| Ghana | Ghana and Nigeria to integrate payment infrastructures in 2020. According to the recently released National Payment Systems Strategic Plan by the Bank of Ghana, this is part of an initiative to connect all payments systems in West Africa by 2022. This is expected to bolster intra-regional trade in West Africa as the region works towards the adoption of a single currency. GhanaWeb |
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| Somaliland | Somaliland launches e-shilling to pay civil servants. The Somaliland Central Bank has partnered with the Civil Service Commission and ZAAD, to launch an e-shilling system to pay the salaries of civil servants across Somaliland. ZAAD is a mobile money service owned by Telesom, a mobile operator. Mobile Money Africa |
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| Kenya | Safaricom partners with Ria Money Transfer to power international money transfers. Safaricom has partnered with Ria Money Transfer, to empower M-Pesa customers to receive international money transfers. Ria Money Transfer, a US-based remittance company, has a large money transfer network with 389,000 locations across 161 countries. Techmoran |
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| Global | Visa invests in data security start-up, VGS. Visa Inc. has announced their investment in Very Good Security (VGS), a platform that allows companies to collect, protect and exchange sensitive data. The funds will allow VGS to grant more fintechs access to their financial software and help them interact with sensitive data without having to secure it. Financial Technology Africa |
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| Global | Visa moves merchants from Visa Checkout to its Click-to-Pay product. Visa Inc. has announced that merchants using the Visa Checkout will transition to the Click-to-Pay button that is being powered by the new Secure Remote Commerce (SRC) technology. The SRC has also been adopted by other card networks and allows e-commerce customers to be able to checkout without having to provide a password, thereby reducing online cart abandonment. Business Insider |
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| Twitter | The strategic importance of Visa's acquisition of Plaid. Ben Thompson (@BenThompson) analyses the history of credit cards and how Visa's acquisition of Plaid benefits the financial ecosystem in this tweet. |
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| Twitter | OPay's QR play and its effect on financial inclusion. Victor Alagbe (@Innovictor) highlights how much OPay's QR and other financial products have been adopted by SMEs that were historically excluded from the financial system in this tweet. |
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| Nigeria | Nigerian bank customers closed 4.5m current accounts in December 2019. Bank customers across the 23 commercial banks in Nigeria closed 4.5m current accounts in December 2019. This represented a 16% decline from the previous month. However, the number of savings accounts increased by 5% to 23.9m in December, and the total number of accounts (YOY) increased by 6% to 125 million in 2019. Mobile Money Africa |
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| Kenya | Access Bank acquires Transnational Bank Plc. Nigeria's Access Bank has acquired a 100% stake in Kenya's Transnational Bank Plc to drive more international expansion. This follows a recent trend in mergers and acquisitions in the Kenyan banking sector that has been encouraged by the Kenyan Central Bank to drive consolidation. Nairametrics |
| | EDITOR'S NOTE | We previously reported Access Bank's plans to acquire Transnational Bank in Issue 28. |
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| Liberia | UBA Liberia enters into a mobile money partnership with Orange. UBA Liberia has partnered with Orange, a telecommunications company, to launch a service called Bank to Wallet, also known as Mobile Money Push and Pull Service. The platform will enable customers to deposit and withdraw money from a UBA bank account to their Orange money wallet and vice versa. Financial Technology Africa |
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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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| Kenya | TransferGo partners with Currencycloud for Kenya expansion. London-based TransferGo has partnered with payments platform, Currencycloud, to facilitate cross-border payments in Kenya in Q1 2020. With this new partnership, TransferGo will have access to Currencycloud’s network and allow users to send funds to 19 new countries, including Kenya, Japan, Malaysia, and the United Arab Emirates. Financial Technology Africa |
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| Nigeria | Nigeria's president signs the 2019 Finance Bill into law. The Finance Act 2020 officially revises the VAT rate from 5% to 7.5% and imposes a stamp duty of N50 on electronic transfers above N10,000. The presidency says the new laws are part of a drive by the Nigerian government to increase tax revenue and improve the tax-to-GDP ratio which stood at 5.7% in 2017. Nigerian Banker |
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| Botswana | Botswana reviews mobile money laws. Botswana's government has introduced new regulations that mandate telecommunications service providers to separate mobile money products from their other services. The new regulation also places the management of mobile money under the jurisdiction of Bank of Botswana, the country's central bank. Financial Technology Africa |
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| Nigeria | Flutterwave raises $35 million in Series B funding. Lagos-based fintech startup, Flutterwave, has raised a $35 million Series B round and announced a partnership with Worldpay FIS for payments in Africa. With the funding, Flutterwave will invest in growing their market share in existing operating countries. TechCrunch |
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