Afridigest Fintech Review: Every company will be a fintech company

Week 1 2024: Dec 31 - Jan 6 (+Week 52 2023)

Emeka Ajene

Jan 07, 2024

Happy New Year, friends. Hope your 2024 is off to a great start so far. 💪🏽

On to the week’s fintech highlights:

• One fintech officially revealed the amount it raised in 2023.

• News of the week: The Nigerian cNGN stablecoin is real and will be launched on Feb 27th. Cellulant is getting a new CEO. The FBI and the US DOJ partnered to criminally charge the founder of Nigerian 'agri-fintech' Tingo. And sub-Saharan Africa remains the region with the highest remittance costs.

• Companies appearing in today’s Fintech Review: Qardy, CashCall, Paymentology, FutureBank, Fawry, Vipaso, Interswitch, Jumia, TPAY, Multigate, and others.

• Executives appearing: Paga’s Tayo Oviosu, Nala’s Benji Fernandes, VALR’s Farzam Ehsani, Avenews' Shalom Ben Or, Zone’s Obi Emetarom, PwC’s Ashley Nyiko Mabasa, Lendsqr’s Adedeji Olowe, and others.

With that said, let’s get into it!

Note: Premium subscribers have exclusive access to the paid version of this Fintech Review which includes additional details on fintech fundraises, product launches, new partnerships announced, and other paywalled content. Become a premium subscriber for access:

Week 1 2024: Dec 31 - Jan 6 (+Week 52 2023)

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📰 News of the Week

inDrive (formerly inDriver), the Siberian ride-hailing company that operates in ~47 countries including Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, Ghana, Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Botswana, and Namibia, announced this week that it will soon expand into financial services.

The company will soon roll out pilot programs that’ll see it extend loans and credit facilities to drivers across Africa and other emerging markets.

According to inDrive President & Deputy CEO Mark Loughran, “[It’s] for those drivers in the developing markets, when something happens in their family or maybe something happens to their vehicle or their bike or whatever and they need to fix it.”

I wrote last March in ‘Clever credit’ that “success in lending depends on 3 Ds: data, distribution, and ‘dollars.’”

Clever credit: How Nigerian startups are using data & distribution to de-risk lending

Emeka Ajene

March 4, 2023

Read full story

And like Nigerian mobility fintech Moove which was featured in that article, inDrive has access to valuable proprietary data that it can use to build smart credit models here.

This news is also a great reminder that 1) fintech is a significant revenue contributor for businesses of all types worldwide ↓

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🚀 Partnerships & Product Launches

PARTNERSHIPS

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LAUNCHES

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📑 Reads of the Week

AFRICA

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GLOBAL

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🙈 Visual of the week

Sub-Saharan Africa remains the region with the highest remittance costs.

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📜 Other News, Reads, and Media

NEWS

In a surprise announcement, Kenyan payments giant Cellulant said that Group CEO Akshay Grover is leaving the company this month to focus on “personal matters.”
- It also came to light this week that Cellulant quietly laid off staff in December, making three rounds of layoffs for the company in 2023.
In an announcement that did not come as a surprise, the US Department of Justice, in conjunction with the New York FBI, unveiled a criminal indictment charging Dozy Mmobuosi, founder of Nigerian agri-fintech Tingo, with securities fraud, making false filings, and conspiracy. Mmobusi now faces criminal charges in conjunction with Tingo for the first time, in addition to civil charges filed by the SECweeks ago.
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) officially approved the Africa Stablecoin Consortium (ASC) to pilot the cNGN stablecoin in its regulatory sandbox. This confirms the news reports of Week 51 2023; the cNGN stablecoin is to be launched on Feb. 27, 2024.