| Africa | Float acquires Accounteer. Float, which offers financing and expense management solutions to startups in Nigeria and Ghana, has acquired business operations service, Accounteer, for an undisclosed sum. With this acquisition, Float can offer bookkeeping and accounting services to its customers. Accounteer will continue to operate independently, and supplement existing offerings with credit. TechCabal |
| | EDITOR'S NOTE | The benefits of this acquisition to both Float and Accounteer include ease of cross-selling to existing merchants, higher revenue, raised switching costs, and hence reduced churn. Going even deeper, these benefits could potentially supercharge Float's primary credit business. Relying on bank statements for credit underwriting is useful, but tracking revenue-level data can be even more valuable especially if you consider that many SMEs use bank accounts for both personal and business use.
We’ve written extensively about the rise of financial operating systems, which usually start out by offering African businesses a single utility but over time, expand that existing relationship into other aspects of business operations. We should expect more B2B fintechs to eventually tick off business functions with in-house product solutions or acquisitions like this in the future. |
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| Global | The holy grail of cross-border payments. The European Central Bank (ECB) published an interesting working paper that outlines the problem with global cross-border payments and explores the feasibility of existing financial systems offering the ideal solution. ECB |
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| Morocco | Capital Market Authority launches portal for fintech startups. The Moroccan Capital Markets Authority (AMMC) has launched a new platform where local fintechs can interact directly with the AMMC and get regulatory clarity about new financial products. Ecofin Agency |
| | EDITOR'S NOTE | Regulators typically have to balance enabling innovation with mitigating the effect of financial risk on consumers. In Morroco where both VC funding and financial inclusion are still low, regulation is incentivized to skew towards innovation and ecosystem support. This is the goal of the AMMC portal—regulatory support that could potentially drive financial innovation. |
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| Kenya | Virtual Pay obtains a payment license in Kenya. Virtual Pay, which provides payment solutions to businesses, has obtained a Payment Service Provider (PSP) license from the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK). This follows recent announcements from the CBK clarifying the license status of existing fintechs, Chipper Cash and Flutterwave. Techweez |
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| Nigeria | TeamApt receives $50 million from QED Investors. TeamApt, the Nigerian payments giant behind Moniepoint and Monnify, has raised $50 million from QED investors. The new raise which marks QED's first investment into Africa will allow TeamApt to expand its credit offerings to businesses. The Fintech Times |
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| Ghana | Zeepay raises $10 million in debt funding. Zeepay, a financial services company based in Ghana, has raised $10 million in debt funding. The raise was led by Symbiotics BV and will allow ZeePay, which already provides remittance, insurance, and mobile payment solutions, to develop more products and expand to more markets. The BFT Online |
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| Kenya | FinAccess completes a $500K raise. Kenyan-based FinAccess, which digitises operations of Savings & Credit Cooperative Organisations (SACCOs), has received $500k in pre-Series A funding from HAVAÍC, a South-African VC firm. The investment comes from HAVAÍC’s $20 million Universum Core African Fund and will be used to expand into more East African markets. TechCabal |
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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. |
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