Hi Fintech friends 👋,

Here are the highlights of what happened in African Fintech this week;

• Three Fintech deals worth over $5 Million were announced.
• Egypt based VC firm signed a $30 Million deal to back pre-seed and seed stage startups.
• Africa’s Top Fintech startup geared for IPO.
• East African country officials denied reports of the arrest of an executive from the world's largest crypto exchange, who allegedly escaped in West African Country.
• An Employee of Kenya's biggest lender implicated in $2.1 Million fraud.
• Africa’s biggest bank planned to raise $401 Million to meet Central Bank Requirement.
• Investors requested for an audit of Nigeria based Fintech startup as it prepares to refund leftover capital.

💸Fundraise and Exits

• Bokra, an Egypt-based fintech company raised $4.6 million in a pre-seed round to launch the Bokra app to provide goal-based investment and savings products via asset-backed securities.

• Egypt-Based Premiere buying group platform, Waffarha Secured Seven-Figure Seed Round.
• Kola Market, a Ghanaian-based business management and financial services for SMEs platform, raised $200K from Madica.

💰 Venture Funds

• Egypt’s Beltone partnered with Citadel Holdings to manage a $30 Million VC fund.
• List of Female VC Partners in Africa 2024)

🚀 Partnerships & Product Launches

• South Africa granted crypto licenses to Luno, VALR and 73 other companies.

• MTN South Africa partnered with Investec and Electrum to introduce PayShap, an instant payment platform, on its MTN Mobile Money platform.
• Unified Payments Services Limited, Nigeria's premier fintech service provider received the country's second Payment Terminal Service Aggregator (PTSA) license by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to combat financial crimes and market irregularities.
• Anchor, a Nigerian embedded finance platform, launched On Deck to educate Africans on fintech.

• Flutterwave partnered With Acquired.com to Enable Domestic Card Payments on Send App.
• TigoPesa and Tanzania Commercial Bank introduced an interoperable product that will automate Community Microfinance Groups' (CMGs) financial transactions.

• Peach Payments partnered with Mauritius Commercial Bank (MCB) to introduce Mauritius’ pioneering mobile payment solution MCB Juice on ecommerce checkout, for its online merchants

👔 Leadership Lineup

• Olugbenga Agboola, founder and CEO of Flutterwave was appointed as the new Vice Chair of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's U.S.-Africa Business Center Board of Directors. This announcement was made at the U.S.-Nigeria Executive Dialogue in New York City, where Nigerian President Bola Tinubu endorsed the appointment.

• FBN Holdings, the parent company of Nigeria’s oldest bank, appointed Olusegun Alebiosu as acting chief executive officer of First Bank of Nigeria after the surprise resignation of CEO, Adesola Adeduntan.Until this appointment, Alebiosu was the bank’s executive director, chief risk officer, and executive compliance officer, according to a filing to the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX).

• Kenyan officials denied reports that Nadeem Anjarwalla, the Binance executive facing tax evasion charges in Nigeria, was arrested in Kenya on April 22. Several Nigerian publications claimed Anjarwalla, who escaped from an Abuja hotel where he was being held on March 25, would be extradited within the week.

📰 News of the Week

• Flutterwave, Africa’s top fintech player, got ready for an IPO.

Flutterwave CEO, Olugbenga ‘GB’ Agboola, speaking at Semafor’s World Economy Summit in Washington D.C. on April 18, described Flutterwave’s hopes for a public offering as part of a broader future agenda. “Right now our goal is to be IPO-ready, ensuring we have the right corporate governance in place, making sure we are operating well,” Agboola said. “We want to be a long-term company in Africa, for Africa – and so the goal is building the right infrastructure to be here for the next ten-plus years.”

Flutterwave’s core product is processing online payments, enabling businesses to receive payments from consumers and businesses operating in Africa. It currently operates in more than 30 countries, according to Agboola, with Uber being a flagship client on the continent. Key among the company’s milestones for being IPO-ready are recent hires, including a new board chair, two independent directors, and experienced executives to fill roles needed to “translate tech speak” for regulators, Agboola said.

The hires come on the back of a number of high-profile departures in recent months. An ex-American Express executive who was Flutterwave’s chief finance officer left after two years last November, while a chief operating officer who had been in her role for six years left in March.

👀 Eye Openers

• What are some African Fintechs leveraging Whatsapp to solve problems in the continent?

Approximately 95.4% of internet users in South Africa reported using WhatsApp every month. In Nigeria, 91.9% of internet users use WhatsApp; in Kenya, 93.5% and in Ghana, 89.9%. The more people use the internet, the more they use WhatsApp. Below is a list of some African Fintechs building solutions on top of Whatsapp.

Digital Banking

• Absa Bank introduced a new wallet for WhatsApp banking in South Africa.
• Centenary Bank launched WhatsApp banking in Uganda.
• UBA Bank made history by introducing banking on WhatsApp and Facebook for the first time in Ghana.

Digital payments 

• Vendy pivoted to enable businesses to accept payments from your customers right on WhatsApp.
• South Africa's Telkom introduced WhatsApp payments.
• Stitch launched an AI-powered WhatsApp payment management bot.
• Nedbank,  Mastercard and Ukheshe launched a payment platform that lets small and microbusinesses conveniently receive secure in-chat payments from their customers via WhatsApp.

Digital Commerce

• Catlog launched to help vendors create catalogs to sell products via WhatsApp.

Mobile Money

• Tigo Pesa launched a service to allow its Tanzania customers access mobile money services via  Whatsapp.
• Azam Pesa launched a service to allow its Tanzanian customers to self register and access Mobile Money services via Whatsapp.

HR

• Jem launched to Easily distribute payslips, IRP5 forms, timesheets, rosters and other information to employees using WhatsApp.

Lending

• Yabx and Clickatell partnered to launch WhatsApp lending in Africa.

📑 Read of the week

• What Whatsapp Can Do For African Fintechs. (Substack)
• The great miscalculation- and exit-of multinationals in Africa again(christenseninstitute)
• After conquering financial services, Mauritius wants to hack tech too. (Techcabal)

📖 Other News, Reads, and Media

• Economic and Financial Crimes Commission blocked 1,146 accounts in Nigeria connected with an ongoing investigation into “offenses of dealing in unauthorized dealing foreign exchange, money laundering and terrorism financing.
• An employee of Equity Bank, Kenya’s biggest lender, colluded with other perpetrators to steal $2.1 million from the bank.A source said that the unidentified bank worker at the heart of the fraud installed malware within the bank’s core system to siphon funds undetected. 
• Stanbic IBTC planned to raise $401 million to meet Central Bank Of Nigeria capital requirements
• First National Bank glitch exposed the personal details of 88 home loan applicants in 2023.
• The Kenyan government got serious about regulating the crypto scene. It’s put together a bunch of big shots from different agencies to form a team to figure out how to keep tabs on things.
• Investors requested an audit of The Peer’s finances as it prepares to refund leftover capital.“The funds left in the company’s account were about a million dollars short, based on estimated company spends and time frame,” one email sent to co-founders—Michael Okoh and Chike Ononye

🎥 VIDEO INTERVIEWS/DISCUSSIONS

• Interview with Yele Bademosi, Founder of Nestcoin, on Resilience in Building.

🦉 Tweet of the Week

🎯 Fintech Opportunities

• Duplo is hiring for Vice President - Payments. 
• Unlimit is hiring for Head of Product and Tech. 
• Kuda is hiring for Senior Product Manager - Credit.
• Yoco is hiring for a Product Marketing Manager.

Made in Tanzania 🇹🇿 with 💚

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