China in Africa: should the West be worried?

In the past 20 years, China has built ever closer bonds with African nations. It has spent billions transforming infrastructure across the continent, and extending its influence into politics and society. It even placed its only overseas military base there. How worried should the West be?

Fintech Africa

"Africa is leading a FinTech revolution that many have not seen or noticed. It has unicorns and funding that has increased nine times in just the last five years to a value of $5 billion in 2021, and that is double the amount of 2020" .... so writes Chris Skinner in his Blog.

He continues ... "When you mention Africa, some people think it is a country full of famine and war. First, it is not a country but a continent and yes, there is some famine and war, but that’s not Africa. Before the pandemic, I travelled to many countries in the region and had amazing experiences in Kenya, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe and more. Now, I am so pleased to report that from early seeds, trees have grown."

Read his full blog-post HERE and find out what Africa is doing and what Africa has achieved in the fintech world. 

Kenya Looks to FinTech, Credit Union Convergence to Advance Growth

Credit unions have served as a financial backbone to millions of households in Africa for decades, with some 39,000 organizations across the continent providing small installment loans and credit lines. Now, the industry is embracing technology to accelerate growth and bring about expanded financial inclusion.

The savings and credit cooperative organization (SACCO) sector in Africa is aggressively stepping up its digitalization efforts to not only drive financial inclusion to the last mile, but ensure that underserved consumers have access to financial services that had been previously unavailable to them or hard to obtain.

The Kenyan FinTech Kwara, founded in 2018 by Cynthia Wandia and David Hwan, was developed to help the unbanked and underbanked build wealth in a frictionless way. Kwara also strives to assist credit unions in East Africa transition to digital platforms.

Read the full story on PAYMENTS. com - click HERE.

..And the Mobile Money Winner is ….

Kenya to set world record $27bn mobile money transfers in 2015

From RT -

“Kenya’s mobile money transactions hit $23 billion in the 10-months to October which is $4 billion more than in the same period last year, according to data from the country’s Central Bank.

The East African country leads the world in mobile money use, and could make a new record this year. Kenya’s 10-month transactions equal the country’s entire transfers for 2014.”

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M-Pesa And The Rise Of The Global Mobile Money Market

From Forbes –

“Most people probably don’t think of Kenya as an innovation and technology hub, but in 2007 it became the launching pad for M-Pesa, a transformative mobile phone-based platform for money transfer and financial services. Since then, M-Pesa has undergone explosive growth: in 2013, a staggering 43 percent of Kenya’s GDP flowed through M-Pesa, with over 237 million person-to-person transactions. M-Pesa is nearly ubiquitous in the daily lives of Kenyans due to a range of services that include money deposit and withdrawal, remittance delivery, bill payment, and microcredit provision.”

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To Make Accounts Stickier, African Bank Offers Cellphone Service

From American Banker –

“As U.S. bankers fear losing the primary relationships with their customers to technologically nimble outsiders, a South African bank is showing how financial institutions could conceivably return the favor.

First National Bank, the republic's third-largest bank by assets, began offering cellphone service to its direct-deposit accountholders last month. Customers who buy the bank-branded SIM cards for their phones can sign on to a single FNB site for their financial and mobile accounts. There they can pay their phone bills, buy data service packages, and activate international roaming. FNB resells the airtime from Cell C, a mobile operator.”

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