Author: Akin Naphtal

Nigeria-based mobility fintech startup Moove has raised US$20 million in funding from the UK government’s development finance institution (DFI) British International Investment (BII), formerly known as CDC Group. Founded in 2019 by British-born Nigerians Ladi Delano and Jide Odunsi, Moove is democratising vehicle ownership in Africa by providing revenue-based vehicle financing to mobility entrepreneurs. By embedding its alternative credit scoring technology onto ride-hailing, e-logistics and instant delivery platforms, Moove can use proprietary performance and revenue analytics to underwrite loans to drivers that have previously been excluded from financial services. Over three million rides have been completed in Moove-financed vehicles across…

South African fintech startup Nomanini has launched StockNow, a digital retailer solution that aims to bring affordable working capital to Africa’s informal retail markets. Founded in 2010, Nomanini has developed a platform that enables informal merchants and micro-entrepreneurs in emerging markets to distribute digital goods such as airtime and prepaid electricity. The startup, which also offers micro-loans to merchants and operates in markets such as Ghana and Mozambique, raised a US$4 million funding round led by Standard Bank, Africa’s largest bank, and completed by Goodwell Investments, an Amsterdam-based investment firm, in 2019. It also banked funding worth US$1.5 million in…

Egyptian fintech super app MNT-Halan has announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary Tasaheel has securitised around US$150 million of its loan book in the first issuance of a US$600 million programme with Commercial International Bank (CIB), Egypt’s largest private sector bank. Having begun life as a ride-hailing app for two- and three-wheeler vehicles back in 2018, MNT-Halan has morphed into a super app of sorts, and in the process become Egypt’s largest and fastest-growing lender to the unbanked. The startup’s proprietary fintech ecosystem connects customers, vendors and micro-enterprises through its consumer facing app, merchant app, distributed lending and payment processing software,…

Half of Namibia’s population does not have access to the internet due to lack of mobile phone network infrastructure – and where there is access, signals are poor. This is according to Peya Mushelenga, Minister at the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology (MICT). He urged the ICT industry to double up on efforts to roll out telecommunication towers across the country so that even people in rural areas can be connected to mobile communication – which falls is in line with the government’s broadband policy to provide at least 95% broadband coverage by 2024. By the end of this…

EcoCash pens deal to enable PayPal service in cash-strapped Zimbabwe Zimbabweans are now able to use PayPal’s Xoom for remittances after mobile money platform, EcoCash inked a partnership with global payment network Thunes to facilitate payments utilising the global remittance platform. EcoCash confirmed the new development this week and a spokesperson for the company said: “Leveraging our Hub partnership with Thunes, we are excited to add Xoom, a PayPal money transfer service, to our growing number of remittance partners to Zimbabwe.” PayPal’s availability in the Southern African country comes a week after World Remit terminated direct remittances into Zimbabwean bank…

Malian insurtech startup OKO has raised a US$500,000 seed extension round to help it expand to Ivory Coast and work towards a Series A. Founded in 2017, OKO develops affordable mobile-based crop insurance products to provide smallholder farmers with the financial security they need, regardless of unstable climate trends. The startup operates in Mali and Uganda and has so far brought insurance to more than 15,000 farmers. OKO saw an impressive 6x growth in the number of paying customers from 2020 to 2021 and is continuing to expand its reach in 2022, with new crops covered, and new partnerships signed…

The African Export-Import Bank has created a payment solution platform, Pan-African Payment and Settlement System, to facilitate instant cross-border payments in local African currencies. This is expected to save African traders about $5bn annually in currency convertibility. The announcement was contained in a statement by Mike Oghalu, the CEO, PAPPS, while speaking at the post-annual general meeting of the International Chamber for Commerce of Nigeria in Lagos. According to Oghalu, “Intra-Africa trade is by far the lowest intra-continental trade globally standing at 15-17per cent.” A statement by Oghalu explained that most of the cross-border payment transactions originating from African banks…

MTN Nigeria has traded a total volume of 191 million shares in 21,340 deal valued at N 43.7 billion, with an average of 3.03 million traded shares per session over the past three months (Mar 23 – Jun 24, 2022). It was discovered that a volume high of 22.8 million was achieved on April 13th, and a low of 149,497 on April 25th, for the same period. Recall, the company listed its public offer price at about N169/share when it made the offer public in December attracting over 126,000 Nigerians. The closure of its Series 1 offer for sales of…

Kenyan fintech startup Kyanda, a money transfer app that aims to help users make all sorts of transactions at as low a cost as possible, has launched operations in South Africa. Launched in February 2020 by Collins Kathuli, Kyanda allows users to make cheap and fast money transfers, purchase airtime, and pay bills, among other things. The startup has processed over three million transactions since its formation, and Kathuli told Disrupt Africa its goal is to build a payment ecosystem that serves both Kenya and Africa as a whole. With over US$10 billion being moved within South Africa each year,…

MTN Group Chairman Mcebisi Jonas and President and CEO Ralph Mupita have met with Nigeria’s Minister of Communications and Digital Economy Prof Isa Ali Ibrahim (Pantami) to discuss developments in the telecoms sector in Nigeria, including the country’s progress in updating subscribers’ SIM registration records with national identification numbers (NINs). In the meeting – held on the sidelines of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Kigali, Rwanda on Thursday – the Honourable Minister said that a total of almost 85 million NINs have been registered across the industry so far, adding that they will serve as the foundation…