Hi Fintech friends 👋,

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

• Ivorian based Fintech raised $820K to expand its inventory financing service.
• France’s largest Venture Capital expanded to Africa.
• Nigerian open banking platform expanded into cloud services.
• The CEO of the most valuable African Fintech spoke about new hires, product focus and IPO plans.
• The executive of the world's largest crypto exchange was denied bail in one of Africa's most active fintech countries.
• Parliament pushed for the separation of telecom and mobile money services by the owner of East Africa's largest mobile money provider.

💸Fundraise and Exits

• Ivorian fintech Waribei raised $820K to expand inventory financing solutions for local merchants.

💰 Venture Funds

• Bpifrance, France's largest venture capital firm opened a new base in Egypt as part of its expansion strategy into Africa and the Middle East.

• Endeavor South Africa’s Harvest Fund achieved its first close, securing commitments of $10.8 Million as part of its goal to raise $28.4 Million.

🚀 Partnerships & Product Launches

• Nigerian fintech Okra expanded into cloud services.

• South Africa’s Peach Payments partnered with Kenya’s Sukhiba to power  conversational commerce.

👔 Leadership Lineup

• Binance executive denied bail, court says no evidence his health can't be handled.

📰 News of the Week

• Flutterwave’s CEO spoke about the company’s executive hires, product focus, and IPO plans.

Flutterwave appointed Mitesh Popat as its new chief financial office after the resignation of Oneal Bhambani, who stepped down 10 months ago for personal reasons. This new hire might help the company clear its best IPO road.

Flutterwave’s enterprise product which banks, startups, and companies in e-commerce, transportation, and FMCG use to accept payments, generates 90% of the fintech’s revenue. Its remittance product, Send App, makes up the remaining 10%.

The CEO said they sunset the Barter product because their focus shifted toward where the majority of their customers were.

👀 Eye Openers - Does Africa really need cards?

• In Tanzania, a country of 60 million people, there are 12 million cards, but only 2 million are active.

• Only 3% of Africans own credit cards, the lowest credit card penetration rate of any region worldwide.

Does Africa really need cards, or will it leapfrog them to find its own best way to make payments? Share your comments and i will publish them in the next newsletter.

📑 Read of the week

• The Big Baas Opportunity in Africa.(Frontier Fintech)
• Mobile Money Charges: The Main Barrier to Digitizing B2B Transactions in Africa. How do we bypass Mobile Money altogether? (Cofoundersnotebook )

📖 Other News, Reads, and Media

• Kenyan parliament pushed for Safaricom, M-PESA split.

• It was reported that 31,000 merchants in South Africa now accept crypto on Luno.

🎥 VIDEO INTERVIEWS/DISCUSSIONS

• Interview with Ken Njoroge, the dynamic force behind Cellulant and founder of boutique investment firm PANI, on the secrets of his success in the tech world.

🦉 Tweet of the Week

🎯 Fintech Opportunities

• Bloomberg is working on Africa Startups to Watch list to find the smartest ideas and founders from all over the continent. Apply to be featured.

Made in Tanzania 🇹🇿 with 💚

👍🏽👎🏽  Did you enjoy this edition of This Week In Fintech Africa? Please share your feedback with me on Twitter or LinkedIn .