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Visa Begins Mobile-Money Service to Rival Safaricom’s M-Pesa
Visa Inc., the world’s largest payments network, introduced a mobile-phone application to enable cashless transactions in Kenya, where the majority of wireless payments are being done through the nation’s biggest telecommunications company, Safaricom Ltd.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- digital payments, fintech
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An African Trailblazer in Healthcare Services
Standing outside her home in central Rwanda, 19-year-old Ernestine Ituze describes falling ill last year. She was coughing violently and had lost her appetite. A community health worker diagnosed tuberculosis and Ituze was treated at the nearby government hospital, a few kilometres down a red dirt road lined with banana and mango trees. A few months later, she is healthy and continuing her studies to be an accountant.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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How Digital Financial Services Can Lift Nigerians Out of Poverty
A report, the “financial inclusion insight (FII),” has stressed that digital financial services (DFS) can play a key role in managing expenses and setting individuals and households on paths to stay out of poverty permanently.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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To Reach Millennial Customers, This Kenyan Telecom Giant Tried Shopping Like Them
For the last 16 years Safaricom, Kenya’s largest publicly traded company and East Africa’s largest telecom, has focused on signing up more mobile subscribers. With 87% of Kenya’s population already subscribed to mobile phone plans, Safaricom, partly owned by Britain’s Vodafone—along with its newer rivals such as India’s Bharti Airtel or Orange Kenya, partly owned by France’s Orange SA—are now chasing a smaller slice of the pie.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Madagascar Becomes Second Market in Africa With Mobile Money Interoperability
The GSMA today announced that all three mobile money providers in Madagascar – Airtel Money, mVola and Orange Money – are rolling out interoperable mobile money services across the entire country. This launch makes Madagascar the second market in Africa, following Tanzania, where all mobile money providers are making their services interoperable, allowing transactions to flow seamlessly across all mobile money providers.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Mixed Reactions in Ghana Over Interest Payments on Mobile Money
Customers of mobile money services have expressed mixed reactions to the payments of interests, a day after the process started.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Viewpoint: The Transformative Potential of the Private Sector in Fragile States
Almost six months have passed since the World Health Organization officially proclaimed Sierra Leone Ebola-free. There have been a few scares since, but stability is nonetheless returning — bringing with it renewed hope of progress. Prior to Ebola, Sierra Leone was experiencing sustained annual economic growth of between 4 and 7 percent, with projected growth close to 11 percent. Governance, gender, environmental and social indicators had been improving. We had seen small but tangible improvements in infrastructure development.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Africa in World’s First Blockchain Bank Transaction
Africa was at the forefront of a major technology landmark this week as Barclays Africa and its UK parent company Barclays plc completed the world’s first trade finance transaction using blockchain technology.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- blockchain, fintech
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