African financial technology startups move beyond payment services

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Jake Bright
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Jake Bright is a writer and Writer in New York City.

He’s co-author of all The Next Africa.

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If cellular money was the primary stage in the development of fund in Africa, the next stage of electronic services on the continent will Concentrate on financing, insurance and wealth management

In “Beyond Payments: The Next Generation of Fintech Startups in Sub-Saharan Africa,” the venture capital firm Village Capital, and their reporting partner, PayPal, tip their hat to M-Pesa and cellular money at Africa, however say that there’s a wave of innovation still to come.

The investment firm identified 12 businesses it decided were ldquo;building solutions of payments. ”

In partnership with PayPal, Village Capital has set up Fintech: Africa 2018, a software that attempts to find and service startups bringing additional “critical solutions ” into Africa’s unbanked populations.

“We are ’t do enough to emphasize what the next generation of fintech startups will and should be forcing … whether it’s in agriculture — assisting farmers have access to the financial system — through alternative credit scoring and financing — so folks can actually access insurance or loans — or building savings and wealth,” Village Capital managing director and document co-author Allie Burns told TechCrunch.

Village Capital’s work gives a picture of these four sub-sectors — agricultural finance, insurtech, other credit grading and savings and prosperity — such as players, opportunities and challenges, recent increases and early-stage startups to observe.

It sees blockchain as a catalyst of innovation in reducing &ldquo transaction costs and intermediation costs and third parties. ”

The report highlights recent increases by savings startup PiggybankNG and Nigerian agtech firm FarmCrowdy. Village Capital sees the chances for insurtech startups in five countries: South Africa, Morocco, Egypt, Kenya and Nigeria.

On fintech startups Village Capital chose a cohort of 12 because of the 2018 program. They comprised F-Pesa — that a Kenyan foreign exchange app&timid; — and Nigerian installation e-commerce app CredPal. All 12 engaged in three Village Capital and PayPal-sponsored assignments to introduce them to mentors and shareholders. Two of these cohort (identity enterprise YouVerify along with Ugandan cloud focused microfinance firm Ensibuuko) received funding offers from Village Capital.

PayPal’s participation in Village Capital’s Fintech Africa program “is about… our commitment to fiscal health and the democratization of finance,” PayPal thoughts of social invention Sean Milliken told TechCrunch.

PayPal provided financial resources for the Fintech Africa plan and study and engaged in the evolution of the program “toward those participating ventures becoming investment-ready,” stated PayPal’s director of Corporate Affairs Tyler Spalding. They didn’t even invest. “Our funds weren’t actually deployed in a investment capacity,” he further added.

PayPal has improved its presence and payment activity in Africa over the past several years through many of partnerships — including you to transfer funds through Safaricom’s M-Pesa product — and intends to deliver more remittances into Nigeria and South Africa through its Xoom subsidiary.

Village Capital is still mulling the chance conducting another around of its Fintech Africa program in 2019. So far, the fund has invested in 14 Sub-Saharan African startups.

Whether it’s ’s non-payment or payment applications, the number of startups in Africa’s fintech space along with the breadth of the actions continue to grow.

Substantial developments TechCrunch has covered this year have largely been on the electronic payments side, such as Paga’s international growth  and intends to carry on suppliers such as PayPal and Safaricom. Then there were large increases by payments-focused Paga ($10 million), Cellulant ($47 million) and Mines ($13 million), also from lending platform Jumo ($52 million) and South African small business enterprise services startup Yoco.


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