Ethiopia’s large population of unbanked, the government’s current digital push, and recent finance reforms are bringing new opportunities for fintech startups and financial innovation. With more than 112 million people, Ethiopia is the second-most populous nation in Africa and is home to the fastest growing economy on the continent registering double-digit year-over-year growth for the past 10 years. Nearly 65% of Ethiopia’s population is under 25 years old, and there are some 45 million mobile subscribers with 17 million smartphones, showcasing the proliferation of mobile devices. At the same time, Ethiopia is also one of the poorest in Africa with…

African payments company Flutterwave announced that it has secured US$170 million during its Series C round, attaining unicorn status with a valuation of more than USD $1 billion. The round was led by growth-equity firms Avenir Growth Capital and Tiger Global Management LLC. Other investors include DST Global, Early Capital Berrywood, Green Visor Capital, Greycroft, Insight Ventures, Salesforce Ventures, Tiger Management, WorldpayFIS, and 9yards Capital. Founded by entrepreneur Olugbenga Agboola in 2016, the fundraise brings the total investment in Flutterwave to US$225 million. Flutterwave will invest the new capital to accelerate customer acquisition in existing and international markets, as well…

Citi has announced the launch of a new service for its institutional clients that speeds up the processing of their cross-border payments through the digitisation of supporting documents. With Citi’s new service, documents can be completed, processed and tracked digitally via Citi’s CitiDirect BE® electronic banking platform. The platform also provides users with upfront details about the documentation and data requirements for different payment types. This single-window service reportedly creates clear linkages between payments and related documents and cuts document fulfillment and processing times by more than half. In addition, users can also track the status of their documents on…

Egyptian fintech startup NowPay signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Export Development Bank of Egypt (EBE) for a credit facility to fund NowPay’s current salary advances product and future development of new products. NowPay allows corporate employees to get their salaries in advance any time in the month through its mobile app, which means access to emergency funding anytime, hence better management of their budget. Launched in 2019, NowPay aims at lowering employees’ financial stress by improving the financial wellness for employees. The company most recently raised $2.1 million in seed investment in May 2020 in a round that…

Egypt’s Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA) has collaborated with Visa to launch their fintech training programme for Egyptian fintech startups and entrepreneurs. The ITIDA-VISA Mentorship Programme aims to enhance cooperation in supporting entrepreneurship, encouraging startups to develop innovative fintech solutions, and promoting digital payments in Egypt. Furthermore, the shortlisted fintech startups will avail Visa’s global partner network to empower their business and enrich their market experience. Upon joining the programme, the participating fintech startups and entrepreneurs will be eligible to access VISA’s development Application Programming Interfaces (API), which facilitates integration with its global network and experimenting with VISA’s sandbox.…

The Bank of Ghana launched a regulatory and innovation sandbox pilot in collaboration with fintech firm EMTECH which provides cloud-based software specifically for central banks. The sandbox is a supportive and controlled policy environment that enables firms to test innovative products, services and business models under the supervision of a regulator. It will provide a forum for financial sector innovators to interact with the sector regulator to test digital financial service innovations while evolving enabling regulatory environment. In this regard, the bank and the innovator are able to assess the usefulness, viability and safety of innovations through shared understanding of…

Fintech funding in Africa jumped 49.3% in 2020 to US$160 million. The amount was raised by 99 fintech startups, making fintech the dominant tech sector of 2020, a new report by regional startup news and research portal Disrupt Africa found. The annual African Tech Startups Funding Report, released on January 21, 2021, looks at the major tech funding trends observed in Africa last year. According to the study, fintech attracted the lion’s share of 2020’s African tech startup funding with more startups securing funding than any other sector and a combined total that dwarfed all others. Not only fintech surpassed…

South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya have historically been the fintech hubs of Africa, but the next chapter for the industry in the continent will likely come from new, fast-growing ecosystems, including Ethiopia, Ghana and Rwanda, according to a new report. The Africa Fintech: State of the Industry 2020 report, produced by Africa Fintech Summit in partnership with EFG EV Fintech and released in October 2020, looks at the state of fintech in Africa, outlining the key trends and emerging fintech ecosystems to watch out for. Ethiopia According to the study, Ethiopia is undergoing an unprecedented acceleration of its digital transformation…

In Tanzania, the fintech sector is still nascent with less than 50 companies, among which 68% in their early stages and 20% still at the pre-startup stage and not fully launched yet, a research found. An assessment of the Tanzanian fintech landscape by the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF), in partnership with Tanzania’s Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) Commission and local innovation hub Sahara Ventures, identified just 34 active fintech startups in the country as of November 2020. These fintech startups focus on six market segments – payments and remittances, lending and financing, insurance, savings, investments, and personal finance…

The Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) has released a draft document outlining a five-year digitalization plan to modernize the country’s domestic payment landscape. The document, titled Kenya National Payments System Vision and Strategy 2021 – 2025 and released in December 2020, stresses the regulator’s commitment to establishing a regulatory landscape that’s conducive to innovation, as well as embracing open banking and APIs, among other key areas of focus. In the document, the CBK says it will work to define standards for API development and mandate data portability with hopes that more options and innovative solutions will be made available for…

The Arab Investment Bank announced that it has selected Temenos, a Swiss banking software company to bolster its digital banking transformation journey. Arab Investment Bank chose the capabilities of Temenos Infinity and Temenos Payments to improve performance, drive its digital growth strategy and provide a boost to financial inclusion for millions of Egyptians. The Egyptian bank already uses Temenos Transact as its core banking technology. With Temenos Infinity, the bank has embarked on a digital transformation journey to make banking and financial services easier, faster and more accessible for all Egyptians. Egypt has an adult population of over 67 million…

Fintech revenues in Nigeria are projected to reach an estimated US$543 million by 2022, driven by increasing smartphone penetration and a large population of unbanked eager to adopt digital financial services, according to a new report by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). The report, titled State of Play: Fintech in Nigeria, examines key trends in the Nigerian fintech sector, and assesses industry drivers. According to the study, Nigeria is home to a burgeoning fintech startup community and is rapidly emerging as one of Africa’s fintech leaders. McKinsey estimates that there are currently over 200 fintech standalone companies in the country,…

Knowledge Officer announced a collaboration with the Corporation for International Cooperation (GIZ) to launch the Fintech Academy, which is said to be the first of its kind in Egypt. Other program partners who support this initiative include Mint, Fintech Galaxy and Global Ventures. The academy will cover important topics in the intersection of finance, technology and entrepreneurship. The goal of the academy is to prepare future founders for the changing landscape of finance and equip them with key skills in order to lead the fintech transformation in the region. The participants will learn through the mix of self-paced learning, online…

3 Swiss fintech startups namely 4bridges, AgFlow and e-traid (e-commerce) were among the startups chosen to be a part of the Swiss Venture Leaders South Africa team. The selection process for this year was so competitive that the programme included a total of 11 Swiss startups for the first time. The selection comprises of sciencepreneurs active in fintech, medtech, cleantech, and agritech. The Swiss Venture Leaders South Africa programme aims to boost the entrepreneurial know-how, growth potential, and exposure of Swiss sciencepreneurs by offering a unique online experience that connects entrepreneurs with the innovation hotspots of South Africa. From September 28…

Refugees in Europe are struggling to access basic financial services, and though this would have typically represented an opportunity for fintechs, companies in the space are facing major barriers that are hampering their ability to adequately serve these underbanked populations, according to a new research by Village Capital, a venture capital (VC) firm focusing on the sectors of financial inclusion, agriculture, education, energy and health. In a report titled Breaking Down Barriers: Fintech Solutions for Refugees, the VC shares insights collected from dozens of entrepreneurs and startup ecosystem leaders on the main challenges they face when developing offerings and delivering…

Vodafone Egypt, the largest mobile network operator in Egypt in terms of active subscribers and Tpay Mobile, a digital payment enabler in the Middle East and Africa, announced the launch of Direct Carrier Billing (DCB) on the Google Play store. Through this partnership Tpay Mobile, which operates in the UAE, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, in addition to seven other countries, enables Vodafone Egypt subscribers to purchase from Google Play and conveniently charge the payments to their mobile phone bill or deduct them from their airtime balance. For the first time in Egypt, all of the 41 million Vodafone subscribers have the…

CREST, the not-for-profit accreditation and certification body for the technical security industry, has received a grant of $1.4 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to help increase cyber security capacity in Nigeria, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Indonesia. Robust growth, adoption and usage of digital financial services by the poor can help provide the means to participate in the formal financial sector, capture income generating opportunities and smooth consumption through savings and other financial products. The growing reliance on digital infrastructure and increasing sophistication of threat actors requires significant attention and investment in managing cyber risk.…

In 2019, 80% of central banks were engaged in work related to central bank digital currency (CBDC), compared with 70% the previous year. Amongst these, 40% had progressed from conceptual research to experiments or proofs-of-concept, and 10% had developed pilot programs, according to a new survey by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). The study, which was carried out in the latter part of 2019 and included participation from 66 central banks, found that monetary authorities around the world continued to work on CBDC in 2019 with some accelerating deployment. Respondents cited several motivations and reasons why they investigated CBDCs…

Net 1 UEPS Technologies, announced that it has exercised its option to acquire an additional 35% interest in Bank Frick, a fully licensed bank based in Balzers, Liechtenstein for approximately USD 46.4 million, subject to certain purchase price adjustments. he transaction is subject to approval from the Liechtenstein Financial Market Authority and is expected to close in March 2020. Following the successful completion of the additional investment, the Company will own 70% of Bank Frick with the Kuno Frick Family Foundation owning the remaining 30% interest. Herman Kotzé: “Combine the benefits of Bank Frick with the technical capabilities of Net1.”…

Egypt’s multi-partner backed FinTech accelerator program Startupbootcamp-Pride FinTech Cairo holds its first Demo Day to present 10 graduating startups to investors, industry experts and entrepreneurship ecosystem stakeholders on the 22nd of May. The maiden programme was first announced officially in April. SBC-Pride FinTech Cairo’s first Demo Day comes after three months of an intensive acceleration program, more than 180 one-to-one matchmaking sessions, awareness, engineering, validation, pitching and growth-hacking modules, all resulting in 14 proof-of-concept engagements. Building on the importance of financial inclusion and its effect on Egypt’s GDP, the 10 FinTech startups will take center stage and pitch their innovative…