Decode Fintech

Issue 136

Jun 13 - Jun 19, 2022

Hi there,

Join us next Thursday, June 30 at 4 pm (WAT) for our first Decode Fintech Community Roundtable of the year. In this hour-long session, Innocent Isichei, Public Policy Lead at Paystack, and other friends in African fintech will dive deep into the impact of Payment Service Banks (PSBs) on financial services in Nigeria. Book your free seat here

The Paystack Editorial team is kicking off an audio show where high-growth startups in Africa can get scaling advice from established operators and founders. Tap into Paystack’s knowledge network to find practical solutions to your challenges, by filling out this short form →

Enjoy the rest of the week!

Tochukwu Ironsi

Market Intelligence Specialist, Paystack

Payments

Kenya

Autochek partners with Pezesha. Autochek, a digital automobile marketplace has partnered with Pezesha to offer financing options to SMEs. These SMEs will be able to leverage loans from Pezesha to acquire cars for their business operations. Disrupt Africa

EDITOR'S NOTE

In Issue 82, we wrote about a similar partnership between Autochek and Okra in Nigeria where Autochek leveraged bank statement data from Okra to score and connect potential car buyers with lenders. In this partnership, Pezesha handles both the scoring and access to capital. This allows Autochek to focus on scaling the core marketplace service and building a base of buyers and sellers.
As embedded finance continues to mature, we’ll see more end-to-end solutions like Pezesha that turn entire financial products into simple APIs or interfaces for non-financial businesses.

Conversations

Africa

To bank or not to bank? Moe Capital (@moneyacademyKE) sparks an interesting discussion on the important factors to consider when choosing a bank in this thread.

EDITOR'S NOTE

The responses to this conversation point to the quality of internet and mobile banking as the top differentiating factor in choosing a bank. While the responses are not a large sample size, they still signal the prevalent role of technology to provide financial services.

Africa

Evaluating Africa's digital economy. In this exhaustive report, Endeavor Nigeria dives deep into the trends and opportunities for technology in Africa. Endeavor Nigeria

Africa

More volumes, less revenue? Ope Adeoye (@opeadeoye) muses on the future of fintech revenue models in the face of competitive pressures on pricing. Twitter

Fundraising

Africa

MFS Africa completes $100m Series C extension. MFS Africa, a leading mobile payments aggregator, has extended its Series C round to include $100m in new funding. A mix of equity and debt, the new round includes both new and existing investors and will be used for product development and expansion into new markets in Africa and Asia. TechCrunch

EDITOR'S NOTE

In last week’s issue, we wrote about MFS Africa's acquisition of GTP Partners.

Africa

Launch Africa closes $36.3m venture fund. Launch Africa, an early-stage venture capital firm, has closed its newest venture fund of $36.3m. The new fund was raised from over 238 investors and will be used to drive investments into B2B and B2B2C startups across Africa. Kenyan Wall Street

Other Fundraising News

Nigeria

VeendHQ raises $330K in pre-seed funding. Disrupt Africa

Share a tip

Do you have an announcement, event, or job posting you'd like to share, or have you come across an interesting bit of African fintech news recently? Hit reply and let me know! I might be able to include it in next week's newsletter.