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MTN Targets Nigeria’s $236 Billion Credit Gap as its $500 Billion MoMo Business Pushes into Lending
MTN Group is moving to turn its African mobile-money empire into something much bigger than a payments business, as the telecoms giant prepares to separate its fintech operations in Nigeria and Uganda, bring in strategic investors, and push into lending across some of the continent’s most underbanked markets.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology, Telecommunications
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Report: 810 Million Women Still Not Using Mobile Internet in Low- And Middle-Income Countries, Compared to 595 Million Men
Persistent barriers such as those related to affordability, skills and safety concerns continue to limit women’s digital inclusion in low- and middle-income countries.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Global
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Nigeria’s CreditChek Raises $600,000 to Expand its Credit Data Infrastructure Across East Africa
With this new funding, CreditChek plans to deepen its integrations across key East African markets, working closely with banks, microfinance institutions, and fintech lenders.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Mastercard and Banco Sol Strengthen Collaboration to Drive SME Growth in Angola
This collaboration strategically leverages Mastercard's dedication to fostering financial inclusion through innovative payment solutions and Banco Sol's commitment to strengthening small businesses in underserved communities.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Moving Forward in a Post-USAID World: Why Women Must Be at the Center of Financial Inclusion
The demise of USAID has profound implications for the movement toward gender equality in financial inclusion and other development priorities. According to Julia Arnold and Sara Seavey, consultants specializing in women’s financial inclusion, the agency played a central role in funding, researching and coordinating global gender equality work — and without that anchor, these efforts are at risk of fragmentation and regression. They argue that this moment places responsibility on the sector itself to preserve the values, evidence and accountability structures that made progress toward gender-inclusive finance possible.
- Categories
- Finance
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Turning Silos into Synergy: An Inclusive Finance Pilot Provides Lessons for Multi-Stakeholder Collaboration
Silos and fragmentation have slowed progress in inclusive finance for too long, as the efforts of private actors, public institutions, philanthropic funders and other stakeholders are often not intentionally aligned. As Seth Spiro at FINCA and Moustapha Seck at FLUID argue, one reason for this lack of alignment is that many of the systems underpinning inclusive finance were not built for multi-stakeholder collaboration. They explore solutions to these structural constraints, explaining how FINCA’s partnership with FLUID has aligned incentives, learning and execution to overcome organizational silos.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Finance, Investing
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Thunes and Vodacom Tanzania Launch Cross-Border M-Pesa Payments for Uganda and China
Thanks to the collaboration, Vodacom customers in Tanzania can now seamlessly pay merchants in Uganda and China directly from their mobile phones.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Viewpoint: Who Really Uses Her Mobile Money Account?
While men generally operated mobile money directly, the women they interviewed in rural Ghana were largely dependent on an intermediary to complete even the simplest transaction: a husband, a daughter, a neighbor or a local agent.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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