Spring 21 Capstone 640pm

Every year, we work to reach around 1 million small farmers with the resources they need to diversify and improve their crops, increase their incomes, and become more resilient in the face of a rapidly changing climate.   Our vision is that small farmers have greater agency over their livelihoods. This means access to the insurance, advice and resources they need to generate enough profit to feed their families and thrive. By supporting Pula, we continue to take steps in this direction — a world in which all small farmers can rest assured their livelihood is safe and they have what they need to prosper and grow.

Through its Venture Capital investment platform, the Technology Investment Account (TIA), More Capital participated in an USD 1 Million Pre-Series A Bridge Round raised by Cairo-based Fintech Money Fellows.  

Leading application to send and receive payments in Nigeria, with more than 8.4 million users. Founded in 2009 with the simple belief that technology can transform lives by delivering universal access to financial services, Paga is now the top mobile payment service in Nigeria, used by more than 12 million individual users, while employing nearly 22,000 Paga agents. Anyone with a mobile phone can send money to the recipient's mobile phone number which can then be collected either through a Paga agent or an ATM without the use of a card. Paga can also be used for airtime credits, bill payments, and retail. The company is constantly evolving to bridge the gap between commerce, financial services, and economic development within Nigeria's emerging economy.

WorldRemit’s low fees and exchange rates are shown up-front and customers can send money easily via the company’s website and app. By extending its money transfer service to SMEs, WorldRemit will save businesses time and money when they make international payments.

Today, we’re pleased to extend that service offering to businesses, and put an end to the steep fees that many pay, especially when sending to Ghana. We’re committed to making it quick, safe and easy for you to pay individuals across borders, leaving you to focus on growing your own business.”

Abacus, the #1 mid-market expense reporting software listed on G2 Crowd, is the only truly real-time expense reporting solution on the market. It is the easiest way for a company to reimburse its teams, implement their expense policy, and reconcile corporate credit cards throughout the month. More than 1,000 customers use Abacus, including GLG, Coinbase, and Betterment.

Zeepay Ghana has been awarded the Electronic Money Issuer (EMI) license to operate as a mobile financial services company by the Bank of Ghana, the regulator of banking and financial services

According to Oviosu, Visa and Paga’s engineering teams have already started working together and Paga expects to roll-out these new options in Nigeria sometime in second-quarter 2020.

“Based on the partnership, we’re going to launch QR codes and NFC [payments] into the market in Nigeria — alternative ways of receiving payments than bringing out a physical card,” said Oviosu.

We live in a world of instant global communication. Yet the business of sending money abroad has remained stuck in the past. Many money transfer companies still make their customers visit an agent and fill-out bits of paper. And despite the inconvenience, their rates are often punishing.

Balancing software development of system functionalities for both native iOS and Android, simultaneously, is quite challenging.

Beginning with our Product Discovery Workshop, we collaborated with Paga's product and marketing teams to help identify new core features and areas for improvement.

“Abacus fulfills two requirements that help us make our expense reporting more efficient - a simple interface that helps our employees submit accurate expenses in real time, and powerful rule-based automation that we can customize to our policy so expenses are auto-approved or sent to the best person to review and approve.”Daniel Niccum, CFO, North American Substation Services

Wireless carrier MTN Group and global payment services giant Western Union Co. have partnered to introduce international mobile remittance services in 21 countries across Africa and the Middle East.

According to Ezinne Obikile, SystemSpecs Executive Director, Infrastructure and Payments Gateway; “SystemSpecs is committed to driving financial inclusion and providing payment convenience to all, which underscores this strategic partnership with Paga to extend a wide range of financial solutions and services to customers everywhere, even at a time as this.”

Also commenting, Jay Alabraba, Co-founder and Director of Business Development, Paga said: “In our commitment to make payments easier for all Nigerians and businesses, we are pleased to collaborate with SystemSpecs. Our goal is to always provide an improved experience to our customers everywhere, by leveraging digital technology. This collaboration would further help us meet the needs of individuals who seek to make various bill payments, including those in emerging markets.”

In 2019, Fawry became the first fintech company to IPO in the region and since taking that step, the price of its stock has risen by 300 per cent. In August, Fawry became Egypt’s first tech ‘unicorn,’ born during a global pandemic and what is quickly becoming a global economic meltdown of massive proportions.

“In 2018, mobile and online payments to emerging markets reached a record high of $528 billion and we expect this number to increase. As WorldRemit handles a growing share of this market, we look forward to continue working with the company to scale its digital platform and expand its service to reach many new customers across the globe,” TCV General Partner John Doran said in the press release.

He described an average African user as highly dependent on a mobile device for accessing financial services. Takyi-Appiah also talked about how an innovative yet simple platform built on the over-the-top (OTT) instant messaging service players such as WhatsApp could offer the scale to penetrate millions who do not have access to formal financial services across the African sub-continent and help transform its payment ecosystem.

Zeepay CEO Andrew Takyi-Appiah The Ghana Information Technology and Telecoms Awards have declared Zeepay CEO Andrew Takyi-Appiah the Best Fintech CEO of the Year 2020.

Zeepay CEO declared Best Fintech CEO of the Year | Value Added Services News in Ghana

Visa and Fawry sign strategic partnership to accelerate digital payments acceptance

One of the key solutions that the partnership aims to address is the need to enable a digital ecosystem that easily supports the needs of consumers and merchants. Through Visa Direct’s peer to peer transfer and low cost QR solutions, millions of customers – regardless of who they bank with – would be able to make peer to peer and business to business transactions easily and securely so they can move money in real time.