Blogs

Vodacom Q1 revenue jumps 37% on back of Egypt deal, weak rand

Paula Gilbert
7/21/2023

Vodacom Group revenue increased almost 37% to US$2 billion for the first quarter of the financial year, due to its addition of Vodafone Egypt and the rand's recent depreciation.

The 100 most influential African leaders in 2023

Africa Tech Perspectives
7/21/2023

A new report from Africa Tech Festival and Connecting Africa puts a spotlight on the top 100 African leaders in the telecoms and technology sector in 2023.

BOSS Money expands into Francophone Africa

Paula Gilbert
7/19/2023

Money transfer and remittance service BOSS Money is expanding into Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire, Cameroon, and the DRC.

Africa's fintech market to top US$65B by 2030

Paula Gilbert
7/11/2023

South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt, and Kenya are leading the way for Africa to become the fastest growing fintech market, with fintech revenues projected to grow thirteenfold to US$65 billion in 2030, according to a report from Boston Consulting Group and QED Investors.

Ericsson eyes mobile financial services growth in Africa

Paula Gilbert
7/7/2023

Swedish multinational Ericsson is pushing further into mobile financial services and working to improve financial inclusion for underserved Africans, especially women.

Connecting Africa Podcast S2 Ep. 8 – Empowering the African diaspora

Paula Gilbert
6/30/2023

In this episode the team speaks to Rahim Diallo, founder and CEO of fintech Jawudi, which is shaking up the money transfer space by using 20% of the profits from its remittance service to launch a fund to invest directly back into startups across Africa.

VodaPay super app adds free cash deposits for unbanked

Paula Gilbert
6/14/2023

Vodacom's super app VodaPay has now added a free cash deposit service to expand its reach to unbanked users in South Africa

IFC invests $157M in Safaricom consortium in Ethiopia

Paula Gilbert
6/12/2023

The International Finance Corporation (IFC) is investing $157.4 million in Safaricom Ethiopia's consortium, along with a $100 million loan.

Cross-border payment solution LemFi expands to Kenya

Paula Gilbert
6/6/2023

Cross-border payment solution LemFi is expanding its services in Africa with a launch in Kenya.

SA's MultiChoice to launch pan-African payment platform

Paula Gilbert
5/29/2023

South Africa's MultiChoice Group is developing an integrated payment platform for Africa in a joint venture with UK-based fintech company Rapyd and private equity firm General Catalyst.

Hot startup of the month: Pan-African fintech KamaPay

Matshepo Sehloho
5/26/2023

This month's hot startup is pan-African fintech KamaPay, which helps individuals and businesses make cross-border payments on the continent.

Digital banking group Tyme raises another $77.8M

Paula Gilbert
5/23/2023

Tyme has raised another US$77.8 million in a pre-series C capital raise, securing two new international investors, while South African flagship TymeBank's customers have reached 7 million.

MTN Cameroon mobile money unit gets PSP license

Matshepo Sehloho
5/19/2023

MTN Cameroon's fintech subsidiary Mobile Money Corporation (MMC) has been granted a Payment Services Provider (PSP) license.

Connecting Africa Podcast: S2 Ep. 7 – Gender-lens investing

Paula Gilbert
5/17/2023

In this episode, the Connecting Africa Podcast team speaks to Eloho Omame, co-founder of FirstCheck Africa, an early-stage VC firm investing in tech startups founded or co-founded by women.

Vodacom reports revenue growth despite headwinds

Paula Gilbert
5/15/2023

Vodacom Group reported strong financial growth for the year, despite facing headwinds from power supply issues in South Africa, startup costs in Ethiopia, supply chain challenges and higher interest and inflation rates.

Safaricom granted mobile money license in Ethiopia

Paula Gilbert
5/11/2023

Kenya's Safaricom has been granted the license to operate its mobile money service M-Pesa in its new territory of Ethiopia, as the Ethiopian rollout costs put strain on group earnings.

Hot startup of the month: Cameroon's Agrix Tech

Matshepo Sehloho
4/21/2023

Cameroonian startup Agrix Tech is helping small-scale farmers to transition from subsistence farming to commercial farming and maximize their profits.

Mobile money transactions hit $1.26T in 2022 – GSMA

Paula Gilbert
4/20/2023

Total mobile money transaction values grew 22% in 2022 to US$1.26 trillion, according to the GSMA State of the Industry Report on Mobile Money 2023, and there are 1.6 billion registered mobile money accounts globally, 781 million of which are in Africa.

Mukuru opens fintech drive-thru in Zimbabwe

Matshepo Sehloho
4/6/2023

South Africa-based fintech platform Mukuru has launched a drive-thru service for domestic and international money transfers in the Zimbabwean city of Harare.

Mobile money taxation threatens financial inclusion – Vodacom

Paula Gilbert
4/5/2023

Pan-African telecoms operator Vodacom is calling for relaxed taxation on mobile money across Africa in a new policy paper which claims fintech taxation could threaten financial inclusion.

Tanzanian fintech Nala pledges $1M investment after securing license

Matshepo Sehloho
3/28/2023

The Central Bank of Tanzania has granted fintech company Nala a Payment Service Provider (PSP) license to operate in the East African country.

Cost-of-living impacts Africa's remittance market – Western Union

Paula Gilbert
3/27/2023

The Global Money Transfer Index from Western Union details remittance inflows and outflows in Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria, Senegal and Morocco in 2022, and consumer expectations for fintech in the future.

Huawei launches its Non-Stop Banking initiative

Matshepo Sehloho
3/24/2023

Chinese multinational Huawei has unveiled its Non-stop Banking initiative at the Intelligent Finance Summit 2023 in Cape Town.

Deep dive into East Africa's tech startup ecosystem

Africa Tech Perspectives
3/22/2023

New survey reveals a lack of access to investors, reliance on international VCs and global recession trends as the biggest barriers for East African tech startups to access funds.

M-Pesa Africa invests $2M in Shared Service Operations Centre

Paula Gilbert
3/22/2023

M-Pesa Africa has launched a Shared Service Operations Centre (SSOC) in Nairobi to support operations in Kenya and five other African markets.

MTN SA sells device insurance business to Santam

Paula Gilbert
3/16/2023

MTN South Africa is selling its device insurance book, worth $21.7 million in annual gross written premium value, to insurance company Santam.

SA power cuts knock $38M off MTN Group earnings

Paula Gilbert
3/13/2023

Extensive power cuts in South Africa impacted MTN Group's earnings by R695 million ($38 million) as the operator plans to ramp up installation of more power backups for towers across the country.

Telkom SA partners with Clikatell to launch Chat 2 Pay

Matshepo Sehloho
3/10/2023

Chat Commerce company Clickatell has launched its Chat 2 Pay feature for South African telecommunication company Telkom.

Online shopping growing in South Africa – World Wide Worx, Mastercard

Paula Gilbert
3/10/2023

There was a 40% increase in the total number of people shopping online in South Africa between 2021 and 2021 according to a new study by World Wide Worx and Mastercard.

MTN revenue growth continues in Uganda, Rwanda

Paula Gilbert
3/6/2023

MTN has once again seen double-digit service revenue growth in its operations in the East African countries of Uganda and Rwanda.

MTN Ghana grows subscribers despite SIM registration impact

Paula Gilbert
3/1/2023

MTN Ghana grew mobile subscribers by 12.8% in 2022, to 28.6 million, despite having to cut over 5 million users in December who did not re-register their SIM cards under national rules.

Safaricom falls victim to $4M SIM card fraud

Matshepo Sehloho
2/13/2023

Kenya's Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) has arrested eight suspects for alleged SIM card fraud involving Safaricom's M-Pesa overdraft service Fuliza.

African tech startup funding hits $3.3B in 2022

Paula Gilbert
2/6/2023

Investment in Africa's tech startup ecosystem passed $3 billion for the first time in 2022, with Nigeria taking the biggest piece of pie and fintech dominating other sectors, according to a report from Disrupt Africa.

MTN Nigeria profit soars in 2022

Paula Gilbert
2/3/2023

MTN Nigeria has reported a strong set of results for 2022, with profit up over 20% and users growing 10% despite SIM registration challenges, high inflation rates and macroeconomic pressure.

Zimbabwe's EcoCash to grow USD mobile money transactions

Matshepo Sehloho
2/2/2023

Mobile money operator EcoCash plans to grow its US dollar transactions distribution footprint across Zimbabwe.

Airtel Africa reports double-digit revenue and customer growth

Paula Gilbert
2/2/2023

Airtel Africa grew its customer base by 10% and revenue by 12%, for the first nine months of the financial year, as it increased capex and spent more on 4G and 5G spectrum across Africa.

Connecting Africa Podcast: S2 Ep. 4 – Agri-fintech, from kibbutz to Kenya

Paula Gilbert
2/2/2023

The Connecting Africa Podcast team speak to Israeli-Kenyan startup Avenews' co-founder and CEO, Shalom Ben-Or, about his fintech super app that has been built specifically for Africa's agriculture industry.

Egypt acquisition boosts Vodacom quarterly revenue

Paula Gilbert
1/31/2023

Vodacom is already seeing an earnings boost from its December acquisition of a 55% stake in Vodafone Egypt, reporting double-digit Group revenue growth for the third quarter.

Ghana's Zeepay expands into Zambia

Matshepo Sehloho
1/31/2023

The Central Bank of Zambia has granted Ghanaian remittance fintech company Zeepay an operating license.

12 more Kenyan digital lenders get licenses

Matshepo Sehloho
1/30/2023

The Central Bank of Kenya has licensed a further 12 digital lenders, bringing the total number of licensed Digital Credit Providers (DCPs) in the country to just 22.

Call for comments on Kenya's emerging technologies draft document

Matshepo Sehloho
1/26/2023

The Communications Authority of Kenya is calling for public comment on a new Framework For Emerging Technologies Regulatory Sandbox by February 3, 2022.

Delayed licensing frustrates Kenyan digital lenders

Matshepo Sehloho
1/24/2023

Unlicensed Kenyan digital lenders are blaming being blocked from Google's Play Store on the Central Bank of Kenya's delay in granting them operating licenses.

Kenya High Court suspends mobile money fees

Matshepo Sehloho
1/13/2023

The Kenyan High Court has suspended charges for sending money between mobile money wallets and bank accounts pending the determination of a consumer rights lawsuit.

MTN MoMo to offer personal loans in SA

Paula Gilbert
1/10/2023

MTN Mobile Money (MoMo) is offering personal loans in South Africa of up to R180,000 (US$10,540) as it moves to meet a rising demand for mobile fintech services on the continent.

Clickatell helps SA companies leverage chat commerce

Matshepo Sehloho
1/5/2023

South African brands are interacting with their clients using chat platforms like WhatsApp to upsell and improve their customer service.

Connecting Africa Podcast: S2 Ep. 3 – Building fintech in Ghana

Paula Gilbert
12/21/2022

In this episode the Connecting Africa Podcast team speaks to BezoMoney co-founder and CEO Mubarak Sumaila for a deep dive into Ghana's fintech ecosystem and how it differs from its counterparts in other countries in Africa.

Visa to invest $1B in Africa's digital transformation

Paula Gilbert
12/15/2022

Visa has pledged to invest $1 billion in Africa by 2027 to scale operations, deploy new technologies and deepen collaboration with African partners.

SA's Ukheshe secures funding, eyes international expansion

Matshepo Sehloho
12/8/2022

Fintech enabler Ukheshe has raised money from Development Partners International and Fireball Capital to fund its growth plans.

Kenya reinstates mobile money fees

Matshepo Sehloho
12/6/2022

The Central Bank of Kenya says as of January 2023, charges for sending money between mobile money wallets and bank accounts will be reinstated.

Orange targets data & digital growth in Africa

Paula Gilbert
12/2/2022

Orange Deputy CEO for the MEA, Brelotte Ba, spoke to Connecting Africa about the group's strategy to grow its African data, fintech and digital customers.

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