Author: Gugu Lourie

South African startup Credit Builder has secured funding for an innovative pilot to develop Africa’s bespoke financial inclusion solutions.  The startup, which is a Pentech Africa Group Holdings Company, is headed up by Co-Founder and Group CEO, Thomas Ngubane. Ngubane is an ex-divisional director within the Standard Bank Group of companies and ex-key individual of Liberty Life South Africa. Credit Builder has been awarded Top Insurance Innovation 2022 in South Africa through the Insurance Innovation Challenge, funded through the Insurance Sector Education and Training Authority (INSETA) and The Technology Innovation Agency (TIA), an entity of the Department of Science and…

LinkedIn announced today it had entered into an agreement to acquire Oribi, an Israel-based marketing analytics company. As part of the agreement, LinkedIn will also open a new office in Tel Aviv, Israel expanding its international presence and helping to further scale the value it deliver to members and customers across the globe. “We will not be disclosing the financial terms of the deal,” said LinkedIn. LinkedIn Chief Product Officer, Tomer Cohen, said as the company’s marketing solutions business accelerates to 43% year-over-year in revenue, “we are continuously investing in our technology platform to help our customers achieve maximum value…

Discovery Bank, part of Adrian Gore’s Discovery Group, said on Wednesday that retail deposits grew by 69% to R9.5 billion and advances rose by 10% to R4.1 billion as at 31 December 2021. The bank is powered by the country’s largest medical aid provider, Discovery Health. Described as the world’s first behavioural bank, the fully digital bank promises to help clients bank healthier and leverages Discovery’s shared-value model. The bank, headed by Hylton Kallner as CEO, said customer quality remains excellent with high average levels of non-interest revenue per client and the quality-focused credit strategy was evidenced by the low credit loss…

The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) today announced the names of the bidders that qualify to participate in the auction phase of the ongoing licensing process for International Mobile Telecommunications (IMT) spectrum – also referred to as high-demand spectrum. ICASA SAID This follows the receipt of six (6) applications on 31 January 2022 in response to the Invitation To Apply (ITA) issued on 10 December 2021. In line with the truncated timetable published by the Authority for this licensing process, and after extensive analysis of received applications, the qualifying bidders are: 1. Cell C, 2. Liquid Telecoms, 3.…

MyBucks, a FinTech company owned by JSE-listed Afristrat, has been placed under liquidation by the Luxembourg tax authority or l’Etat du Grand-Duché de Luxembourg. “Whilst MyBucks had previously made representations in court in order to prevent MyBucks from being placed in bankruptcy, the court of Luxembourg has concluded the matter and upheld the bankruptcy application,” Afristrat informed investors on Wednesday. “MyBucks has the right to appeal this matter and are considering their options in this regard.” Afristrat added that the bankruptcy of MyBucks may have an impact on the company’s financials, of which the full extent is currently being determined, and which may have…

African FinTech player Flutterwave announced today that it has raised $250 million or R3.7 billion in Series D funding, valuing the company at over $3 billion or R45 billion as the brand continues to transform the way Africans transact on the continent and worldwide. Flutterwave has become the highest valued African startup with this investment. It is a validation of African talent, innovation and its young inspiring people. It is also a huge endorsement in the growth of the business, innovation and technology landscape in Africa. Flutterwave’s latest backers include some of the world’s most respected investors led by B…

Former president Jacob Zuma’s request to appeal against an earlier ruling that Advocate Billy Downer SC had the title to prosecute him in a decade’s old graft matter flopped on Wednesday morning. Judge Piet Koen dismissed Zuma’s leave to appeal against having Advocate Downer SC prosecute him, saying the reasons put forward were, “were frivolous, irrelevant, superfluous, and that no points of law for appeal were made or properly identified”. Developing story … NPA spokesperson Mthunzi Mhaga says state has been “vindicated” by Judge Koen – and is ready to put former President Zuma on trial. pic.twitter.com/hkRUleZ2Cs — Karyn Maughan (@karynmaughan) February…

Telkom on Monday reported stellar performance from its mobile and fibre business. The company announced that active mobile customers rose 10% year on year to 16.4 million with a blended ARPU of R91.45 for the quarter ended December 2021. This boosted the group’s revenue by 2.3% year on year to R4.4 billion. “The prepaid market remains the driver of new connections, prepaid customers grew by 12.0% to 13.8 million. In the third quarter, we recorded 143 634 prepaid net additions,” the company said. Telkom added that mobile data traffic increased by 7.9% year on year to 246 petabytes, supporting mobile…

The latest data released today shows that the value of Vodacom’s mobile money platform, M-PESA, including Safaricom, continues to scale at an impressive rate with transaction values up 16.1% to exceed R430 billion per month. Vodacom said M-PESA revenue for International business rose 12.9% to R1.3 billion, with normalised revenue growth at 9.3%. “The result was supported by customer growth and new service adoption, such as lending,” said Shameel Joosub, Vodacom’CEO. M-PESA customers increased 4.5% to 16.7 million, promoting financial inclusion. The company added that the lending products continue to scale across the portfolio, supported by M-PESA Africa’s strategic direction.…

Vodacom announced today that its super app VodaPay has attracted more than 1 million registered users in three months. “In South Africa, the launch of our VodaPay super-app in October last year has exceeded our expectations by attracting 1.4 million downloads and 1.0 million registered users in its first three months,” said Shameel Joosub, Vodacom Group CEO. “We see VodaPay as a precursor to M-Pesa’s evolution and further strengthening our FinTech position across our footprint…and assisting us in connecting the next 100 million African customers so that no one is left behind.” The VodaPay super app is available for download from…