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Financial technology, or fintech, refers to innovations aimed at new ways of delivering financial services. With the goal of changing lives, fintech startups in Africa are moving people forward on a digital route. Fortunately, such firms have no lack of funding. According to a recent report from Disrupt Africa, the overall funding from venture capitalists jumped by 51 percent to $195 million from 2016 to 2017, with fintech funding accounting for one-third of the funds. The regions that were considered the top three investment destinations were South Africa, Nigeria, and Kenya. Over the past several months, the African tech scene has trended in a positive directionRead More →

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At the Mobile World Congress, Mastercard recently announced that it was teaming up with Facebook to provide small businesses in Africa and Asia with an affordable and simple on-ramp for accepting mobile payments. The partnership will help unbanked retailers and merchants in the regions open bank accounts through Facebook Messenger. At the launch, Kahina Van Dyke, director of Payments and Financial Services Partnerships at Facebook, said, “Brands and developers around the world are turning to messaging to connect with the 1.3 billion people who use Messenger each month. We are pleased that Mastercard is developing a service on the Messenger platform to help small merchants use messagingRead More →

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Originally Published on Digitalist Magazine With the advent of robo-advisors, artificial intelligence (AI), and virtual assistants, the next wave of the financial technology revolution could arrive sooner than anticipated. A report by EY, “Unleashing the Potential of Fintech in Banking,” highlights that collaborations with startups (and not competition) can provide fresh tech solutions for banks. Shared services and knowledge will improve product offerings through data analytics tools like predictive analytics, offering deeper engagements with customers. How are banks currently leveraging fintech? Albeit independently, banks are building in-house technology in response to the growing fintech challenge. In 2017, JPMorgan appointed a new team for the automation ofRead More →

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Big Data tools not only simplify lengthy analytical procedures in any industry, but they also provide a competitive advantage to banks. With new regulations, banks are looking at ways to make compliance procedures more effective and accurate. Big data in banking is slowly gaining momentum and becoming an inevitable necessity across the banking industry. As traditional data management structures become obsolete, the community banks struggle to comply with external competitive and regulatory pressures. The need to execute analytics tools in the community banking system is gradually becoming more of a compulsion than an option. Gartner’s 2014 CIO survey shows that financial firms encourage investing inRead More →

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Alibaba is a Chinese multinational tech, e-commerce and artificial intelligence conglomerate that was founded in 1999 and has since become one of the ten largest companies in the world. Alibaba’s plan to end poverty in China stems from corporate social responsibility as an integral part of its business model. In 2008, an earthquake in Sichuan province in China prompted huge individual donations to charities, which accounted for 54 percent of total giving. The earthquake was the second highest in absolute numbers in history, and led to a huge death toll and significant economic losses and brought many corporations closer to philanthropy. Alibaba is one such firm. Over the courseRead More →