Finance
African Remittance Company Joins Forces with Western Union
Mathieu Coquillon, co-founder of Mama Money Local money transfer company, Mama Money has joined forces with cross-currency money movement and payments company, Western Union. The partnership enables Mama Money customers to send money to their loved ones around the world via Western Union’s Global Network. “When the April lockdown hit, we saw a massive drop in remittances leaving South Africa due to the restrictions on movement to paying for money transfers and uncertainty. Remittance outflows for certain countries dropped by 90%. However, we’ve seen a very swift recovery since May as economic activities began to resume,” says Mathieu Coquillon, co-founder of Mama Money. Since 2017, Mama Money has grown by over 10 times – starting with six employees to over 120 staff members today. This str...
Tanzanian FinTech Launches Personal Finance App
Mipango Fintech has launched a new app that will provide free personal financial management to Tanzanians on IOS and Android mobile devices. The app – which is underpinned by AI and operates in Swahili – aims to support Tanzanians to better manage their expenses, provide an opportunity to set up budgets, view, analyze expenses and track personal finances. “Financial literacy is a key gap in the growth and development of this market. Over 50% of Tanzanian adults do not keep track of their expenditures and have no financial goals. This factor leads many citizens to engage in bad debt practices which in turn leads many people into abject poverty,” says Lilian Makoi, co-founder of Mipango Fintech. “We see the launch of this application as an opportunity to change the way our citizens run their...
ICC Appoints First Black Female to Executive Board
The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) has appointed Valentina Mintah to the executive board – marking the first time a black woman has been positioned as an executive board member in the 100 year history of the organisation. In her new role, the Ghanaian-British technology executive – who is based in Dubai – will be responsible for boosting trade ties between Africa and the rest of the world. Mintah, internationally-recognised for her expertise in trade facilitation and process automation, is the founder and former CEO of West Blue Consulting, an award-winning ICT organisation based in West Africa. Having established West Blue Consulting in 2012, she led the company to successfully develop and deliver a national single window platform for Nigeria – significantly optimising and improv...
TymeBank is Recognised as One of South Africa’s Top 3 Digital Banks
Image sourced from Business Tech Only 18 months after launching, TymeBank has been rated as one of the top three digital banks in South Africa by SITEisfaction. This recognition follows on the recent Forbes accolade, which claimed TymeBank as the 2nd best bank in the country its high levels of customer satisfaction and key qualities like trust, banking fees, digital services and financial advice. In the latest report, which measures customer satisfaction with digital banking services, TymeBank was recognised for the bank’s user-friendliness, safety features and affordability. The latter was particularly appreciated by those who had recently switched, with the majority saying they switched because of the bank’s extremely low transaction fees and market-leading high-interest rates on all sav...
SA Regulator Flags Crowd1 as Suspected Pyramid Scheme
South African financial regulators have been taking a renewed critical look at Crowd1 – a nebulous, highly controversial and popular Spanish (or Russian) company that claims to be a networking marketing firm, among other things. Crowd1 has already been banned in Namibia and the Philippines, and other countries, under suspicions of foul play. Since last month, the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) Prudential Authority has been investigating Crowd1 – a part of what is known as Impact Crowd Technology Group. Looking specifically into whether or not the company is a deposit-taking organisation. According to MoneyWeb, Crowd1 has vehemently denied allegations made against it that it is, in fact, a pyramid scheme. However, claims made by the Bank of Namibia suggest just that. The Bank claim...
FNB Named South Africa’s Best Digital Bank
Sourced from Htxt.Africa First National Bank (FNB) has been voted as the best digital bank in the 2020 SITEisfaction survey. The bank is said to have “dominated overall customer satisfaction metrics on both the Best Mobile Banking and Best Internet Banking categories”. Conducted for 9 consecutive years, the survey benchmarks Internet banking, app and customer experience against that of competitors as well as against previous years’ performance. “Our consistent approach to digital banking has provided customers with an innovative, contextual and agile banking experience. Our banking processes have evolved into one that can operate through challenging market conditions with changing consumer perceptions, sentiment and dynamics. Through this we have delivered platforms that have been pivotal ...
Telkom Records R43 billion in Revenue, Up 3%
Image sourced from My Broadband South African network provider, Telkom has delivered a solid top-line performance in the year to 31 March 2020, with revenue increasing 3.0% to R43.0 billion, mainly driven by a 54.4% increase in mobile service revenue. The company says its performance was underpinned by capital investments of R7.8 billion within the same period. The mobile business continues to gain scale and remains the fastest-growing mobile business in South Africa. With 12 million customers, it now accounts for 35% of Telkom’s total operating revenues. “Our Group revenue performance represents how ongoing investment – particularly in mobile, IT and masts and towers – enables Telkom to grow new revenue streams and offset traditional business shrinkage,” says Telkom Group Chief Executive,...
Ericsson Aims to Enable Financial Inclusion and Development Across Africa
As the world grapples with the COVID-19 health crisis, the desire for mobile money and contactless payments is on the rise to avoid infections and disease transmission. With mobile money, customers can make payments anywhere at any time with their mobile devices connected to the Internet which decreases exposure to physical money, Point of Sales (PoS) terminals and Automated Teller Machines (ATM)– especially with high volumes of micropayments. The freedom to send, spend and receive money with a mobile phone is quickly becoming an essential part of life for billions of people. It is said that more money remains digital – promoting further digital transactions circulating in the system – rather than being cashed-out – which is great progress towards a cashless society. In 2019, GSMA recorded...
NiDCOM chief congratulates Benedict Oramah on his re-appointment as Afreximbank president
The Chairman/CEO, Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NiDCOM), Mrs Abike Dabiri-Erewa, has congratulated Prof. Benedict Oramah on his re-appointment as President, African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) for a second term in office. The NiDCOM chair expressed the felicitations in a statement by Mr Gabriel Odu of the Media, Public Relations and Protocol Unit of the commission on Tuesday. The NiDCOM chief said that Oramah’s “enormous contributions to the growth and development of the bank and the huge successes attained during his first tenure” testified to his re-appointment. She, therefore, urged Oramah, as a Nigerian in diaspora, to woo more diaspora investors to invest in the continent particularly Nigerian diasporas and to continue on his quest to better prepare the African continent to c...
Warner Music Group Moves to Replace Old Debt With New, Better Debt
The music company is conducting a private offering to purchase senior notes due in 2023 with funds from sales of senior notes at a better interest rate due seven years later. Warner Music Group is trading old debt for new debt with a better interest rate and later due date. The music company is conducting a private offering for $535 million of senior secured notes due in 2030 that it expects to close June 29, it was announced Tuesday (June 16). At the same time, Warner wants to use the proceeds to purchase $300 million of new senior secured notes due in 2023. If Warner sells $535 million notes due in 2030 to redeem $300 million of notes due in 2023, it would replace a 5% interest rate with 3.875%. On $300 million of principal, the difference in rates of 1.125% equals $3.375 million of inte...
QNB is Accepting Mastercard-branded Payment Cards in Sudan
QNB Group has become the first bank in Sudan to have successfully performed an international payment card transaction in partnership with Mastercard. The transaction was performed using a Mastercard virtual prepaid card product. QNB is also the first Bank in Sudan to have obtained an issuance license from Mastercard. The first successful international prepaid card transaction was performed on 14 June 2020 and it marks an important and historic milestone for QNB and Mastercard’s strategic plans in Sudan and across Africa. Through this partnership, QNB will issue and accept the Mastercard-branded payment cards in Sudan, allowing more people and businesses across the country to enjoy more convenient, secure and easy to use ways to pay locally and globally. The QNB Mastercard product is a secu...
Mukuru and WorldRemit Expand Network of Remittances into Zimbabwe
Mukuru, one of Africa’s largest remittance providers, has announced a partnership with global online money transfer service WorldRemit to facilitate money transfers to Zimbabwe from across the globe. The partnership will be instrumental in bringing world-class financial services to Zimbabweans and generating new synergies for African financial inclusion. “We are excited to be able to extend Mukuru’s valuable pay-out footprint to more customers and to harness this opportunity with WorldRemit’s global reach to expand our fast-growing global presence – while simultaneously creating new opportunities for customer-led innovation on the continent. These types of synergies bring immediate value to our customers, and alleviates their day to day challenges with user-friendly solutions,” says Andy J...
