With the ongoing pandemic calling out for increased mobility in every industry, the mobile money and fintech sectors are moving fast to cater to its diverging market. Director of Strategic Projects at MFS Africa, Nika Naghavi, joins hosts Janet Shutlist and Arunjay Katakam on the Last Billion podcast to offer her extensive knowledge about the past, present, and future of mobile money.
Mobile money is ALL the rage these days. In less than ten years, it has grown from an interesting idea to a worldwide phenomenon. In this episode, we explore the latest stats and trends in mobile money and how agents re-emerged stronger post COVID. We dig into the advances made with fintech in the past year, re-visit three major mobile money trends from 2016, and find out the reasons for mobile money dominance in Africa. Skeptical about the unimagined push to digitalization today? Tune in to also understand why questions pertaining to unprecedented digital transformation need to be better addressed.
Time-stamps:
[00:43] - Nika discusses the highlights around mobile money from last year.
[02:50] - Learn how agents fared last year - the challenges faced and how they revived from there.
[03:57] - Bulk payments quadrupled in 2020. Learn about bulk disbursements (as government subsidies and NGO disbursements) and the need for more subsidies and protection programs by governments.
[05:46] - Arunjay on the happenings around Fintech the previous year.
💰 Fintechs have raised $23B across the regions since 2017
🌍 Africa’s average seed rounds stand at $1M, India and Latin America average $4M
🦄 Latin America is IPO-hungry, India breeds unicorns while Africa is just getting started with M&A
💳 Payments, credit, and neobanks lead fintech activity
Access the full report here: https://bfaglobal.com/catalyst-fund/briter-catalyst-fund-state-of-the-fintech-industry-report/
