Spring 21 Capstone 640pm

This is a good example of a service whose time had come and whose implementation occurred in the right context.

Mubawab, Morocco’s leading real estate portal acquired by EMPG in May 2018, has announced the acquisition of Jumia’s acclaimed property listings website Jumia House for the North African (specifically Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria) region. “The acquisition consolidates Mubawab’s position as the region’s leading real estate website, while providing access to the most promising real estate markets in the Maghreb, with more than 90 million people,” a company spokesperson said in a statement.

We’re here to give you the best home buying experience through convenience, transparency and choice…while you make the most important purchase of your life- buying your home.

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.

Feeding into the Central Bank of Egypt’s grand plans of building a digital economy and advancing digital and financial inclusion, the partnership aims to increase use of digital payment solutions such as POS terminals and QR solutions, by leveraging Visa’s global network and Fawy’s on-ground, localised solutions.

African fintech startup Jumo has pulled in a fresh $12.5 million to add more fuel for its expansion into Asia Pacific.

Jumo specializes in social impact financial products, such as microloans, savings and insurance.

It started in Tanzania, and today claims to have originated more than $1 billion in loans.

awry collaborated with banks in many other products where direct integration, SaaS or hybrid models were being used to offer products  to both bank customers and Fawry customers.

Fawry is Egypt’s first and largest electronic payment network established in 2008, offering financial services to consumers and businesses through a variety of channels nationwide, Fawry services include but are not limited to electronic bill presentment and payment, alternative digital payments, omnichannel acceptance, supply chain payments, agent banking services, digital SME lending and other varieties of digital solutions for banks, billers and merchants.

The startup will use the proceeds from the funding to expand into new markets and launch new products. Jumo is targeting entrepreneurs in emerging markets — and plans to offer next-generation savings, lending and insurance products to them. 

The startup currently operates in five African countries — Kenya, Ghana, Uganda, Zambia and Tanzania. It closely works with financial firms and telecoms to provide its services, media reports said. 

Egyptian digital payments company Fawry plans to expand into the United Arab Emirates by the end of the year and also hopes to enter Saudi Arabia and Kuwait

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 addition to the validated farm-level data collected through the app, FarmDrive also collects big data from satellite companies, weather stations, government agencies, and more. Using these aggregated data, the model generates credit scores and provides automated decisioning tools that enable financial institutions to develop loan products that fit the economic and agronomic needs of smallholder farmers.

In 2016 FarmDrive completed the initial phase of product-market fit in partnership with a Kenyan MFI. Through this pilot over KES 15 mil (USD 150,000) in loans were disbursed throughout 16 counties in Kenya. The pilot served as a proof point that better risk assessment can unlock capital for smallholder farmers, and informs the product development we’re doing today to drive more capital to farmers

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.

The divestment strategy is part of MTN’s “asset realisation programme”, initiated in March 2019 to “reduce debt, simplify our portfolio, reduce risk and improve returns”.

A statement issued by MTN read: “This takes the total proceeds received for the disposal of both ATC Uganda and ATC Ghana to R8.9 billion, which will be applied to paying down US-dollar debt and general corporate purposes.”

MTN Group MTNJ.J, South Africa's largest mobile operator by subscribers, said on Friday it expects 2020 earnings to nearly double, mainly on gains from the sale of Uganda and Ghana tower joint ventures.

Two thirds of the African population work in agriculture, yet just 1% of commercial loans go to the sector, and very few of these are allocated to smallholder farmers. Kenyan company FarmDrive is using data from ESA's Food Security Thematic Exploitation Platform (TEP) to help smallholder farmers access the funds they need.

“The digital nature of the product can be seen as exacerbating the usual challenges of ICT illiteracy. However, FarmDrive presents the record-keeping platform in different languages  – it’s now available in English and Kiswahili – via a simple SMS to increase the uptake of record-keeping among rural farmers. So farmers don’t have to have a smartphone,” Bosire says.“It also emerged during our pilot that farmers feel more empowered if they can their mobile phones for other activities apart from for calling, texting and mobile money. Their openness to  embracing new ways of using their simple mobile phones to solve challenges is what drives the culture shift from keeping non-organized farm records on paper or none at all  to digital record keeping,” she says.

It is estimated that the Agricultural sector in Africa contributes over 40 percent of GDP but receives less than 4 percent bank lending because of inadequate personal assets. The dynamic duo through FarmDrive have thus built a platform for smallholder farmers who didn’t have financial identities before to enable them access loans easily.

Bosire and Kimani launched FarmDrive in May 2015. The digital recordkeeping platform serves as a basis for bankers to establish credit ratings and determine which farmers are best suited for small loans. FarmDrive’s pilot program consisted of 50 farmers. Today hundreds of thousands are in FarmDrive’s database; about 830 have received financing. In turn the banks pay FarmDrive for essentially functioning as their credit bureau for Kenya’s vast farming community. The two entrepreneurs have no intention of stopping there. “There are more than five million small farmers in Kenya,” Bosire says. “Throughout Africa it’s about 50 million. But when we started FarmDrive, we always had global ambitions. We’re building solutions for farmers in Asia too.”