April 19, 2018 @ 10:16 pm By Samantha Hurst  |  

Digital Financial Services Lab (DFS Lab), a fintech accelerator funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation,  announced on Thursday it will invest $200,000 in four separate startups that are building financial service products for low-income and unbanked consumers in developing markets. Cherehani Africa (Kenya), NALA (US), Nobuntu (South… Read More

March 22, 2018 @ 9:27 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

Credit card giant Visa is set to launch a new $50,000 innovation contest in the fintech industry of Sub-Sahara Africa. This news comes just a few months after Visa announced the launch of its fintech bootcamps for African startups. The contest will run under the company’s… Read More

February 26, 2018 @ 11:39 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

Last week, the Middle East and African fintech hub, Bahrain FinTech Bay, announced it is now officially open for business. Along with its opening, it also announced startups and founding partners. Bahrain FinTech Bay claims it is the region’s largest fintech and is aiming to… Read More

February 23, 2018 @ 9:35 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

PayJoy, a San Francisco fintech startup, announced on Friday it has teamed up with mobile distributor Allied Mobile to bring affordable smartphone payment plans to markets across the continent of Africa. According to the duo, Allied Mobile will use PayJoy Checkout, an instant paperless finance… Read More

February 15, 2018 @ 11:49 am By Erin Hobey  |  

Millions of Africans now have access to financial systems thanks to cashless systems using digital technology; consequently, more and more people are seeing the benefits of mobile banking, according to Ecobank, a leading independent pan-African banking group. Ecobank, the main sponsor at the Africa Tech summit… Read More

February 8, 2018 @ 8:38 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

BitPesa, a blockchain payments platform for Africa, announced on Wednesday it has acquired European money transfer service, TransferZero. Founded in May 2016, TransferZero claims to be the first fintech company licensed by the Bank of Spain as an authorized payment institution and is a partner of Bankia,… Read More

January 23, 2018 @ 3:56 pm By Samantha Hurst  |  

Convergencium, a Rwanda-based systems integrator and consulting organization, announced on Monday it has formed a strategic partnership with insurtech and investment technology company Agile Financial Technologies in order to sell, implement and support Agile Financial’s products and services in Rwanda and other countries in Sub-Saharan… Read More

November 21, 2017 @ 4:00 pm By Samantha Hurst  |  

Digital currency for payments Dash announced on Tuesday it has formed a partnership with KuvaCash to launch a program that is designed to solve Zimbabwe’s ballooning inflation, collapsing currency, and declining national economy. According to Dash, KuvaCash is a Dash-record $550K USD undertaking, funded directly by… Read More

November 17, 2017 @ 12:11 pm By Samantha Hurst  |  

Nigeria officially has its first bobsled team, all thanks to the team’s crowdfunding campaign on GoFundMe. The team, which consists of female athletes Seun Adigun, Ngozi Onwumere, and Akuoma Omeoga, launched the initiative in January, seeking $75,000 so that they could get the 2018 Winter Olympic… Read More

November 6, 2017 @ 3:15 pm By Samantha Hurst  |  

Village Capital, in partnership with PayPal, recently announced it is accepting applications for its Fintech Africa 2018 program. Founded in 2009, Village Capital is a global venture firm that discovers, developed, and invests in entrepreneurs. Since its launch, the company has been working with early-stage investors,… Read More

October 27, 2017 @ 11:01 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

UK-based fintech startup Zazu has successfully secured its initial £150,000 funding target during its crowdfunding campaign on Seedrs. The initiative was launched earlier this month, seeking the funds for the company’s new digital-only bank in Africa. As previously reported, Zazu, which was founded in 2015, was launched through… Read More

October 13, 2017 @ 10:43 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

UK-based fintech startup Zazu has launched an equity crowdfunding campaign on Seedrs to raise £150,000 as it prepares to launch its new digital-only bank in Africa. Founded in 2015, Zazu states it was born from Ignite Accelerator as an e-commerce platform for farmers and is now… Read More

September 29, 2017 @ 11:37 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

Digital money transfer company WorldRemit announced on Friday it has expanded its partnership with Wafacash, a subsidiary of Attijariwafa Bank, to offer instant money transfer services across west and central Africa. According to WorldRemit, the companies already work together in Morocco and Senegal but will expand into… Read More

September 15, 2017 @ 7:34 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

Blockchain platform Humaniq announced earlier this week the next phase in its expansion as it launches the Ghana Use Case. The company’s key goal is to bring onboard two thousand users. According to Humaniq, the Ghana launch news comes as phase 1 of a pilot… Read More

September 14, 2017 @ 2:30 pm By Samantha Hurst  |  

On Thursday, AlliedCrowds released the second edition of its Developing World Alternative Finance report. In the latest report, AlliedCrowds examine impact investing in Africa and looked closer at Somalia’s impact landscape. “Development finance is moving from grants and donations to loans and investments, and impact investing is… Read More

August 31, 2017 @ 3:28 pm By Samantha Hurst  |  

BitPesa, a blockchain payments platform for Africa today announced Greycroft as its lead investor in a follow-up to its Series A funding round. The platform revealed that it has reached $10 million in total funding. The platform stated that its 25% month-on-month growth for nearly two years demonstrates… Read More

July 13, 2017 @ 7:25 am By Erin Hobey  |  

Leading digital money transfer service WorldRemit and Huawei have announced a partnership making WorldRemit’s international money transfer service available to all partners of Huawei’s mobile money service platform across Africa. WorldRemit claims to process 74% of all international transfers to mobile money accounts coming from money transfer… Read More

June 21, 2017 @ 10:24 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

Digital Financial Services Lab (DFS Lab) announced on Tuesday it is set to invest $250,000 in four separate fintech startups that are building products that help low-income consumers in developing markets. The startups are Inclusive (based in Ghana), Pula (based in Kenya), Pezesha, (based in Kenya), and… Read More

June 14, 2017 @ 5:31 pm By JD Alois  |  

The Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF) at the University of Cambridge Judge Business School has launched its third European benchmarking survey and the second survey for Africa and the Middle East. The two separate research initiatives will review the emerging alternative finance markets in each… Read More

June 8, 2017 @ 8:48 am By JD Alois  |  

Crowd4Climate.org, a crowdfunding platform for climate protection projects in developing countries, has successfully funded its second project since the launch of the platform in November 2016. A Mobile solar power plant, Africa GmbH & Co. KG from Germany, collected more than €170,000 for a mobile… Read More