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The Secrets to Closing a $100m Venture Capital Funding Deal
London-based online money transfer business WorldRemit has closed a funding round worth $100m, backed by Technology Crossover Ventures and prior investor Accel Partners.
- Categories
- Investing
- Region
- Europe & Eurasia
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Half the World’s Banks Could Disappear, and Most of the Branches
Banks have three to five years to get their digital act together before they enter a spiral of decline, according to a paper by McKinsey & Company. This view was echoed by BBVA chairman and CEO Francisco Gonzalez, who told media and analysts at the announcement of BBVA’s latest results that up to half the world’s banks could slip through the cracks as digital transformation takes hold.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Tags
- digital payments
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Africa Tech Trends: The Age of Start-Up Accelerators
Start-up accelerators are common in Europe and the United States, where the likes of Y Combinator and Startupbootcamp have emerged as leaders in the model and have offered hundreds of start-ups both equity funding and mentorship to assist them in scaling. But in Africa the concept is still very young, having only really arrived in 2012.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Mexican Banks Using Mobile Payments Technology to Enable Digital Transactions at Mom-and-Pop Stores
In a bid to increase card payments and financial inclusion, Mexican banks are collaborating with mobile payments technology vendors to deploy mPOS solutions at mom-and-pop stores. The Mexican government encourages these initiatives, as around 70 percent of all purchases in Mexico are made with cash and the informal economy represents 30 percent of GDP.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- Latin America
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Investing in Airtime: How an unlikely financial innovation is promoting economic security for girls in South Africa
Only 37 percent of women In the developing world have bank accounts, yet research has shown that poor women are inherent savers. Stellar has created an open source payments platform that’s being used to provide a mobile wallet in South Africa focused on promoting savings among girls. The wallet has a unique feature: along with cash deposits, it lets users deposit mobile airtime, and withdraw it later as cash.
- Categories
- Technology
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Upwardly Mobile: The Power of a United Approach to African Payment Innovation
The growing use of banking services in South Africa is driven by a national rollout of social security debit cards and strong economic growth across finance, real estate and business services sectors. According to the Banking Association of South Africa, just under a quarter of the adult population (23.5%) remains unbanked.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- digital payments
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Western Union to Cut Prices for Money Transfers Within U.S.
Western Union Co (WU.N) said it would cut prices for money transfers within the United States to help fend off fierce competition and would buy back up to $1.2 billion of shares.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Tags
- digital payments
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ICICI Bank, India’s Largest Private Sector Bank, Launches New e-Wallet for Mobile Payments
ICICI Bank Ltd on Tuesday launched Pockets, a mobile payments wallet for Android phones, which can be topped up with money from any bank account for making phone-based payments.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- South Asia
- Tags
- digital payments
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