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CBN Issues Airtel Africa a Super Agent License in Nigeria

Sopuruchukwu Elizabeth Mba
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CBN Issues Airtel Africa a Super Agent License in Nigeria

Airtel Africa has announced that its subsidiary Airtel Mobile Commerce Nigeria Ltd has been issued a super agent license in Nigeria by the Central Bank of Nigeria today, November 15, 2021. Airtel Africa is one of Africa’s major telecom providers and one of the top three in Nigeria.

Following the Central Bank of Nigeria’s issuance of a Payment Service Bank license on the 4th of November, Airtel Africa clarifies that the Payment Service Bank license is distinct from the Super agent license. 

“The super-agent license is distinct from the Payment Service Bank (‘PSB’) license, for which we received approval in principle on 4 November 2021. The PSB license is required for Airtel to be able to provide financial services in Nigeria such as accepting cash deposits and carrying out payments and remittances, issuing debit and prepaid cards, operating electronic wallets, and rendering other financial services.

Under the super-agent license, we would be able to create an agent network that can service the customers of licensed Nigerian banks, Payment service banks, and licensed mobile money operators in Nigeria – Airtel Africa.”

However, the super-agent license has just been approved preliminary. The final approval will be granted once the company meets the Central Bank of Nigeria’s standard conditions. These are the bare minimums that every applicant for a super-agent license must meet. 

This can be seen as CBN’s strategy for boosting financial inclusion revolving around economic development for the underprivileged population and providing an array of formal financial services that will serve Nigerians at an affordable cost.

 

Apply for the Google for Startups Accelerator Africa Program 2022 for Seed to Series A Technology African Startups.

Hassan Barakat
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Apply for the Google for Startups Accelerator Africa Program 2022 for Seed to Series A Technology African Startups.

Google for startups accelerator program is an intensive workshop and expert mentorship designed to help growth-stage startups learn the technical products, and leadership best practices.

The accelerator aims to provide the best of Google’s programs, products, people, and technology to startups who are using or planning to use machine learning and AI in their businesses.

The accelerator also includes deep dives and workshops focused on product design, customer acquisition, and leadership development for founders. It also offers specialized training, media opportunities, and access to Google’s network of engineers and experts, in addition to mentorship and technical project support.

The Africa Google for Startup Accelerator accepts applications from startups located in Algeria, Botswana, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Tunisia, Uganda, and Zimbabwe, and application to the Nigerian cohort which will hold in Lagos is currently opened.

For any selected startup, the CEO and CTO must attend all 3 of the program’s online boot camps. A third core team member can attend but is not required. Each boot camp can accommodate a maximum of 3 company representatives.

Benefits of Applying

During and after the program, selected startups will have access to;

  1. Google engineers, resources, and mentors.
  2. Collaboration and support from Google for Startups on a hands-on basis.
  3. Inclusion in the Google for Startups Global Community, as well as a network of alumni and mentors.
  4. Google Cloud Credits
  5. Marketing opportunity, among many other benefits.
  6. However, startups will not be given grants or funding.

How to Apply

Click HERE to apply.

 

Innovectives Gets Nigerian License for Payment Solutions and Services (PSS) To Digitise 1m SMEs

Mena Adediran
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Innovectives Gets Nigerian License for Payment Solutions and Services (PSS) To Digitise 1m SMEs
Innovectives Gets Nigerian License for Payment Solutions and Services (PSS) To Digitise 1m SMEs
Emmanuel Agha, Group Chief Executive, InDex Global

Innovectives Digital Experience (InDex) Group has obtained a Payment Solutions and Services (PSS) license in Nigeria from the Central Bank, for a five-year endorsement plan targeting one million SMEs (small medium enterprises).

Innovectives, founded in 2012, is a transaction solutions and payment processing group that collaborates with banks, International Card Schemes and other financial service providers to develop initiatives that foster the adoption of digital financial services.

The company’s objective is to enable SMEs operating within frontier markets to overcome obstacles in their digitisation such as digital payments methods, setting up an e-store etc. in order to foster their growth and potential.

Emmanuel Agha, the Group Chief Executive, InDex Group articulated that, “our journey to expand opportunities for one million SMEs in frontier markets is now fully on course, following the procurement of major strategic partnerships with leading payment schemes and impact investors.”

With Innovectives digitisation plan, which begins in Nigeria, SMEs will access current accounts, in-store and online payment methods, an online store that is easy to manage, quick loans and trainings.

Aboki Africa Announces Pre-seed Launch Fund

Boluwatife Aponmade
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Aboki Africa Announces Pre-seed Launch Fund

Aboki Africa is a new fintech startup that was launched in June 2020, Lagos, Nigeria, that renders the services of providing foreign accounts for Africans.

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The Empower Africa Tech Summit; African Investors Panel

Abidemi Ogunyemi-Aderibigbe
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The Empower Africa Tech Summit; African Investors Panel

The Empower Africa Tech Summit – 2021 is a virtual summit that aims to meet and interact with the world’s leading tech investors and stakeholders driving the tech industry (such as SoftBank Group Corp, TotalEnergies, Launch Africa Ventures, Microsoft).

The virtual summit will also feature three African unicorns including Jumia Group, Andela, and Flutterwave.

Date and time: Thu, Dec 9, 2021, 3:00 PM – Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 6:00 PM WAT Add to calendar

The keynote speaker is Nitin Gajria, Google’s Managing Director, Sub-Saharan Africa.

The summit is FREE but, registration is compulsory.

Kindly register via this link: https://events.empowerafrica.com/e/empower-africas-tech-summit/register 

Hurry and sign up to be a part of this year’s ultimate tech event. It will bring together global thought leaders in the tech space, VCs, innovation hubs, multinationals, and all stakeholders driving the ecosystem. You don’t want to miss it.

For more information about Empower Africa, please check their website here: https://www.empowerafrica.com/

Healthcare Startup Africa Health Holdings Secures $18 million Series A Funding

Mena Adediran
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Healthcare Startup Africa Health Holdings Secures $18 million Series A Funding

AfHealthcare Startup Africa Health Holdings Secures $18 million Series A Funding
Sangu Delle, CEO, Africa Health Holdings

Africa Health Holdings, a healthcare startup managing three different groups of health institutions in Ghana, Nigeria and Kenya has acquired $18 million in a Series A round.

Asia Pacific Land/Natural World Limited led this Series A funding round that also included investors such as TRB Advisors, Valiant Capital, Breyer Capital, amongst others.

Africa Health Holdings, founded in 2017, intends to use this funding to expand its telemedicine service (diagnosis and treatment of patients remotely) from Ghana to Nigeria and Kenya. The healthcare startup aims to grow beyond physical consultations to e-medical sessions via its mobile app MyCareMobile.

Speaking on this plan, Sangu Delle, the chairman and CEO explained, “Africa Health Holdings will expand by bringing its telemedicine technology to multiple countries. Currently, the telemedicine service is only in Ghana, but soon, it will be expanding to Kenya and Nigeria.”

Sangu Delle’s goal with Africa Health Holdings is to “address Africa’s disproportionate share of the global disease burden,” and also become the biggest healthcare provider in Africa.

Africa Health Holdings currently serves 200,000 patients yearly who make use of the startup’s telemedicine service.

Furthermore, Delle highlighted that the growth of these virtual consultations is linked to the Covid-19 pandemic as people employ new ways to get healthcare.

Overall, Africa Health Holdings plans to expand its services in Ghana, Nigeria and Kenya then move forward to East, North and Southern Africa.

“Always thinking about what is coming next and how to get quality healthcare to more people, Africa Health Holdings has begun investing in micro-tech-enabled clinics with virtual doctors’ offices that are filled with diagnostic technologies, and nursing support, specifically for people from lower socioeconomic classes.

“Individuals are able to enter micro-tech-enabled clinics, meet with doctors virtually, consult with nurses, and receive treatment and/or referrals for additional care at a reduced cost,” Sangu Delle narrated.

Africa Health Holdings manages 40 facilities all operated under three groups namely Meridian Health Group in Kenya, Care Point Hospitals in Nigeria and Rabito Clinic in Ghana.

DrugStoc, Nigerian e-health Pharmaceutical Distribution Startup Acquires $4.4 million Series A Funding  

Mena Adediran
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DrugStoc, Nigerian e-health Pharmaceutical Distribution Startup Acquires $4.4 million Series A Funding  

DrugStoc, an e-health pharmaceutical supply startup founded in 2015, has raised $4.4 million in Series A funding. The funding round was led by Africa HealthCare Master Fund (AAIC) and included investors such as Vested World, the German Development Bank (DEG) as well as other angel investors.

DrugStoc, founded by Chibuzo Opara and Adham Yehia, is a Nigerian health-tech startup determined to improve the pharmaceutical supply chain in Nigeria and Africa. It achieves this by terminating notable issues like fake drugs in the market. DrugStoc connects drug companies directly to healthcare institutions such as hospitals and pharmacies so as to eliminate the chances of buying substandard products.

DrugStoc plans to use the Series A funding to aid its expansion into 16 states in Nigeria beyond Lagos. Its plan is to provide quality drugs and other pharmaceutical products to 100 million Nigerians within the country. And eventually, expand into other African countries.

“In Nigeria, we intend to expand beyond 14 million we currently serve to cover just around 100 million people. And this would be achieved by expanding to about 16 states. Once we are done with the heavy lifting from that expansion, we will be training our sights on other countries,” DrugStoc explained.

As of now, DrugStoc connects 400 pharmaceutical manufacturers to 3,200 doctors, hospitals, and pharmacies. The startup’s monthly revenue has increased by about 1,500% in three years as revealed by Opara, co-founder, and CEO.

Speaking on the Series A round, Africa HealthCare Master Fund (AAIC) director Nobuhiko Ichimiya told TechCrunch, “we are very excited to be part of the DrugStoc journey. The pharmaceutical market in Africa has enormous growth potential, and we are glad to back a company that is well-positioned to be a key player in the sector’s growth in Subsaharan Africa.”

Apply for Software Engineer Role at Jumo

Hafiz Akinde
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Apply for Software Engineer Role at Jumo

JUMO is a full technology platform, developed for building and running financial services. JUMO partners with forward thinking banks and mobile network operators to connect consumers and small businesses with financial opportunity. JUMO combines data and technology to deliver products designed to reach and fit the 80% of the world’s population that are un(der)served by traditional financial services.

About this job

As a Software Engineer you will be accountable for solving complex technical problems in the fintech field with solutions that are scalable, testable, maintainable, and efficient. You will report to the Tech Lead.

You will

  • Consistently write code that is easily testable, easily understood by other developers and accounts for edge cases and errors.
  • Ensure that tasks are appropriately sized at the beginning for continuous integration and incremental delivery, weigh cost and value to make pragmatic decisions with help from teammates and manager.
  • Create reasonable sized PRs with a description of changes, testing conducted and impact of deployment.  Also reviews PRs with the lens of quality and value.
  • Understands the testing pyramid and writes unit tests and service integration tests in accordance with it, as well as assisting in writing end-to-end tests
  • Uses a systematic approach to debug issues located within a single service, and uses a range of tools to detect when there is an incident and raises this with stakeholders in a timely manner.
  • Design functions that are aligned with the overall service architecture.
  • Understand the importance of security and foster a security first mindset
  • Helps their teammates overcome obstacles, resolve blockers, and complete work tasks. Volunteers for team tasks.

Requirements

  • Strong experience with Kotlin / Java / Scala
  • Strong experience with a cloud-based infrastructure, ideally AWS
  • Experience designing, developing and testing software
  • Hands-on experience with the design and development of high-volume/low-latency services
  • Good communication skills & EQ – able to work in a diverse team

We ask a lot of each other at JUMO, but we give a lot too.

Benefits

  • Work in an agile cross-functional team, delivering quality code you can be proud of
  • In collaboration with team members, successfully plan and deliver technologies that improve a major portion of a system/service design, product, application or process
  • Work with a modern but pragmatic Tech Stack (i.e. Kotlin, Spring Boot, Docker, Terraform, Kubernetes, Datadog, Jenkins + Spinnaker for CI/CD, AWS), building a highly scalable distributed system
  • Led and supported by an experienced, hands-on Tech Lead
  • Collaborating with smart, engaging people
  • Working for impact
  • Growing and learning continuously, with loads of encouragement and support
  • Boldly taking risks as we navigate new challenges
  • Flexible work practices enabling your best delivery
  • Being autonomous and empowered to lead

Remote First

Our environment is designed to foster innovation and enable collaboration, and you can work from any one of our Tech Hubs in South Africa, Kenya or Portugal. We operate a remote first working approach where working remotely is our default way of working. We have co-working spaces available in Cape Town and Nairobi for collaboration and connection and for the use of those who value and want to work out of an office. If you work from Porto we provide access to co-working spaces on a needs basis for collaboration and connection.

Diversity and Inclusion

At JUMO, we believe that diversity strengthens our teams and strive in our recruitment process to create an environment where people from every background can collaborate and prosper and be themselves.

Location: South Africa

Apply for software engineer role here.

FirstBank Announces Fintech Summit 5.0

Hafiz Akinde
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FirstBank Announces Fintech Summit 5.0

The Summit is an event geared towards bringing together the finest and most innovative subject matter experts who are at the forefront of digital innovation both locally and on the global stage.

About FirstBank FinTech Summit

The FirstBank FinTech Summit 5.0 has become a tradition since inception in 2016. The Summit is an event geared towards bringing together the finest and most innovative subject matter experts who are at the forefront of digital innovation both locally and on the global stage. This year’s edition will be the fifth in the series, having skipped the Summit in 2017.

The FirstBank Fintech Summit had been a physical event, with attendance of about 1,000 participants, up until last year, when it was hosted online due to the COVID-19 pandemic and in line with the guidelines for managing the situation. As was the case last year, this year’s Summit will also be hosted as a virtual event, to allow people from all over the world participate and access the same quality of discussants and speakers.

This year’s theme (Open Banking & its Derivative Opportunities for the Financial Ecosystem) has been carefully selected against the backdrop of the increasingly prominent role open data, artificial intelligence and cloud-based technologies are playing, not just in the broader tech-space, but more specifically in the financial services and financial technology landscapes.

The increasingly pervasive intersection of these variables in various aspects of human enterprise represents a powerful force for the creation of new ventures via a new gateway that will promote unlimited value creation or innovation.

As a bank, we are of the view that Open Banking is representative of such an intersection, setting its roots down in the financial-services space but embodying the transformative potential capable of redefining customer satisfaction across the entire landscape of the financial ecosystem. This shall form the pivot of the conversations around the Summit this year.

Speakers

Event Activities

Summit: Thursday, 7 October 2021

Time: 10:00am

Duration: 2 Hours

Venue: Zoom (Stream on YouTube)

Register for the webinar event here by clicking this link.

Incubation Hub for African Entrepreneurs Opens in Johannesburg

Sodiq Ajala
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Incubation Hub for African Entrepreneurs Opens in Johannesburg
Unicorn Group, a pan-African investment firm focused on innovative ideas, start-ups, and early-stage enterprises in Africa’s technology and technology-enabled sectors, has opened a campus in Johannesburg, South Africa.

According to a statement from the company, the Unicorn incubation and innovation campus seeks to house an entrepreneurial ecosystem under one roof and assist African entrepreneurs in bringing their ambitious ideas to reality.

Users of the Unicorn Incubation Campus will have access to a variety of resources, including technology, high-speed internet, management coaching, pitch training, a pool of international and national experts, resident mentors, government agencies, venture capitalists, angel investors, and other stakeholders, who will provide African start-ups and innovators with unparalleled access to the tools, talent, and funding.

“The Unicorn Incubation Campus reiterates our commitment towards spurring innovation and empowering entrepreneurs to identify and build sustainable and competitive companies that will contribute to the economic growth of Africa,” says Dr. Akintoye Akindele, Chairman Unicorn Group.

“We are very excited that is happening in South Africa as Platform Capital and Unicorn Group have invested in a few South Africa businesses (Merge and Elite Career Solutions) and we look forward to investing in more sustainable South African businesses.”

The Unicorn Incubation Campus Johannesburg will set a new benchmark and address the issues encountered by entrepreneurs, early start-ups, and early-stage enterprises across Africa, following the successful introduction of the Unicorn Incubation Campuses in Lagos, Accra, and Dallas this year.

“As Africans continue to innovate and position the continent as an increasingly attractive destination for investment, competition on the global stage, and technology-based solutions, Unicorn Group is pleased to support an ecosystem that will empower entrepreneurs to bring their ambitious ideas to life and propel us toward the Africa we desire,” adds Dr. Akindele.

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