Spring 21 Capstone 640pm

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.

The National Communications Authority (NCA) has sanctioned Mobile Network Operator (MNO), MTN Ghana for failing to comply with directives which were sent to them following some challenges with their network recently. In the directive, the Authority directed MTN to submit a report on the challenges within 24 hours of receipt of the directive among other directives. 

The National Communications Authority (NCA) has sanctioned Mobile Network Operator (MNO), MTN Ghana for failing to comply with directives which were sent to them following some challenges with their network recently.

“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.

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.

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.

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 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 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.

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 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. 

Since JUMO was founded in 2014, the company doubled its staff complement each year for two consecutive years, and it was recently recognized by the London Stock Exchange Group as one of the Companies to Inspire Africa in 2019.

JUMO is a full technology platform, developed for building and running financial services

JUMO’s extensive network of partners includes financial services providers such as the Barclays Africa Group, Letshego Bank, and Telenor Microfinance Bank, as well as mobile network operators such as MTN, Airtel, Telenor, and Tigo.

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.

South Africa-based financial technology firm JUMO plans to expand in high-growth Asian markets after securing the backing of Goldman Sachs GS.N in an equity funding round, the company's chief executive said.

Since its founding in 2014, JUMO, which helps individuals and small businesses access savings and credit products through their mobile devices, has mainly focused on Africa where the adoption of mobile money has transformed the banking landscape.

JUMO uses behavioural data such as mobile telephone use to help financial services providers and mobile network operators assess lending risk and tailor financial products to those living in developing countries where credit information is scarce.

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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.

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

Like many parts of the developing world, Africans are significantly less likely to have bank accounts and credit or debit cards. But mobile phones have penetrated the African market, and in countries such as Nigeria and Kenya, the majority of people have a workable phone.

M-Pesa is a Kenyan mobile payments platform, one of the first of its kind in Africa (

he service has been a runaway success since launching in 2007, operating in 10 countries across Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia and earning Safaricom 19.4 billion shillings (about $190 million) in the first half of 2015. It seems likely that as cell phone use continues to proliferate on the African continent, M-Pesa's transactions will grow, too.