| Ethiopia | Ethio Telecom receives approval to launch mobile money services. Following authorization from the National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE), Ethio telecom is set to launch mobile money services. This comes after an announcement in April this year by the NBE stating that it would allow non-financial institutions to offer mobile money services. The directive stipulated that mobile money services would be required to use banks as trustees for the deposited funds. According to Ethio Telecom CEO Frehiwot Tamiru, the telco will establish a new subsidiary to handle the mobile money service. Kenyan Wallstreet |
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| Tanzania | Vodacom Tanzania PLC opens up its M-Pesa APIs to developers. Vodacom Tanzania has opened up its M-Pesa API in order to encourage local and international developers into creating new use cases for the mobile payments service. This complements other recent activities by the company including the launch of Lipa Kwa Simu, an interoperable service, International Money Transfers, and the M-Pesa App. TechMoran |
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| Twitter | Unpacking Ethiopia's change in currency notes. Teddy Tassew (@TeddyTassewK) shares his thoughts on the implications of the recent change of currency notes in Ethiopia. Follow the conversation in this Twitter thread. |
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| South Africa | South African banks to phase out paper cheques by 2021. With banks still adjusting to the Covid-19 pandemic, and the physical contact reduced to a minimum, paper cheques are being phased out in favour of cards, and digital payment mechanisms. Major banks Nedbank, FNB and Absa have already announced plans to discontinue the use of outdated cheque payments beginning in January of next year. Financial Technology Africa |
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| Egypt | Egyptian fintech startup, Kashier raises seed funding round. Kashier Payments has raised an undisclosed seed round of funding to help scale their operations, acquire new customers, and introduce new products. The undisclosed seed round is led by Glint Ventures, with participation from a group of strategic investors. Disrupt Africa |
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| Morocco | inwi money partners with WorldRemit and MFS Africa to launch international money transfer services. The Morroco-based mobile money company, inwi is set to launch international remittance services in partnership with WorldRemit.MFS Africa plans to use the partnership to extend its network to Morroco. Mobile Money Africa |
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| Tanzania | Airtel Tanzania and Worldremit partner for international remittance. The partnership will enable Airtel Money customers send and receive money directly into their mobile money wallets from abroad. Mobile Money Africa |
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| Nigeria | Paxful partners with Buycoins to process NGNT transactions. Global peer-to-peer crypto marketplace Paxful partnered with BuyCoins, a Nigerian crypto startup to add Naira token (NGNT), a Naira pegged stablecoin as a payment method to the platform. With this partnership, users will be able to buy and sell Bitcoin (BTC) and Tether (USDT) using NGNT. Mobile Money Africa |
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