The author, Cameron Kyle-Perumal, GM of M-KOPA South Africa and director of international strategy and growth for the group South Africa is home to one of the continent’s most sophisticated financial systems, yet 65% of respondents in a recent survey were declined credit by formal lenders, with rejection rates disproportionately concentrated among lower-income groups –…
Entebbe, Uganda — When policymakers, economists and civil society leaders from the East African Community (EAC) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) converged recently in Uganda’s lakeside town of Entebbe for a regional symposium on domestic resource mobilisation, the mood was one of introspection. The two-day (Nov.25-26) event, convened by the Southern and Eastern…
AI scams and fraud continue to evolve. Entersekt, which positions itself as a global leader in digital banking fraud prevention and payment security, today launched the latest enhancements to its modernised digital banking authentication platform. These include Entersekt Orkestrate, a pre-packaged, low-code integration solution that makes it faster and easier to add pre-orchestrated, AI-powered Context…
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…
