Africa is home to a number of widely differentiated fintech centres. Some of these African fintech hubs, such as Nigeria or South Africa, have emerged as dominant destinations for fintech in the continent. Many others, however, remain small but interesting spaces to watch. Apart from Nigeria and South Africa, Kenya, Ghana, Egypt, and Uganda have all seen success with a growing fintech sector. A majority of the continent’s fintechs come from these countries, and a large chunk of the investor dollars in the continent also land up in these African fintech hubs. This doesn’t mean that Africa’s smaller economies are…

Although there is vast potential for ecommerce in Africa just by sheer market size, the ecommerce sector is currently concentrated in a handful of markets. According to an ITC report, a total of 78% of all online business in Africa comes from just 5 African countries – South Africa, Egypt, Nigeria, Algeria, and Kenya. Typically, larger and more active platforms are accessible only in bigger economies in Africa, while just three international marketplaces are open to sellers from 50+ African countries. As of 2019, the continent’s 631 online marketplaces saw 2.2 billion visits. This is relatively smaller on the global…

UK-headquartered global cash payments platform Pipit Global and pan-African payments company Cellulant have extended their partnership agreement to include eighteen new countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Through the partnership, the two companies will provide both B2B and B2C payments services to existing and potential customers, according to a statement by Cellulant. These customers include financial institutions, ecommerce merchants, billers and billing platforms, mobile money providers and ewallets, and digital financial service providers. The expansion comes five months after Pipit and Cellulant partnered to enable remittances into Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Mali, Senegal, and Ghana. Cellulant was founded in 2002, and is…

South Africa is one of the top hubs for fintech, with several fintech startups in South Africa dominating headlines in 2021. The country, known for its “clearly defined startup ecosystem with multiple players across capabilities,” sees a relatively high fintech penetration rate in Africa. For instance, a third of Johannesburg’s startups come from the fintech sector, while 94% of the population has regular access to the internet, and 67% have a bank account. Digital payments and alternative financing are some of the hottest fintech sectors in South Africa right now. Digital payments in South Africa are expected to reach US$10.8…

Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund Mubadala has made investments in the crypto ecosystem amidst its growing value, Reuters reported. “This is a business that had, what $200 billion worth of crypto value two years ago, and it’s two and a half trillion dollars today and growing,” the report cited Mubadala CEO Khaldoon Al Mubarak as saying. Al Mubarak added that while many people remained sceptical about crypto as an investment, “I don’t fall in that category.” Without disclosing how much the fund expects to plough into crypto investment, Al Mubarak noted that Mubadala was investing in crypto-related infrastructure, such as…

Uganda-headquartered superapp SafeBoda has become the first company to receive funding from Google’s US$50 million Africa Investment Fund. The undisclosed round also saw participation from GoJek’s GoVentures, Allianz X, Unbound, Beenext, and Justin Kan, TechCrunch reported. SafeBoda has reportedly raised over US$20 million so far. Funding will be used to help the 2017-founded superapp scale in Uganda and Nigeria, and provide new payment and financial services solutions. Initially launched as a two-wheel ride-hailing platform, the startup now provides rides, parcel delivery, food and shop, payments, savings and other financial services. The company has accumulated over 1 million customers in Uganda…

Canada-based digital transaction platform BlocPal International and its majority-owned Nigerian subsidiary PayPassage have partnered to launch a financial services marketplace in Nigeria. The partnership marks BlocPal’s first launch in Africa, a statement from the company said. This is BlocPal’s third partner activation in 2021. The company is also looking to extend its solutions to India, Mexico, and indigenous communities in Canada. Through the partnership, BlocPal is looking to build a solution that provides a range of mobile financial services through physical on-the-ground retailers in Nigeria. These services include deposits and withdrawal of funds, domestic money transfers, prepaid credit cards, micro-loans,…

Singapore-headquartered challenger bank Tyme has closed a US$180 million Series B round with fresh infusions from Tencent and CDC. The company raised US$70 million from the China-based internet giant and UK impact investor, a statement from Tyme said. Funds will be used to grow TymeBank in South Africa, and to fund its GOTyme solution in the Philippines. It will also help Tyme boost its risk management, and expand into markets where CDC has a presence. Tyme had secured a digital bank licence with Filipino conglomerate the Gokongwei Group in August this year, with room for further international expansion. The company…

Fintech events in Africa can be centres of crucial conversation, considering the traction that the sector has gained in the continent just in the past year. In many ways, the development of the fintech industry across the African continent represents a turning point, as mobile technologies take over even as the population remains largely underbanked. From the striking rise of crypto in the continent, and the funding boom across the fintech sector, to the launch of central bank digital currencies, and the dominance of mobile money, fintech has had a coming-of-age in the continent in 2021. Going into 2022, not…

Cape Town-headquartered device identity and authentication solutions provider Entersekt has bagged an investment from Accel-KKR. According to a statement, the investment from the technology-focused private equity firm will allow the company to boost hiring and expansion into new markets. “We are very excited to have Accel-KKR on board. The industry is experiencing a wave of innovation in areas like omnichannel and password-less authentication, 3-D Secure and open banking, all of which are strategic focus areas for Entersekt. The investment from Accel-KKR will help us scale our business to reach more organisations across more regions with our cloud-first solutions,” said Schalk…

Arab Bank Egypt has concluded the first edition of its fintech bootcamp for Egyptian startups, with cash funding provided to three winning fintech startups. The one-week bootcamp took place between the 21st and the 25th of November this year, according to a statement. Shortlisted startups participate in bootcamp workshops that were led by fintech entrepreneurs, investors, and experts from the fintech industry and Arab Bank Egypt. Enrolled startups pitched their solutions to a judging panel, comprising Arab Bank senior management and independent investors, at a demo day. Three winning startups received cash rewards of up to EGP 100,000. These were…

B2B ecommerce and embedded finance platform TradeDepot has raised US$110 million in a Series B equity and debt funding round. The International Finance Corporation (IFC) led the Series B. Participating investors included Novastar, Sahel Capital, CDC Group, and Endeavor Catalyst. They were joined by existing investors, Partech and MSA Capital. The share of equity funding in the Series B stands at nearly US$42 million, according to TechCrunch. Meanwhile, Arcadia Funds provided the debt facility. The round will help TradeDepot scale its SME-focused buy now pay later (BNPL) service to five million retailers, and expand its merchant platform across Africa. More…

Saudi Arabia’s fintech sector has broadened, with licenses issued to 16 new fintech companies during the third quarter of this year (Zawya). According to the Saudi Central Bank governor, 13 of these companies come from the payments and electronic wallets sector, while the remaining three firms were engaged in insurance and finance. The news comes on the heels of a Fintech Saudi report published in October this year, which suggested that Saudi Arabia’s fintech companies grew by 37% in number this year, attracting record investments to the tune of SAR 1.3 billion (US$347 million). Further, payments companies secured 93% of…

As good news for Africa-based crypto exchanges, crypto has emerged as one of the top fintech trends across Africa this year despite wide regulatory disapproval of the trading of these currencies. Kenya, Nigeria, Togo, South Africa, Ghana, Tanzania emerged as the top nations driving crypto adoption worldwide. Transaction volumes on P2P platforms also stood relatively high in Kenya and Nigeria. In sub-Saharan Africa, peer-to-peer (P2P) bitcoin trading volumes on global crypto platforms LocalBitcoins and Paxful were the highest in the world, while at Luno, African users dominated its newly added users this year. Meanwhile, local exchanges such as Yellow Card…

Although the fintech ecosystem in Tanzania has developed rapidly over the past decade, it remains nevertheless small and nascent with just 33 pure fintech players identified. Out of these companies, only 36% have managed to secure seed funding or growth financing, while 35% are still relying on bootstrapping funds from family and friends to support early-stage operations. These figures show that domestic fintech startups are still struggling to raise capital, hampering the development of the overall industry, an industry assessment by the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNDF), the Tanzania Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Commission and startup accelerator Sahara…

The Bank of Tanzania, the country’s central bank, has announced plans to introduce its central bank digital currency, Bloomberg reported. The central bank is looking to bolster the capacity of its officials on central bank digital currencies, as well as its research capabilities in this space, the report cited central bank Governor Florens Luoga as saying. Elsewhere, Tanzania’s cautious stance towards cryptocurrencies remains in place, Luoga added. “To ensure that our country is not left behind the adoption of central bank digital currencies, the Bank of Tanzania has already begun preparations to have its own central bank digital currency,” Luoga…

Nigeria’s startup funding reached approximately US$417.5 million in nine months, and a lion’s share of this came from fintech (Punch). The funding total already beats the US$300 million these companies raised last year (fintech companies dominated Nigeria’s startup funding in 2020 as well). About 91% of this near-half-billion capital pool came from fintech companies. Edtech, healthtech and communications companies contributed the remaining 9%. From the current vantage point, fintech investments alone are expected to surpass US$400 million this year, while revenues are expected to grow to US$543 million in 2022. Some of the biggest African fintech startups have already contributed…

In today’s funding update, a crypto exchange, a fintech API platform and an MSME lender have raised seven-figure investment rounds across pre-seed and seed stage deals in Africa. The deals indicate that very early stage deals remain popular for fintech companies across the African continent, despite a number of mega rounds and unicorn valuations raised this year. Crypto exchange Busha raised US$4.2 million seed funding Nigeria-based crypto exchange Busha, founded in 2019, has raised US$4.2 million in a seed funding round. The funding will be used to scale beyond Nigeria across the rest of West Africa and other African regions,…

Specialist development agency Financial Sector Deepening (FSD) Africa is set to be launching its insurtech accelerator program in Ghana and Nigeria in 2022. The agency will be launching its BimaLab Insurtech Accelerator Program in the two West African countries next year, according to TechCrunch. The launch comes after FSD Africa kickstarted it’s insurtech accelerator in Kenya just this year. The KES 5.3 million BimaLab accelerator was launched in July through a partnership with Kenya’s Insurance Regulatory Authority and Tellistic Technology Services. The second cohort of the 10-week Kenya program graduated last week. FSD Africa was established in 2012 and is…

African fintech hubs have grown rapidly in the past few years, leading to pockets of fintech development across the continent. According to Findexable’s Global Fintech Rankings Report, 14 of the top Middle East and African fintech hubs came from the African continent. These included the usual suspects, but more interestingly, seven of these fintech hubs were new additions. Rwanda, Seychelles, Tunisia, Zimbabwe, Somalia, Cameroon and Ethiopia all made it to the Findexable index for the first time. On Fintech News Africa, we’ve previously talked about the three biggest African fintech hubs. They were South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya. In addition…