| Global | Adyen partners with Cellulant, expands global payment offering to Africa. Adyen has partnered with Cellulant, a leading pan-African financial technology company, in a strategic move to expand its payment offering to Africa. Cellulant processes over 12% of Africa’s digital payments. This partnership gives Adyen access to 40 mobile money operators, over 600 local & international merchants, and over 120 banks in Africa. Financial IT |
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| Global | Visa, Western Union team up to speed up global payments. Visa has entered into a new strategic partnership with Western Union to expedite the movement of money globally. Western Union will leverage Visa Direct, the card giant’s real-time push payments platform, to offer consumers and businesses expedited global, push-to-card transfers. Currently, the trillions of dollars sent across wire transfers or bank accounts globally often take many hours or even days to arrive. The partnership is aimed at cutting down paper documentation and increasing speed in the global payments and remittances space. PYMNTS |
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| Ghana | In Ghana, GH¢95m (~ $17m) was transferred across different mobile money networks in Q1 2019. Mobile money interoperability allows customers on one mobile money platform to send and receive money from a different mobile money platform. According to Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement Systems (GhIPSS), transactions on the mobile money interoperability platform hit GH¢95.88million (~ $17m) in value for the first quarter of 2019, just a year after launch. The report also shows that 89.4% of these transactions were mobile money wallet to mobile money wallet transactions, with mobile money wallet to bank account transactions coming in at 10.5%. Mobile Money Africa |
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| Nigeria | MTN Nigeria creates subsidiary for mobile financial services. As a requirement for obtaining a Payment Service Bank licence from the CBN (Central Bank of Nigeria), MTN registered Yello Digital Financial Service Limited, a new subsidiary, for mobile financial services. It is expected that when launched, the Payment Service Bank will provide mobile financial services such as deposits and savings, peer to peer payments, merchant payments, and utility payments to users. Punch |
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| Africa | Direct Pay Online (DPO) launches B2B prepaid payment card in Kenya and Tanzania. The multi-currency card is called the DumaCard, and it's available in both plastic and virtual forms to DPO business customers in Kenya and Tanzania. The company eventually plans to launch DumaCard in the 14 other countries in which DPO operates. DPO expects the DumaCard to be particularly popular amongst its travel partners who'll use the card to pay international airlines. CIO |
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| Ivory Coast | MTN launches Africa’s first AI assistant for mobile money service, MoMo. The mobile money assistant enables customers to engage with MTN’s MoMo services on various social media platforms such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and via SMS. The chatbot went live in Ivory Coast in May and will launch in other countries over the course of the year. The chatbot is a guide that assists users to navigate MTN’s MoMo services and provide other useful information. IT News Africa |
| | EDITOR'S NOTE | Neither MoMo nor the AI assistance technology is currently available in Nigeria, but I'd love to see a demonstration of how this works. Anyone willing to do a short video or share screenshots showing the flow of how this AI assistant works on MoMo? I'd love any information at all! |
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| Ghana | Ghanaian e-payment firm, Nsano, unveils Fraud Management Centre. Nsano, which currently operates in 8 African countries, specialises in electronic payments and liaises with telecom providers and payment processors to provide services to its clients and third parties. The Nsano Fraud Management Centre is a comprehensive security system integrated into platforms of financial institutions that enables fraud experts detect fraud in real time. Africa Tech |
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| Global | China's UnionPay, the world's largest card issuer, is expanding in Europe, rolling out debit and credit cards. UnionPay has partnered with U.K. tech startup Tribe Payments to enable banks and fintechs to offer individuals and companies branded cards. Founded in 2002 by the People’s Bank of China, UnionPay has been expanding overseas in recent years but has focused mostly in Asia. For its European expansion, UnionPay is forgoing the need for a license by teaming up with third parties, including banks and fintechs, with transactions handled by payment processing firms like Tribe. PYMNTS |
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| Global | Visa-led consortium launches b.yond to fast track EU digital payments innovation. A consortium of major companies is rolling out a new financial innovation platform called b.yond to help businesses quickly deploy digital payment services. Global Processing Services, Pannovate, Cornercard, MeaWallet, Modulr, AllPay and W2 Global are founding partners of the consortium in collaboration with Visa. Through only one contract from b.yond, businesses that want to roll out a payments program can access a platform of solutions using Visa’s rails that can be deployed for customers in under 8 weeks. PYMNTS |
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| Global | Ernst & Young (EY) releases first Global SME Fintech Adoption Index. The EY FinTech Index, which launched in 2015, has done a deep dive into the extent to which SMEs around the world are adopting fintech solutions. EY interviewed decision makers in the UK, US, South Africa, China, and Mexico via a digital survey. The report shows that China leads the way in SME fintech adoption, with 61% of SMEs interviewed having used various financial services from fintechs in the past 6 months. The UK (18%) is not far in front of South Africa (16%), with Mexico at 11% and the US at 23%. Daily Fintech |
| | EDITOR'S NOTE | Read the full Global SME Fintech Adoption Index report here |
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| Twitter | COBOL is the king of programming languages in U.S. banking infrastructure. Brian Roemmele () reveals surprising stats about the overlooked programming language, including how around 80% of the U.S banking infrastructure is still built on COBOL, and how over 75% of this code is over 25 years old. Follow the conversation , , , & . here |
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| Nigeria | The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has stressed the importance of open banking in the development of its Payment Systems Vision. CBN said it considers open banking as one of the top global trends and new practices in payment which must be considered in Nigeria. Other global payments trends identified for consideration in Nigeria’s payments strategy in the next 10 years are: new payment methods, digital access, distributed ledger technology, big data and artificial intelligence, cyber-security, digital identity, as well as machine learning and robotics process automation. ThisDay |
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| Global | Mastercard launches open banking solutions suite to improve API standards. Mastercard has announced the launch of Open Banking Solutions, a suite of four applications and services to support financial institutions (FIs) and third-party providers (TPPs) in the new post-Payment Services Directive (PSD2) era of open banking. The new service will initially be offered in the UK and Poland and several payment and financial service partners have already signed up, including Alior Bank, Kikapay, Striva, the newly-launched Tribe Payments, and mobile payment app provider DiPocket. CTMfile |
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| Global | Tencent leads funding for open banking startup, TrueLayer. Chinese tech conglomerate Tencent and Singapore-based Temasek are providing $35 million in funding to TrueLayer. The open banking startup provides software for developers to integrate their apps with banking platforms via APIs. TrueLayer plans to use the investment to further expansion across Europe. PYMNTS |
| | EDITOR'S NOTE | Tencent has made a number of fintech investments. They invested in Paystack's seed round, and in late 2018, Tencent joined Visa and Stripe in investing in Paystack's Series A |
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| Global | WorldRemit raises $175 million at $900M+ valuation to help users send money to contacts in emerging markets. Remittance company WorldRemit has raised $175 million in a Series D round. The company's focus has historically been on providing remittance services to individuals who're looking to send money to emerging markets, but it appears that they now intend to facilitate cross-border payments to small and medium business as well. WorldRemit's 4 million customers can send remittances from 50 countries, and those remittances can be received in 150 countries. TechCrunch |
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| Global | A record $117 billion in global fintech deals have been done this year as cashless payments soar in popularity. Fintech deal activity hit an all-time high this year with 87 deals completed at a total value of $116.6 billion. This explosive activity has been driven by three large US-based fintech transactions this year; Fidelity National Information Services' $43.3 billion acquisition of Worldpay in March, Fiserv's buying First Data in January for $39.4 billion, and Global Payments' $26.2 billion purchase of Total System Services in May. Markets Insider |
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| Kenya | Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) proposes banking charter with tough regulations for online lenders. Things have been heating up in the online lending space in Kenya recently. Just last week, Kenyan senators called for . Also following up on its announcement to regulate the country's online lending industry, the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) proposed a banking charter that aims to weed out companies that charge astronomical rates with unclear terms and conditions. Techweez |
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| Kenya | Digital Lenders Association launched to stimulate fintech growth in the country. Digital lenders in Kenya announced the launch of the Digital Lenders Association of Kenya (DLAK). The aim of the association is to promote industry best practices and drive a coordinated approach in addressing the emerging industry’s pressing issues. The 12 founding members namely are Tala, Alternative Circle, Stawika Capital, Zenka Finance, MyCredit, Okolea, LPesa, Kopacent, Four Kings Investment T/A Sotiwa, Kuwazo Capital, Mobile Financial Solutions (MFS), and Finance Plan Ltd. They have defined the Code of Conduct that members are required to adhere to. Capital Business |
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| Global | TransferMate launches B2B cross-border payments tool. The new TransferMate API will allow software partners and business customers access to TransferMate's payments technology. PYMNTS |
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| Global | FinTech Showcase 2019. Are you a fintech innovator looking to expand your product across emerging and developing markets? If so, then the Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI) encourages you to apply for its first-ever FinTech showcase. Register here |
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