximum limit of money circle they can join. From there, each user can browse the available money circles by searching and filtering by monthly payment, total cash-out and the cash-out schedule most suitable to them. Once you’ve joined a money circle - and that money circle is complete - there are several ways to both send and receive money, including bank transfers, credit card payments, mobile wallets and Fawry. Some corporate companies have also signed up with MoneyFellows, allowing their employees to have their money circle dues directly taken from their salaries.

MoneyFellows with its mobile-based platform has digitized this entire process with a scoring model that compliments offline model, making it more scalable, safe, and efficient. In a statement, the Egyptian fintech said that it currently has over 150,000 active users that are verified by a user assessment algorithm. It also works with different corporates in Egypt, enabling their employees to participate in the money circles for saving money. 

MoneyFellows with its group pooling platform for credit and savings is digitizing the entire process of money circles with a scoring model that compliments current offline model, making it more scalable, safe and efficient.

Earlier this month fintech startup JUMO — which was founded by SA entrepreneur Andrew Watkins-Ball in 2014 — celebrated a new milestone, having helped connect over 15 million people to credit and savings in their six markets in Africa and Asia to date.

This milestone has been reached just over 18 months after crossing the US$1B mark in 2019, and indicates exponential growth in the access to and availability of working capital for customers, with an average customer default rate of less than 5%. Andrew Watkins-Ball, Founder & Group CEO, said this achievement is evidence of the success of JUMO’s unique business model, its ability to reach unbanked populations and to provide market-leading infrastructure for financial services.

We are honoured to have the opportunity to collaborate with some of the leading minds in AI and ML to accelerate the extension of financial services to the billions of un(der)-served people in the world. We’re at a critical point in our business where we are focused on leveraging the latest technology to increase customer eligibility and decrease unequal access to quality financial products in emerging markets.” JUMO founder and CEO Andrew Watkins-Ball 

The company says they reached this milestone in just over 18 months after crossing the US$1billion mark in 2019. This indicates exponential growth in the access to and availability of working capital for customers. Jumo also notes that they only have an average customer default rate of less than 5%.

Jumo’s beta site went live yesterday, accompanied by puff pieces in the New York Times, Huffington Post, and Mashable.  Sample line: “If everything goes according to Chris Hughes’ plan, Nov. 30, 2010 will be remembered as a critical and celebrated moment for the multi-billion dollar nonprofit and charitable industry.”  Typical techno-boosterism.

JUMO manufactures and distributes a wide range of measurement, control and automation products. The company is among the world leaders in two areas, namely temperature measurement and control for industries as diverse as food, water treatment, pharmaceuticals, renewable energies, railways, shipbuilding, heating and air conditioning, as well as the plastics and petrochemical industries.

Asia’s fintech scene is poised to get a little larger after Jumo, a company that offers loans to the unbanked in Africa, revealed plans to expand into the continent. To get the ball rolling, Jumo has opened an office in Singapore to lead the way and landed a massive $52 million investment led by banking giant Goldman Sachs to fuel the growth.

Yet another African startup is raking up millions from investors around the world during its round of financing and this time around the major investor is America’s most prestigious investment bank- Goldman and Sachs. The bank is just one of the investors willing to put its assets into the South African fintech startup Jumo that just recently closed its 55$ million round.

Additionally, only 27% of the population in Southeast Asia has a bank account, leaving a financial inclusion gap of around 438 million consumers. And we've seen fintechs that aim to close this gap attract significant investor interest in the past year: Investment in African fintechs increased by 155% from $111 million in 2018, to $283 million, while Southeast Asian fintechs saw funding surge of 69% from $588 million to $993 million over the same period, per CB Insights.

To win the competition, the companies needed to demonstrate: that their product fits the needs of rural women, how they would increase the number of women customers signing up for and using DFS, and that the company could scale their product to at least 30,000 new customers, with at least 60% of them being women.

Fawry, however, is the first-ever African fintech startup to go public through an IPO (Initial Public Offering) on African soil. Fawry went public, last year August, on The Egyptian Exchange (EGX) in the first Egyptian IPO of the year, offering 36 percent (254.6 million) of its shares on The Egyptian Exchange to raise EGP 1.64 billion ($100 million). The offering also comprised of a secondary sale by Netherland Holding BV. The company’s shares that were listed at the price of EGP 6.46 soared 31 percent to close at EGP 8.48 on the first day of trading, which gave the company a market cap close to EGP 6 billion or $366 million. Since then, its stock price has increased by over 300 percent.