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Nigeria’s Paga Is Succeeding Where Others Mobile Money Providers Failed
Paga, the biggest mobile money service provider in Nigeria, plans to increase its agents across the nation to 30,000 by 2018 as it seeks to become the county’s largest mobile financial access points across Africa’s most populous nation. The mobile money services provider, which was founded in 2012, currently has 10,104 agents in 35 states across Nigeria, with 3,000 in the commercial city of Lagos.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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IBM’s Effort to Solve Health Problems in South Africa
IBM Research has established a new research centre in South Africa (its second research centre on the African continent), and has announced several new project collaborations in the area of data-driven healthcare.
- Categories
- Health Care, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Lab-on-a-Stick: Miniaturised Clinical Testing for Fast Detection of Antibiotic Resistance
A portable power-free test for the rapid detection of bacterial resistance to antibiotics has been developed by academics at Loughborough University and the University of Reading.The new test termed Lab-on-a-Stick is an inexpensive microfluidic strip – comprising of tiny test tubes about the size of a human hair – capable of identifying bacteria found in urine samples and checking if they are resistant to common antibiotics.
- Categories
- Health Care, Technology
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KCB M-Pesa Loans Hit Sh10.3bn Since Launch
Mobile-based bank account KCB M-Pesa has disbursed a total of Sh10.3 billion in loans to its customers since March last year, indicating a growing appetite for short-term loans.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Fingerprint Technology Expanding In African Mobile Banking
London-based bank Standard Chartered plans this year to introduce biometric technology to customers in eight African countries so they can use fingerprints to access their mobile money — a process known as touch login — versus usernames and passwords.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- fintech
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WorldRemit Brings Mobile Transfers to Malawi
Digital money transfer service WorldRemit has introduced overseas remittances to mobile money accounts in Malawi. Users of the WorldRemit app or website will be able to securely send money transfers to any Airtel Money account in the country.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Visa Is Planning a Mobile Payments Push Into Nigeria
Though no launch date has been announced, Visa is in “advanced discussions” with major Nigerian banks. mVisa, which launched in India last August, is primarily an in-store payment method, allowing users to pay for goods or services by scanning a QR code on a smartphone or entering a merchant identifier into their feature phones.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- fintech, mobile finance
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Mobile Money boom: Thousands scramble for agency jobs in Ghana
According to the Bank of Ghana, the number of registered mobile money agents has now hit 93,376 as of the end of the first three months of this year, which is a 200 percent increase in the number of registered agents in just a year.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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