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Safaricom sees lingering break-up threat
Safaricom is still facing the threat of being broken up as the Kenyan regulator weighs up a report on dominance in the country’s telecommunications industry, CEO Bob Collymore said. East Africa’s biggest company by market value may resort to court action to prevent it from being split, Collymore, 59, said in an interview Wednesday in the capital, Nairobi
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Paytm to start India payments bank operations from May 23
The company will transfer its wallet business, which has over 218 million mobile wallet users, to the newly incorporated entity -- PPBL -- under the payments bank licence awarded to a resident Indian, Vijay Shekhar Sharma, the founder of One97 Communications that owns Paytm.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- South Asia
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Kenya operators drop cross-network money surcharges
Cross-network transactions are currently possible in the country, but are complex to execute and carry additional charges.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Safaricom is planning to expand M-Pesa mobile money across Africa
Vodacom says the proposed deal gives it access to a market with “high growth, high margin, high cash generation business.” Shameel Joosub, the Vodacom Group’s chief executive, said the stake will drive M-Pesa adoption across its business.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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From Biometrics to Chatbots: Two Technology Challenges Aim to Help Governments Digitize their Economies
There is a growing consensus that emerging-market governments should digitize their economies, starting with the vast streams of payments they themselves make and receive. The DFS Lab is launching two technology challenges to fund new technologies that enable this transition: a Biometrics Challenge and a Chatbots Challenge. The deadline to enter is May 30.
- Categories
- Technology
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Vodacom strikes $2.6B deal for Safaricom stake
Combined, Vodacom said it will now have 32 million customers in the space, “making it a formidable player in financial services on the continent”. The deal also gives Vodacom a significant footprint in Kenya.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- digital payments, fintech
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E-payments to dethrone cash
“There is a clear correlation between the share of electronic payments and the opportunity for GDP growth,” Tim Murphy, general counsel and chief franchise officer for MasterCard, told The Post on the forum’s sidelines. “With every 1 percent increase in the share of electronic payments of a country’s personal expenditure, you can see somewhere between a third and a half of a percentage point increase in GDP.”
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- Technology
- Region
- Asia Pacific
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Report: Leveraging digital to unlock the base of the pyramid market in Africa
The level of formal banking and insurance penetration across Africa remains low due to the fact that consumer spending power for the majority of the population is low and unsteady. This has been seen as a hindrance to providing products and services through traditional distribution models, even though this market represents the majority of spending power in Africa.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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