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Report: The End of Manual Finance? AI Agents Are Coming for Startup Payments
As regional startups scale across currencies and regulations, autonomous payment systems could reduce back-office friction and improve working capital.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
- Region
- South Asia
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Small Steps Taken Towards Greater Gender Diversity in African Startup Ecosystem in Last 2 Years, Says New Report
The report was released in partnership with industry stakeholders, led by Madica, an Africa-focused pre-seed investment programme dedicated to empowering underrepresented and underfunded mission-driven founders.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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South Africa Fintech Bridgement Raises $20 Million as Banks Back AI-Powered Business Lending
The RMB and Standard Bank funding enables Bridgement to expand its direct lending to SMEs and strengthen its position as a leading online business lender in South Africa.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Designing Credit Systems for Informal Economies: Why More Data Alone Is Not Enough
The global financing gap for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) is estimated in the trillions. As Ayokunmi Sodamola argues, the reason for this gap is not that these enterprises exhibit poor financial behaviors — or even that there’s a lack of data that can be used to establish their creditworthiness. It's that standard credit assessment systems aren't designed to capture and interpret the data generated by their informal financial activities. He explores how lenders can build a more integrated approach that treats data, identity, trust, risk and incentives as interconnected layers of a single credit system.
- Categories
- Finance
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Report: South Africa Went Cashless – Except for the Millions Who Didn’t
A new industry report argues that the sector mistook innovation for inclusion and left informal markets behind.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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WhatsApp Gets New Chief as Meta Taps India’s CRED Founder Kunal Shah and Invests $900 Million in Startup
India has emerged as a key battleground for Meta’s ambitions in business messaging and digital payments, areas seen as critical to WhatsApp’s next phase of growth.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Report: Buy-Now-Pay-Later Reshapes South Africa Credit Landscape
A recent report reveals that BNPL is evolving beyond a simple payment tool and is increasingly serving as an entry point into the formal credit system for millions of consumers.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- digital payments, e-commerce, fintech, lending, research
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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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