Spring 21 Capstone 640pm

Money transfer company, SimbaPay, has expanded its services to Ghana and Uganda. This means that SimbaPay users living in Europe can transfer money to their loved ones via mobile money or their bank accounts. SimbaPay users with a bank account or debit card can use the service to securely make money transfers. The transfers are credited to recipients immediately or after 3 days depending on which option the user selects. Recipients can then access the money through mobile money channels or via their bank accounts.

Digital money transfer provider, SimbaPay, has announced the launch of its money transfer service to Nigeria. Using the SimbaPay app or website, Nigerians living in the UK can send money to Nigeria at zero charge using SimbaPay. The payment can be made to any bank account or mobile phone in Nigeria instantly.

SIMBA Pay is open source and designed for developers who wish to integrate blockchain-based payment systems. SIMBA Pay offers built-in support for a wide array of third-party technologies and services, including CoinBase and cold wallets. The ease-of-use for developers will accelerate the growth of the cryptocurrency industry and make integrations with traditional financial systems easier down the road. “We believe our technology stack provides a unique advantage for developers,” said Joel Neidig, CEO of SIMBA Chain. “SIMBA’s world-class developer tools have already made cloud-based dapps easier to create than ever and provide transparency and verification for complex digital workflows. It’s never been easier to jump into this exciting space, no matter where you are in your developer journey.” “We are excited to see SIMBA Chain, a Stellar Service Provider, launch their open source payment application to foster greater adoption of Stellar and end-user accessibility through lower fees as compared with traditional payment solutions,” said Boris Reznikov, Director of Business Development at the Stellar Development Foundation.

We've set three strategic goals that we believe are both ambitious and achievable within the next 5-years:1. Raise $1 billion in loans over the internet2. Reach 2 million entrepreneurs around the world3. Realize our own self-sufficiency in the process.

The investment will allow FarmDrive to scale to US$13 million of loan originations in 2019 with minimal losses and exceptional returns using RiPe, a customisable lending engine that will allow lenders to plug in and access low-cost loan origination channels such as USSD, credit scoring, identity verification, and a portfolio management suite that includes recovery and collections, payments, customer support, and advanced real-time data analytics.

Fintech marketing is the sum of marketing techniques specifically tailored for financial technology (‘fintech’) companies. These companies are using new technologies to improve, and ultimately, automate, the delivery and use of financial services to consumers.

Financial services are rather dull, matter of fact aspects of our day to day life. In other words, dealing with personal finances is something we all have to do. But let’s be clear - no one will come to you with a big smile on their face and scream: “Oh my God, I had such an amazing experience opening a new savings account today.” That said, while financial technologies are boring, it doesn’t mean your marketing style should be boring as well.

Despite the fact peer-to-peer lending has numerous benefits over the classic model, it also has certain potential drawbacks, such as lower level of security and personal guarantees as compared to bank loans. This is why only the most reputable P2P lending marketplaces with a positive track record are potentially able to boost the entire fintech industry.

Robos came on the scene about a decade ago, and two early startups were Wealthfront and Betterment. Today, there are dozens of robos in the market, Fisch said. There are pure robo services, as well as those that offer the option of talking to a human advisor, with or without an extra fee. Since they’re automated, robos can more easily avoid conflicts of interest that could beset a human advisor, who might push investments that pay the highest commissions.

Artificial intelligence is changing the world of retirement planning. By using improved datasets and algorithms to efficiently deliver solutions tailored to people’s needs, AI can help them save, invest and retire better. One of the hottest trends to emerge in this area in recent years is the use of robo-advisors. These are software programs that use the data supplied by clients to create and automatically manage their investment portfolios

he London-based digital money transfer services SimbaPay has now launched a new money remittance services that will purely operate via SMS. That means even people with no internet and using just a feature phone can now use SimbaPay to send or receive money. This is a huge step for the company, as it now enters a bigger pool of users, both with smartphones plus internet access combined with those without smartphones and/or not internet access. The new SimbaPay SMS money remittance services went live yesterday, and now users from around the world can use the service on any device from anywhere via the good-old SMS. The new SMS service is powered by artificial intelligence that has seen SimbaPay integrate a chatbot at the other end of the user.

"Our commitment of up to $1 million in funding to address the growing wealth inequality in the United States is not only the right thing to do, but a necessity,"

Kiva's crowdfunding platform, Kiva.org, allows individuals to lend as little as $25 to make a difference in someone's life. Kiva Protocol aims to establish financial identity and credit history for unbanked populations using distributed ledger technology (DLT), with its inaugural project currently being implemented in Sierra Leone.

Omidyar Network will match up to $2 million of online donations from individual Kiva lenders. Amy Klement, Vice President, Investments at Omidyar Network, will join Kiva’s board of directors.

Kiva will use the funding to further develop its technology platform, expand its network of field partners, and continue to invest in due diligence and monitoring capabilities across its growing portfolio. The commitment, which marks the largest grant in Kiva’s history, reflects Omidyar Network’s focus on bringing microfinance to underserved markets as well as catalyzing social impact through technology.

Today, we’re proud to introduce a new look and feel for Kiva, and a new, mobile-responsive website that makes supporting small businesses around the world easier than ever.

When Kiva began in 2005, we had a simple goal: to connect borrowers who need small amounts of capital to improve their lives, with lenders who want to help.

Kiva’s grown into a true global community, where people come together to support and believe in each other. That's part of the story we hope to capture with our new imagery.

You’ve probably heard of Kiva, but if you aren’t among the 1.7 million people who have made loans on the platform, you may not really know what it is. This crowdfunding platform is, in effect, a bank funded by people who lend their money with an expectation of losing only a little, to 2.9 million people who stand to gain a lot.

Today, Kluge serves as an advisor on Kiva’s leadership council. Kiva’s senior investment manager for refugees and displaced populations, Lev Plaves, serves on the steering committee for the Refugee Investment Network.

The fund provided $5 million in loans to more than 8,000 refugees and yielded something that is almost invaluable: data. The fund proved that refugees are just as likely as most—and more likely than some—to repay their loans, making way for more loans and economic support for this particularly vulnerable population.

Kiva, a nonprofit founded in 2005, has chosen to make Waco a “Kiva Hub,” the first city in Texas to receive such a designation

He welcomed small business needing a loan up to $15,000 to contact Startup Waco, headquartered at 605 Austin Ave.

The Waco City Council gave the local Kiva Hub a financial kick-start, awarding it a $50,000 grant. Passavant said he hopes to approach individuals and foundations about putting additional money behind Kiva.

The club’s decade-long KIVA lending portfolio exceeded $83,000 last week. KIVA is a micro-lending organization. Of the total loan value of $83,150, about $12,000 has been collected via loose change cups at meetings; the rest is comprised of paybacks, with interest.

All but one of the seven loans – typically of $100 each – were made to individual entrepreneurs in construction. To date, the club has made 849 loans in 72 countries. Just under half of the loans have been made to agricultural endeavors, another 20 percent to manufactures and construction, followed by food production. Fifty-five percent of the recipients have been women. 

Millions of people in developing countries depend on microloans to raise the funds to grow a business or just stay afloat in hard times. And thanks to digital platforms, smartphones and free-moving global capital, growing numbers of people in the rich world are using their money to lift others out of poverty.

But the reality is often a lot messier – something that may not initially be obvious to the lender. In fact, like Cabusog and Lendwithcare, borrowers and crowdfunding sites connect via local partner microfinance institutions (MFIs) who do the essential work of assessing creditworthiness and administering loans. To pay for that, most MFIs charge interest to borrowers, often at wildly varying rates.

Kiva is the slickest of the microfunding websites, offering a mind-bogglingly glossy catalogue of projects sorted into different categories, countries and attributes, all illustrated with backstories and pictures.

Kiva has promoted itself as a link between individual lenders in the developed world and individual borrowers in the developing world, allowing visitors to its Web site to learn about and lend money to people in poor nations seeking small loans for specific purposes.

the loans made by individual lenders through the Kiva site do not actually end up in the pockets of individual borrowers. Instead, those loans are aggregated and used to backstop microfinance institutions that have already paid out microloans to the borrowers featured on the site.

Kiva president Premal Shah said he could foresee a day when Kiva really did provide a direct person-to-person connection, once certain legal hurdles are cleared and as more individuals in the developing world began using mobile phones to access credit and make electronic payments. In the meantime, the organization has changed the wording on its homepage from "Kiva lets you lend to a specific entrepreneur, empowering them to lift themselves out of poverty" to "Kiva connects people through lending to alleviate poverty."

Kiva has been awarded $2.5 million from the W-GDP Fund at USAID in an effort to identify innovative approaches to catalyze commercial investment for women’s economic empowerment and equality.

The Kiva Capital team will use this innovative funding to launch a comprehensive fund design and structuring process. This will include the development of an impact framework and a shared learnings platform.

The chatbot will also enable 24/7 instant customer service for its customers across Africa and Europe. Daniel Howard, CTO for SimbaPay, says: “Another major objective we achieved with the chatbot service is that it also works without internet. This means customers with a mobile phone, even a basic phone without internet access, can access the SimbaPay chatbot using SMS.” Together with Interswitch, SimbaPay says its B2B division offers its instant remittance technology to banks and telcos who want to provide their customers with the service. To send money with an SMS users need the recipient’s phone number and the chatbot will automatically obtain the recipient bank account or mobile money details.

Thndr, an Egypt-based startup has announced that it has received the first new brokerage license in the country in over a decade. Thndr recently acquired the necessary licensing from the Financial Regulatory Authority (FRA). 

Ahmad Hammouda, Co-Founder and CEO at Thndr said Egypt is expected to be the 7th largest economy by 2030 and has more than 100 million people, most of which are young and are looking for a convenient and digital way to invest their money. “That’s why we are excited to bring a new breed of young investors to the market” he added.