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Banking
Access Bank to acquire South African bank
Access Bank is on a rampage!
The bank is in the news for the second time this week after it offered to acquire South African Bidvest Bank. The R2.8 billion ($159 million) bid comes after Access Bank received approvals from the European Central Bank and the Malta Financial Services Authority to start a bank in Malta on Dec 10.
The recent acquisitions are part of Access Bank’s strategy to dominate the continent by 2027. In January 2023, the bank announced it would expand into 26 new countries over the next five years. The bank, which operates in about 23 countries, has snapped up acquisitions in Kenya, Angola, Sierra Leone, and Namibia, with a recent acquisition of a Mauritius bank.
Access Bank, Nigeria’s largest bank by assets, is also making these acquisitions to diversify its risk in its biggest market, Nigeria, where it expects its income to dwindle. The bank expects revenue from the Nigerian market to decline to 52% by 2027 and the share of profit before tax to drop to 33% from 63%.
After Access Bank’s expansion to Malta which it claims will allow it to “gain a foothold in a market that bridges European and North African economies”, we predicted an expansion to a North African country. It remains to be seen where next the M&A machine will set up shop.
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Fintech
Palmpay partners with Jumia on payment option
Palmpay, the ubiquitous Nigeria fintech app, has directly partnered with Jumia, the e-commerce platform, to allow its 35 million customers to pay on Jumia directly from their accounts.
This partnership highlights the growing trend of Nigerian fintechs building pay-by-bank transfer options and Jumia’s drive to improve its online payment options after Jumia Pay, its payment arm, processed $192 million last year.
For Palmpay, it also represents an opportunity to earn a share of the payments processed on Jumia, which recorded 2.6 million orders during its month-long Black Friday campaign
The pay-by-bank transfer makes sense for fintechs as it eliminates the middlemen involved in card transactions and increases the razor-thin margins in online payments. According to the Central Bank of Nigeria, internet transfers accounted for 51.91% of all e-payment transactions in the first half of 2024.
Palmpay and other fintechs gained customer trust in Nigeria after banks failed to meet the demand for cash during 2023’s cash crunch, and the fintechs gave customers an avenue to access cash.
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Investment
Satgana’s thesis on investing in Africa’s green future
Africa contributes about 3% of the global greenhouse gas emissions, yet, it is most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. With droughts and rising sea levels threatening water scarcity and energy supply, it is clear that impactful climate solutions are needed.
While the likes of Greta Thunberg challenge world leaders to take action to mitigate the effects of climate change through policies, some VCs like Novastar Ventures and Satgana are taking the cue to fund climate-focused innovations in Africa to give an alternative to traditional products.
Satgana, a climate-focused VC firm, believes that everyone will willingly use green alternatives if climate tech products can be offered at green discounts.
The firm also believes in leveraging the entrepreneurial population in Africa. To this length, it aims to fund at least 30 climate tech startups across Africa and Europe after finalising its first fund at $8.6 million in March.
Here’s the catch though. If the adoption of climate tech products is to be accelerated, these solutions must extend beyond the traditionally focused areas of climate tech, such as energy, mobility, and waste management, to address the complexities of the climate crisis.
Satgana invests between €100k ($105,000) and €300k ($315,000) in early-stage, category-defining climate tech startups and prioritises underserved areas of climate tech.
Uncover the untapped opportunities in Africa’s climate tech scene in an exclusive interview with Romain Diaz, CEO of Satgana.
Crypto
South Africa has approved 248 crypto licences
Fourteen. That’s how many African countries are on the FATF Greylist—a list that contains countries lacking solid structures for fighting money laundering. When it comes to it, bad actors can illicitly move money around these weak systems, for whatever malicious reason, and likely won’t get caught.
This effectively means that a quarter of all African countries are considered risky to the international finance community. Since these African countries hit this realisation, they’ve doggedly forced financial service providers to enforce strict compliance checks on users. Yet, for so long, crypto has eluded them.
South Africa is changing that. The Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) has approved 248 crypto asset service provider (CASP) licences, showing a shift towards stricter regulation of the crypto space. This push is part of South Africa’s efforts to get off the FATF Greylist.
To comply, crypto providers must meet “fit and proper” requirements under the Financial Advisory and Intermediary Services Act. For users, this means stricter identity checks when using crypto platforms. Providers must collect details like names, IDs, wallet addresses, and transaction histories. While this could slow onboarding, it will also reduce the risks of fraud, money laundering, and illegal activities.
South Africa is nearing its goal to regulate crypto and maintain strict oversight on a financial asset that is notorious for being untraceable. The legal regulation of crypto will also further encourage adoption in a country that is already pro-crypto.
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TC Insights
Funding Tracker
This week, Eyone, a Senegal-based digital health startup, raised $1 million in a funding round contributed by Sonatel Group, Véhicule d’Investissement et de Financing (VIF), and BICIS (December 9)
Here are the other deals for the week:
- Billboxx, a Nigerian fintech startup, raised $1.6 million pre-seed (a mix of debt and equity) funding from Norrsken Accelerator, Kaleo Ventures, 54 Collective, P2Vest, and Afrinovation Ventures. (December 11)
Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn for more funding announcements. Before you go, our Future of Commerce: Outlook for 2025 Report is out. Click this link to download it.
CRYPTO TRACKER
The World Wide Web3
Source:
|
Coin Name |
Current Value |
Day |
Month |
|---|---|---|---|
 Bitcoin |
$99,629 |
– 1.57% |
+ 14.02% |
| Ether |
$3,936 |
+ 5.96% |
+ 0.49% |
| GT Protocol |
$0.96 |
– 3.41% |
+ 58.46% |
| Solana |
$227.21 |
– 1.31% |
+ 10.98% |
* Data as of 05:00 AM WAT, December 13, 2024.
Jobs
- PressOne Africa – Growth and Sales Operations Manager – Lagos, Nigeria
- Condia – Sales and Partnership Associate – Remote (Nigeria)
- Moniepoint – Growth Product Partner – Lagos, Nigeria
- 54 Collective (Radease) – Growth Manager – Hybrid (Lagos, Nigeria)
- Renmoney – Chief of Staff – Lagos, Nigeria
- Interswitch Group – Data Engineer, Mobile App Developer – Hybrid (Lagos, Nigeria)
- Fairmoney – Data Engineer – Remote (Lagos, Nigeria)
- Duplo – Senior Product Manager, SaaS, Risk & Compliance Manager – Hybrid (Lagos, Nigeria)
- Reliance Health – Content Strategist – Remote (Lagos, Nigeria)
- Darey.io – Quality Assurance Specialist – Lagos, Nigeria
There are more jobs on TechCabal’s job board. If you have job opportunities to share, please submit them at bit.ly/tcxjobs.
Written by: Muktar Oladunmade, Towobola Bamgbose, Emmanuel Nwosu, and Faith Omoniyi
Edited by:Timi Odueso
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