Spring 21 Capstone 640pm

At Thndr we believe that everyone should have access to financial services and that means access to different products that can make your money work for you.  That’s why we’ve partnered up with Azimut, one of Europe’s leading independent asset managers to bring you the new Egypt-focused fixed income mutual fund AZ-Savings. AZ Savings is one of the first funds of its kind, where you can invest in daily certificates that you can redeem weekly—no more liquidity worries.

This paper reports the results of a large-scale field experiment designed to test the hypothesis that group membership can increase participation and prosocial lending for an online crowdlending community, Kiva. The experiment uses variations on a simple email manipulation to encourage Kiva members to join a lending team, testing which types of team recommendation emails are most likely to get members to join teams as well as the subsequent impact on lending. We find that emails do increase the likelihood that a lender joins a team, and that joining a team increases lending in a short window (1 wk) following our intervention. The impact on lending is large relative to median lender lifetime loans. We also find that lenders are more likely to join teams recommended based on location similarity rather than team status. Our results suggest team recommendation can be an effective behavioral mechanism to increase prosocial lending.

Customers who sign up for the M-Pesa service can convert between e-cash and real cash (these are called cash-in / cash-out transactions), and can transfer e-cash from their account to that of another account holder via SMS.

The most obvious benefit of crowdfunding for entrepreneurs is the funding. With so many startups on the market, it is hard to gather the money needed to bring ideas to life. Through crowdfunding, ventures that do not have a company builder like FinLeap behind them, can gain support at the very beginning. Crowdfunding provides a way for innovate ideas to be presented attractively, so it can be launched. Moreover, a crowdfunding platform can help successful entrepreneurs to validate their product which can then help with gathering the Series A funding. It makes validation faster and more scalable. Additionally, a crowdfunding platform allows entrepreneurs to get insights from their future customers and experts in the startup field while building awareness for the idea. [3]

Kiva is a non-profit lending platform well known for its microloan service targeted underserved markets globally. Lendio states that the program has now provided over $500,000 in microloans to business owners worldwide, 98% of whom are female. Lendio first launched the program in 2016. The company describes the program as part of its commitment to entrepreneurship and inclusivity. Lendio provides a microloan to a low-income entrepreneur for every new loan facilitated on its marketplace platform. This voluntary employee-contributed, employer-matched program reports a 94% participation rate among Lendio employees.

More than seven million Kenyan customers and businesses can now transfer money internationally through SimbaPay Family Bank, a leading financial institution in Kenya, has partnered with SimbaPay so that its customers can make instant money transfers to China

Thndr is aiming to build a Robinhood for the Middle East, helping users invest in stock, bonds and funds commission-free via the company’s free app. Robinhood has taken the US exchanges by storm, but the trend hasn’t hit investors in the Middle East; Thndr is aiming to replicate their success with investors there.

Types of Loans Available Through Peer-to-Peer Lending P2P loans can be used for many of the same purposes as personal loans. Here are a few of the loan types you may find on popular P2P websites.  Personal LoansHome Improvement LoansAuto LoansStudent LoansMedical LoansBusiness Loans

Kiva is the world’s first and largest crowdfunding platform for social good with a mission to connect people through lending to alleviate poverty. By lending as little as $25, anyone can help a borrower start or grow a business, go to school and realize their potential. Since 2005, Kiva and its growing global community of 1.7 million lenders have crowdfunded more than $1.1 billion in microloans to over 2.9 million entrepreneurs in 85 countries, with a 97 percent repayment rate.

“Our customers have been asking for a Mukuru App, and we have made sure to develop and present a solution that empowers our customers to send money back home to their families in an even safer and more convenient way. Mukuru has always given its customers the ability to transact when and wherever they need to through our existing USSD and WhatsApp offerings – the Mukuru App adds a richer experience and more control for a customer to manage their profile,”

“Our customers have been asking for a Mukuru App, and we have made sure to develop and present a solution that empowers our customers to send money back home to their families in an even safer and more convenient way. Mukuru has always given its customers the ability to transact when and wherever they need to through our existing USSD and WhatsApp offerings – the Mukuru App adds a richer experience and more control for a customer to manage their profile,”

Jamiipay has been a part of the Accelerace accelerator program, that help startup companies accelerate and scale up their business model and finetune their companies. Jamiipay is one of more than 500 companies that Accelerace already have accelerated.

FarmDrive generates real-time credit reports for smallholder farmers, allowing them to access loans. Their proprietary platform collects traditional and alternative data points like revenue and satellite imaging to create detailed yield estimates and assess credit risk and then delivers loans via mobile money. As a result, farmers can increase their crop yields, improve their incomes and invest their additional revenue back into their families and communities.

This study sought to find out perceptions of employee poaching by employees in telecommunication firms and how these perceptions affected their morale. A survey was conducted in which 30 questionnaires were administered and 27 filled. Results showed that 92% of the population had a positive perception of poaching with 8% having negative perceptions. When a regression analysis was done on the data received, in order to test the significance of the relationship between the variables, p-value for significance did not meet the standard which implies that there is not significant relationship between the variables. According to these results, employee perceptions of poaching do not have any effect on morale.

Founded in 2004, Mukuru has established a powerful brand affinity with customers built on trust, reliability, and local engagement. The company has grown to operate over 90 remittance corridors, enabling more than 5 million individuals to receive funds to cover living expenses, school fees, medical expenses, and utility bills. Mukuru is supported by world-class regulatory and compliance systems, highly scalable technology architecture, and a comprehensive sales and distribution network.

Anlesinya et al (2014)16 examined whether corporate social responsibility has significant positive effect on the financial performance of MTN Ghana Limited. The study administered questionnaire on 35 management staff of MTN Ghana Limited, employed standard multiple regression and hierarchical multiple regression for the analysis. The research results showed that CSR at the aggregate level did not have significant positive effect on financial performance but community CSR has a positive while environmental CSR has negative effect on financial performance of MTN Ghana Limited. The study however has left key performance indicators of MTN Ghana unexplored lending support for a more comprehensive study in that regard. Vadiraj and Narahari (2014)1 attempted to develop a model that could predict the future trends of average revenue per user (ARPU) so that telecom service providers could formulate a strategy to increase their ARPU. The study using a multiple linear regression has been able to explain that subscriber base; number of operators and percentage of new users added periodically are the main determinants of average revenue per user (ARPU). Rahul and Xue (2012)17 attempted to examine the relationship between some selected factors and their contribution to the revenue of the Telecom industries in China and India. Using time series data collected from secondary sources from 2000 to 2010 on number of subscribers, technology innovation, and government regulation and policies, their granger causality test found no causality running from number of subscribers to the revenue of the telecom Industry in both China and India. They however found a causality running from technological innovation to the revenue of the Telecom Industries in both countries. Shmelev (2013)18 developed a model for calculating Telecom Company’s revenue and margin indicators. The study crafted the model for calculating the revenue of Telecom companies based on the Business Metric Framework (BMF) developed by the TeleManagement Forum, a global non-profit association for service providers in the Telecommunication sector. Examining the relationship between the two categories of KPIs in the BMF, the study concluded that it is possible to  create a function depending on the target KPIs lower levels, to calculate the final financial indicator at given rates and obtain a performance management  tool based on key performance indicators.  

As early as 2016, established banking and mobile phone companies were competing alongside specialist start-ups to become leaders in fintech, especially in Africa.In November last year, Nairobi-headquartered Prime Bank launched an international money transfer service in collaboration with London-headquartered SimbaPay, giving Prime Bank customers in Kenya access to mobile payments.

The convergence of mobile telephony, banking services, and information systems creates significant economic opportunities on a global scale. While the adoption of mobile banking and mobile money emerged on the global scene as a tool to promote financial inclusion, new developments in the industry have created additional possibilities for this type of technology to revolutionize the practices and experiences of business owners in the Third World. This paper calls attention to the different ways in which mobile banking services and mobile payment systems are able to create value for their consumers. An empirical case study is developed using the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (City of Accra) that details the experiences of MTN Mobile Money users.

WorldCover investor and EchoVC founder Eghosa Omoigui believes the startup’s insurance offerings can actually help farmers improve yield. “Weather-risk drives a lot of decisions with these farmers on what to plant, when to plant, and how much to plant,” he said. “With the crop insurance option, the farmer says, ‘Instead of one hector, I can now plant two or three, because I’m covered.’ ”

WorldCover’s platform uses satellite imagery, on-ground sensors, mobile phones and data analytics to create insurance options for farmers whose crop yields are affected adversely by weather events — primarily lack of rain.