| Ethiopia | MTN withdraws second bid for Ethiopia's telco license. In May, MTN bid $600m for the Ethiopian telecom license but lost to the Safaricom-led consortium's $850m bid. Earlier this month, some senior Ethiopian government officials confirmed the reopening of bids for Ethiopia's second telecoms operator license, including the right to operate mobile financial services. Though MTN previously mentioned that it will make a second bid only if it comes with a mobile money financial license, Ralph, the telecom giant's CEO, confirmed that MTN wouldn't go ahead to make the bid due to return-based factors and challenges that will occur with repatriating cash from the country Reuters |
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| Egypt | Dopay obtains Egypt’s banking agent license. Dopay, a payroll service company, has received Egypt’s second banking agent license through their partnership with the Arab Banking Corporation Egypt (Bank ABC Egypt). This license enables Dopay to set up both business and personal bank accounts and to also issue debit cards to users. Finextra |
| | EDITOR'S NOTE | In issue 90, we reported Telda as the first company to receive a banking agent's license from the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE). Now, Dopay joins the list as the second and is looking to offer similar digital banking services. |
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| Africa | Cross-border payment in Africa. Ham, Chipper Cash CEO, joins ARK Invest podcast to discuss the challenges with cross-border payment in Africa ARK Invest |
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| Kenya | Central Bank of Kenya (CBK)'s amendment bill gets accepted by parliament. The parliamentary committee on Finance and National Planning approved the Central Bank Amendment Bill 2021 and added a clause that grants the CBK powers to provide guidelines for digital lenders to set their interest rates. The committee has now presented all their recommendations before the parliament for debate and enactment into law KENYA: CBK gets powers to control mobile loan rates - Mobile Money Africa |
| | EDITOR'S NOTE | The CBK has been clear with their intention to regulate the digital lending space in Kenya and they have been following a series of steps to get this done. In issue 82, we reported the CBK's first proposal to regulate digital lenders. This further progressed to the introduction of a bill amendment to the Kenyan Banking Act that was reported in Issue 87. It is also important to mention that while providing guidelines for setting interest rates, the CBK should be mindful of the high risk associated with digital lending and ensure that the interest rates accommodate this risk without being untenable for borrowers Ultimately, as access to digital credit continues to grow across the continent, it will be interesting to see how players in this space respond to this development and also if regulators in other African countries choose to adopt a similar regulation aimed at protecting borrowers and limiting bad actors. |
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| Nigeria | CapitalSage raises $4 million in debt funding. CapitalSage which offers a range of fintech products (micro-savings and investment, agency banking, etc.) raised $4 million in a Series 1 Private Company Notes (PCN) issuance. The issuance has a 356-day tenure and was arranged by United Capital Plc. John Alamu, the CEO of CapitalSage, said that the funding will be used to acquire more customers across Africa. Techpoint Africa |
| | EDITOR'S NOTE | Private Companies' Note (PCN) is a short-term debt instrument issued by companies to raise funding. You can find a detailed explainer and guidelines to securing one here |
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