Reflections on Trust, Sovereignty, and Africa’s Economic Destiny When the language of numbers claims to replace the voice of the people—when trust becomes a score and sovereignty a chart—it is time to pause, breathe, and question the gaze that evaluates. The recent downgrade of Senegal by Moody’s revives an essential question: how can one believe…
Across Nigeria, many privately-owned healthcare facilities face funding bottleneck. Pharmacies watch their shelves empty as they struggle to restock essential drugs. Laboratories, unable to afford new equipment needed for diagnoses, and clinics are forced to turn patients away, as they face financial constraints that limit the services they can provide. For banks, credit unions, and…
TLDR Kredete, a fintech focused on helping African immigrants build credit and access financial services, has raised $22 million in a Series A round The raise was led by AfricInvest through its Cathay AfricInvest Innovation Fund and Financial Inclusion Vehicle, with participation from Partech and Polymorphic Capital The company will use the capital to expand…
Japan Credit Rating Agency, Ltd. (JCR) has affirmed African Export-Import Bank’s (Afreximbank) A- issuer credit rating with a stable outlook. The rating reflects JCR’s assessment of Afreximbank’s strong strategic positioning, robust risk management framework, consistent profitability, prudent liquidity policies and resilient capital base. JCR also noted the Bank’s important role in supporting trade finance and…
Standard Bank on Tuesday launched a new virtual credit card with “advanced security features” that it said it has so much confidence in that it has made a 100% credit fraud protection promise to customers who use it. The bank said the virtual credit card includes a feature that lets clients use their banking app…
Insights from the World Bank GROW Expo Despite women contributing nearly 40% of Africa’s GDP, they receive less than 7% of private equity and venture capital funding–and only a fraction of that reaches women-led SMEs. At the recent World Bank’s GROW Expo in Uganda, the Graça Machel Trust’s Afrishela Fund challenged this disparity with a…
Africa accounts for 70% of the R18 trillion stored in mobile wallets. Credit bureau TransUnion believes it is possible to enable as many as 500 million financially excluded Africans to join the formal economy, growing gross domestic product (GDP), through analysing mobile network subscribers’ behaviour when they buy data or airtime. TransUnion Africa − in…
TLDR The African Credit Rating Agency (AfCRA), a new privately owned credit rating body, is set to begin operations by September 2025 The agency is backed by private sector stakeholders across Africa, not governments, to ensure independence and credibility The launch was originally planned for June 2025 during an African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) summit,…
As we headed into 2025, the stage seemed set for South Africa’s interest rates to drop, with inflation within the South African Reserve Bank’s (SARB) target range. However, global factors – including heightened geopolitical instability and tariff-related tensions – prompted SARB to hold firm. This interest rate stagnation has had both direct and indirect effects…
While some South Africans may have been notified by their banks, many consumers are not aware of the recent change in South Africa’s credit reporting system, where banks are now required to report overdrafts if consumers are overdrawn by more than R500 for a period of 30 days. Having come into effect from 1st March…
