| Africa | UnionPay and Interswitch partner to enable card payments in East Africa. Interswitch East Africa has been on-boarded into UnionPay International's (UPI) network as a Third-Party Service Provider (TPSP) in East Africa. This partnership will potentially allow Interswitch to accept and process card payments from UPI cards via POS, ATMs, and other digital channels. IT News Africa |
| | EDITOR'S NOTE | With over 7.5 billion cards issued, UPI is actually the largest card network in the world owning more than 43% of the total card issuing market. However, most of this market share is driven by their near-total dominance in China, the world most populous country. Outside of China, they only make up about 1% of all card issued with Visa and MasterCard leading the non-China market segments. So Africa remains a key market for expansion and will be important to wrestling the duopoly that currently exists on the continent. |
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| Twitter | 737 is making bank for GTBank. Tosin Olaseinde (@tosinolaseinde), the founder of Money Africa, highlights the high adoption rate of GTB's 737 USSD service in this chart. Nosa (@_Nosa_), a product manager at Kuda, further notes that the number of users of the 737 service alone places it among the top 10 banks in Nigeria ranked by customer base. See conversation on Twitter |
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| Africa | Thunes raises $60 million for cross-border payments in Africa and other emerging markets. Thunes, a Singapore-based B2B startup focused on cross-border payments, has raised $60 million in a Series B fundraising round. The round was led by Africa-focused firm, Helios Investment Partners, and will enable the fintech to expand their operations in new markets including Kenya, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, and Ethiopia. TechCrunch |
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| South Africa | CredoLab raises $7m to expand across Africa. CredoLab, a Cape Town-based developer of bank-grade digital credit scoring technology, has secured $7 million in their Series-A fundraising round. The round was led by GBG, a global provider of digital identity and fraud management services. The new funding is expected to push expansion efforts into new markets in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. TechMoran |
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| Africa | Luno is acquired by Digital Currency Group (DCG). Luno, the leading African cryptocurrency platform has been acquired by DCG, a global crypto investment group. DCG was involved in Luno's earlier fundraising rounds before acquiring the company for an undisclosed fee. ITNews Africa |
| | EDITOR'S NOTE | Africa has witnessed an astronomic adoption of cryptocurrency in recent months. One of the reasons for the sudden spike is the increased usage of remittance services. There are also indications that crypto is used by some people to hedge against weakening local currencies. |
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