Africa


Case study: EBank and Fiorano – core banking integration

Namibia’s EBank has achieved digital transformation of services with Fiorano’s core banking integration. Fiorano Enterprise Service Bus seamlessly integrates EBank’s Temenos T24 core banking system with third party suppliers and channels facilitating its vision of financial inclusion.

Veridium and Wala bring blockchain power to Africa’s unbanked

Biometrics firm Veridium has teamed with Wala, a blockchain-powered financial services platform, as they target the unbanked and underbanked population in Africa. The duo will collaborate on a pilot programme in sub-Saharan Africa to demonstrate their digital model offering “zero-fee banking”. This pilot is funded by a grant awarded to Veridium from the Digital Financial […]

Africa can learn from the South American mistakes

Africa is firmly in last place when it comes to the development of the digital society, unless you count the Antarctic, but looking towards the failures of other emerging markets might help things along, reports Telecoms.com (Banking Technology‘s sister publication). First of all you have to address the hurdles which Africa is facing. Firstly, the […]

Over-regulation and career politicians could spell disaster for tech

Government intervention has been a hot topic all week at AfricaCom, and it doesn’t seem like there is going to be a resolution to the problem anytime soon, reports Telecoms.com (Banking Technology‘s sister publication). Of course there will always be a need to regulate any industry; commercial entities should not be left by themselves, they […]

ITS gains first core banking system deal in Morocco

Morocco-based Al Akhdar Bank, a joint venture of Crédit Agricole and Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector (ICD), has signed for a new core banking solution, Ethix, supplied by International Turnkey Systems (ITS).

Interview: Martin Grunewald, BankservAfrica – the African payments dream

In an exclusive interview with Daily News at Sibos, Martin Grunewald, chief payments officer at BankservAfrica, discusses its vision for a modern payments system in Africa and why replication is a good thing. “If we don’t start, we won’t get to the finish line”. There is a lot of planning and talking now, but South […]

Mauritius looks to blockchain for financial inclusion boost

The State Bank of Mauritius, SBM Group and SALT, creator of a blockchain-backed loan platform, have entered into an exploratory relationship to use blockchain assets as collateral for lending services. SALT, which stands for Secured Automated Lending Technology, says it offers risk mitigation software which allows financial entities, like SBM, to participate in this new […]

Ovamba and Microsoft team for first African language driven chatbot

Fintech firm Ovamba says it is working with Microsoft to create “the first African language driven chatbot designed to serve the millions of African SMEs who face exclusion from financial services due to the challenges of functional and business literacy”.

Prime Tyme for South Africa’s newest bank

TymeDigital, a South African online money transfer business bought by Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) two years ago, has been granted a banking licence. The first licence issued to a new bank by the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) since 1999. TymeDigital will enter a retail banking market dominated by South Africa’s five biggest banks: […]

South Africa Bettr get ready for new mobile banking service

South African start-up Bettr Finance is preparing to launch its mobile banking service – with the offer of no monthly account fees and no bricks and mortar branches. It’s early days at the moment, so timelines and specific details are not available. But on its website its alpha phase is limited to 10,000 users. The […]

Kenya leads Africa in financial inclusion innovation

Kenya is leading the way when it comes to digital innovation for financial inclusion in Africa, according to research by the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP). Earlier this year, CGAP says it invited firms and organisations to submit proposals for digital innovations they believe have the most potential to advance financial inclusion in […]

Zambian start-up Zazu plans to be digitally true

Zambia-based Zazu is readying for launch – as it targets being “Africa’s first digital-only bank” and offering a “more personalised solution” than a traditional bank. In November, it will launch with 1,500 prepaid debit cards. It wants to give these out to people who regularly use cards to make payments, so it can improve and develop […]

TerraPay teams with Instant Cash for cross-border payments

Mobile payments switch TerraPay and money transfer company Instant Cash have teamed up to enable real-time cross border money transfers for migrants that want to send money back to Africa to recipients’ mobile wallets. Powered by TerraPay’s global clearing and settlement service for mobile wallets, the partnership “will make cross-border money transfer faster and convenient […]

Skye Bank revamps omnichannel banking with Oracle FSS

Nigeria-based Skye Bank has launched a new digital banking platform, SkyeXperience, built on the Oracle FSS tech. The bank plans to enrol over two million clients on the new solution by the end of next year.

Barclays Africa looks for innovation heads-up with nine start-ups

Barclays Africa will collaborate with nine firms to explore new technology-based solutions to improve its banking services. The nifty nine are not just fintech but include Abe.ai and Kapitalwise from the US; FOMO Group and Byte Money from South Africa; and FlexPay, Spatialedge, Sun Exchange and Avenews-GT. Details below if you want the full show. […]

Absa gets real with virtual investor launch

South African heavyweight Absa Bank has unveiled its own artificial intelligence (AI)-powered online investment platform, Virtual Investor. The self-service platform uses AI and computer algorithms to recommend a product for customers based on their financial attitudes to risk. Armien Tyer, head of Absa Investments, says: “Individuals can either invest a once-off lump sum amount or […]

Abu Dhabi and Kenya form fintech bridge

Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), the International Financial Centre in Abu Dhabi, and the Capital Markets Authority (CMA) Kenya have signed a co-operation agreement for fintech innovation. The agreement provides a framework for information sharing; and keeping abreast of regulatory and relevant economic or commercial developments in the respective markets. They will also support fintech […]

Absa targets African millennials with Hello Soda partnership

Absa Bank, a subsidiary of Barclays Africa, has partnered with multilingual text analytics and big data firm, Hello Soda, as it looks to tap into the millennial market. The bank says it wants to make sense of unstructured social data to better understand its consumer base. According to Absa, Hello Soda provides new ways for […]

EBank deploys Fiorano enterprise service bus

EBank, a new bank in Namibia, has implemented Fiorano ESB, an enterprise service bus to “seamlessly integrate” the bank’s core processing software – Temenos T24 – with other third-party systems and channels, with a major focus on digital banking.

Mastercard launches competition for African financial inclusion

The Mastercard Foundation Fund for Rural Prosperity (FRP) has launched a new competition to find financial products and services that improve the lives of poor people in rural areas of Africa. The 2017 competition will follow a rolling format and will be open throughout the year with applications submitted and evaluated periodically. The first submission […]

Ghana’s Premium Bank opts for NetGuardians’ anti-fraud solution

Ghana-based Premium Bank has selected NetGuardians’ anti-fraud solution FraudGuardian. FraudGuardian uses a “patented big data model to correlate and analyse human behaviours across the entire bank system including eBanking, service channels, IT systems and financial transactions”. The firm says it can help banks prevent fraud in a proactive manner. FraudGuardian will integrate with the Temenos […]