fintech

Kenyan BNPL startup Watu profits drop 85% to $1.2 million as loan defaults rise

Watu Holdings, a Kenyan buy-now-pay-later startup, reported a sharp 85% drop in profit to $1.2 million (KES157 million) in 2024,…

5 months ago

Day 1–1000: How Sycamore founders built the fintech from a living room

What does it really take to build a startup in Africa—from the first idea to the thousandth day? In Day…

5 months ago

MTN enters payments market with MoMo Pay targeting cash-heavy informal sector

MTN South Africa has entered the competitive payments market with MoMo Pay, a low-cost digital payment platform designed for informal…

5 months ago

South African fintechs Paymenow, TymeBank, Omnisient make FT’s Africa fastest-growing companies list

Three South African fintech startups, Paymenow, TymeBank, and Omnisient, have been named in the Financial Times (FT) Africa’s Fastest-Growing Companies…

5 months ago

Correction: Nigerian startup, Allawee, wants to restore fintechs’ confidence in cards

Nigerian fintechs have had a mixed relationship with cards. In the past, some offered foreign-issued cards like Visa and Mastercard…

5 months ago

CBN licences in Nigeria: types, costs & what fintechs should know

If you’re building a fintech startup in Nigeria, one of the first things you’ll need to figure out is this:…

5 months ago

South Africa’s SOLmate doubles users to 100,000 as eWallet surge drives growth

South African fintech startup SOLmate has doubled its active user base over the past year to about 100,000, driven by…

5 months ago

Access Holdings’ Oxygen X disburses ₦152 million in loans, posts ₦805 million profit in first year

Oxygen X Finance Company Limited, the digital lending subsidiary of Access Holdings Plc, disbursed ₦152 million ($95,000) in consumer loans…

5 months ago

Lendsqr develops AI to assess Nigerian borrowers by face and voice

Nigerian lending software startup, Lendsqr, is building an artificial intelligence model that analyses borrowers’ voices and faces to determine if…

5 months ago

Why Kenyans are using mobile money more but sending less

The value of mobile money transactions in Kenya dropped sharply over the 12 months to February 2025, falling by 19.6%…

5 months ago

Tala lays off 28 staff as loan defaults and customer queries fall

Digital lender Tala has laid off 28 employees from its customer operations team, citing a reduced workload due to fewer…

6 months ago

How Moniepoint is going after remittances with Monieworld

Moniepoint, the Nigerian fintech unicorn, has launched Monieworld, its remittance product that allows UK residents to send money directly from…

6 months ago

South Africa’s payments startup Stitch raises $55 million Series B funding

Stitch, a South Africa-based payments infrastructure startup founded in 2021, has raised $55 million in a Series B round, bringing…

6 months ago

South Africa’s payments startup  Stitch raises $55 million Series B funding

Stitch, a South Africa-based payments infrastructure startup founded in 2021, has raised $55 million in a Series B round, bringing…

6 months ago

Digital bank Umba raises $5 million to grow vehicle and SME lending in Kenya

Umba, a Nairobi-headquartered digital bank with operations in Kenya and Nigeria, has raised a $5 million debt facility to grow…

6 months ago

PalmPay rolls out Verve debit cards as Nigerian fintechs shift to local providers

PalmPay, the Nigerian fintech with over 35 million users, has launched its first debit card in partnership with Verve, marking…

7 months ago

Paystack welcomes consumers to its ecosystem with Zap, a transfer app

Nine years ago, Shola Akinlade, Paystack’s CEO, bet on making online payments frictionless and that bet paid off with a…

7 months ago

Nigeria records largest global drop in cash usage as digital payments surge

Nigeria recorded the steepest decline in cash transactions to surpass six cash-reliant economies in the past decade thanks to the…

7 months ago

“Transfers will be the future”: GTCO’s HabariPay expands fintech push with new licences

When fintechs like Paystack and Flutterwave gained prominence between 2016 and 2019 to disrupt Nigeria’s financial sector, traditional banks had…

7 months ago

Turaco’s bet on M-KOPA’s smartphones expands insurance reach to over 1 million customers

Turaco, a Kenyan insurtech company, has spent six years disrupting the underpenetrated insurance market with less than $2 premiums. However,…

7 months ago