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Mondia Digital and Mondia Pay join Vodacom’s VodaPay Super App offering

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Mondia Digital, a consolidation of the Mondia Group‘s digital content distribution business, an end-to-end, product-centric and data-driven company with a focus on opportunities in the B2B segment, and its digital payments company, Mondia Pay, are proud to have contributed their expertise and innovative payment, content and B2B platforms to Vodacom’s VodaPay “Super App”, which launched in South Africa in August 2021.

The VodaPay Super App, designed in collaboration with Alibaba Group-owned fintech services platform Alipay, allows consumers to do everything from paying bills to sending money, playing games and ordering takeaways. The VodaPay Super App offers consumers a single point of entry and payment platform, with no additional download required.

Mondia Digital has integrated all of its technology, content and services into the easy-to-use VodaPay Super App environment. It is also responsible for connecting third-party content providers into this ecosystem.

Mondia Digital will make a selection of its custom content platforms available through the Super App, including: Mum and Baby – a free-of-charge mobile health intervention that provides maternal, neonatal and child health information designed to encourage good health practices; Vodacom’s vLive app – a lifestyle and entertainment mini-ecosystem within the Super App that uses gamified elements to manage subscriptions to Mondia’s 123 Kaboodle kids content service; Playinc., a comprehensive gaming portal; and My Muze, a 360º music portal.

Mondia Digital has also co-created many of Vodacom’s key branded services on the Super App platform.

In addition to content integration, Mondia Pay has rolled out the provision of its seamless, contactless Direct Carrier Billing (DCB) payment service to the VodaPay Super App. DCB allows customers to make payments conveniently and securely by charging them to their mobile phone bill. Mondia Pay’s DCB service is used by tens of millions of customers across the Middle East and Africa, and provides a highly scalable payment gateway that both customers and merchants can trust.

DCB is seamless, with no need to sign up for any additional accounts or fill out any forms. Payments are completed in a matter of seconds and provide the best checkout experience on mobile devices, where filling out forms is time consuming and cumbersome. Making payments with DCB is secure. No personal data is transmitted during the payment process so there is no need to worry about identity theft.

Paolo Rizzardini, CEO of Mondia Digital, said, “We are committed to the continuing digitalisation of Africa, and the VodaPay Super App B2B ecosystem is an exciting opportunity in this regard. The future of digital content consumption is going to be driven by innovative partnerships that offer compelling and convenient consumer solutions. Our growth across Africa has been driven by our ability to create consumer-centric products with outstanding digital content, and secure long-term, fruitful partnerships with some of the most innovative and dynamic companies on the continent. Our enduring relationship with Vodacom continues to deliver value for consumers and a growing ecosystem of third-party businesses alike.”

Simon Rahmann, CEO of Mondia Pay, said, “The VodaPay Super App is an exciting environment in which to implement our DCB platform. All-in-one environments offering seamless access and seamless payment are the future of customer and business ecosystems. By offering consumers a simple, fast and secure way to pay for services using their mobile phone, we not only encourage financial inclusion, but we make it easier for local and global developers to offer their services to millions more people.”

Vodacom Group CEO Shameel Joosub said, “Our partnership with Mondia Digital and Mondia Pay strengthens our access to world-class technology and expertise, and leverages their experience across the MEA regions in developing strong, valuable partnerships and delivering seamless payment and content platforms. We want to drive financial inclusion, enhance the business-to-business ecosystem and transform the fintech environment in South Africa, by offering the capabilities of the VodaPay mini programs to as many businesses, of all sizes, across multiple industries as possible.”

While the Super App will be accessible to customers on any mobile network, it will be zero-rated for Vodacom users. The VodaPay Super App is set to be rolled out in other international Vodacom markets.

Developers and businesses are invited to join the VodaPay ecosystem by building their own “mini programs” – third-party, downloadable sub-applications run within the super app.

Some 70 businesses have already signed up or have committed to building their own mini programs in the app, including Big Blue, FlightSite, Dollar, Thrifty, West Pack, Petzone, NetFlorist, Kitkat Cash & Carry, Droppa, Planet54, Jacaranda FM, KFC, and Booking.com.

Mini programs can accept both physical and online payments from customers with the in-app VodaPay digital wallet. Customers can choose to pay upfront, with rewards, or with payment terms such as buy-now-pay-later and nano-credit offerings.

Is the CEO and Founder of Investors King Limited. He is a seasoned foreign exchange research analyst and a published author on Yahoo Finance, Business Insider, Nasdaq, Entrepreneur.com, Investorplace, and other prominent platforms. With over two decades of experience in global financial markets, Olukoya is well-recognized in the industry.

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Moniepoint Becomes Nigeria’s Newest Unicorn with $1 Billion Valuation After $110M Fundraising

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Moniepoint, a Nigerian-based fintech startup, has attained unicorn status after raising $110 million at over $1 billion valuation, according to the Financial Times.

The company now joined a small club of unicorns with members like MNT-Halan, Interswitch, Flutterwave, Chipper, OPay, and Wave.

The funding round also included a secondary sale with a discounted valuation, which was ideal for many investors.

The funding round led by the London-based private equity firm, Development Partners International, was supported by Google’s Africa Investment Fund.

According to Moniepoint, which had previously raised $55 million from investors, the new fund will be used to further its expansion.

Moniepoint and other peer-to-peer payment platforms experienced rapid growth in recent years following the decision of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to enforce its cashless policy in order to reduce cash transactions and encourage digital transactions.

This development saw many businesses and individuals open accounts with fintech companies, especially in regions without banks, and an increase in Point of Sales (PoS) agents.

Chief executive of Moniepoint, Mr. Tosin Eniolorunda said the company planned to use the funds to expand into other countries in Africa including Kenya.

He also noted that the company will continue to invest in Nigeria, where it is headquartered.

“The opportunities that exist in Nigeria also exist in multiple countries,” Mr Eniolorunda told the Financial Times.

“They are at different scales and levels of development; some countries are 10 to 15 years behind Nigeria and very few are ahead. We are looking at options in our toolkit and finding which ones would be the best to launch into a country and that’s the work we’re doing right now.”

In 2023 alone, Moniepoint reportedly processed $150 billion in transaction value across 5 billion transactions as its transaction value rose by 205 percent.

 

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US Continues to dominate Global FinTech Landscape in Q3 2024, Witnesses Funding of $2.7B

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The US boasts of a bustling FinTech landscape with more than 7K funded companies and 137 active FinTech Unicorns. Though the US ranks first globally in terms of funding in the FinTech sector in Q3 2024, this is the least funded quarter in the past five years.

Q4 2021 was the highest funded quarter in this space, after which the funding started to experience a steady decline.

Tracxn, a leading global SaaS-based market intelligence platform, stated in its Geo Quarterly Report: US FinTech Q3 2024.

The US FinTech startup ecosystem raised $2.7 billion in Q3 2024, a 30% decline compared with $3.9 billion raised in Q3 2023 and a 40% decline from $4.5 billion in Q2 2024.

Late-stage funding in Q3 2024 fell 32% to $1.3 billion, from $1.9 billion raised in Q3 2023. Early-stage investments stood at $1.2 billion in Q3 2024, a drop of 29% from $1.7 billion in Q3 2023. Seed-stage funding, too, fell 49% to $186 million from $364 million in Q3 2023.

Three companies attracted funding of $200 million and above. Human Interest raised $267 million in a Series D round at a post-money valuation of $1.33 billion, while FLYR raised $225 million in a Series D round. Earned Wealth secured $200 million in a Series B round.

Three other companies reported $100M+ rounds, with Aven becoming the only new unicorn in the third quarter of this year, after raising $142 million at a valuation of $1 billion.

Finance and Accounting Tech, Payments and Investment Tech were the top-performing sectors based on funding in Q3 2024 in this space.

The Finance & Accounting Tech segment witnessed total funding of $643 million in Q3 2024, a drop of 34% compared to $967 million raised in Q3 2023.

Funding raised by the Payments sector fell 22% to $573 million in Q3 2024 from $737 million in Q3 2023. Investment Tech companies raised a total funding of $547 million in Q3 2024, 18% lower than the $669 million raised in Q3 2023.

The third quarter of 2024 was weak in terms of exits. None of the companies from the US FinTech sector went public in Q3 2024, as against one IPO each in Q3 2023 and Q2 2024.

The number of acquisitions too, fell to 48 in Q3 2024 from 54 in Q3 2023 and 62 in Q2 2024. ShareFile was acquired by Progress at a price of $875 million, and Stronghold Digital Mining was acquired by Bitfarms for $175 million.

Among US cities, San Francisco and New York City together accounted for 50% of the total funding raised by the sector in the third quarter of this year.

FinTech startups based in San Francisco raised $750.2 million, while those headquartered in New York City and Santa Monica raised $610.1 million and $225 million.

Y Combinator, Techstars and a16z are the overall top investors in this space. Y Combinator, Castle Island Ventures & Plug and Play Tech Center were the top seed-stage investors in Q3 2024, while Curql, Redpoint Ventures and Brewer Lane Ventures took the lead in early-stage investments.

The US government is taking several initiatives to stimulate investment and innovation in the FinTech sector, which could give a boost to these startups in the coming years.

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Kazang Pay Launches Card Acquiring Service in Zambia

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Kazang, the prepaid value-added services (VAS) and card acquiring business within JSE-listed fintech Lesaka Technologies, has launched its Kazang Pay card acceptance solution for merchants in Zambia. Kazang Pay makes it affordable for merchants to accept card payments on the same Kazang terminal they use to sell prepaid products and services.

The Kazang Pay enabled terminal in Zambia accepts VISA debit and credit cards as well as mobile wallet payments. Payments are settled to the merchant’s Kazang wallet on the same day. It’s as easy as letting the customer tap or insert their bank card and enter their PIN on the secure scramble PIN pad.

Kazang operates around 12,000 VAS terminals in Zambia. The goal is to enable the majority to accept card payments over the next six months. Benefits to merchants include low transaction fees and no monthly terminal rental fee for those that meet a modest monthly transaction threshold as well as the opportunity to grow their business through card acceptance.

Kazang is Zambia’s largest VAS point-of-sale terminal provider, enabling mobile money payments, bank and mobile money cash in and out, bill payments, airtime, Zesco, and many other prepaid services on one platform. The addition of card acceptance makes the platform even more comprehensive for merchants and consumers alike.

The launch of Kazang Pay in Zambia follows the introduction of the solution in South Africa, where around 60,000 small and micro merchants use Kazang Pay to accept card payments.  In Zambia, there are around 3.8 million debit, credit and ATM cards in issue and 41,000 point of sale (POS) terminals in place. The value of POS transactions has grown to K 111.4 billion by 2022 from less than K 20 billion in 2018, according to the Bank of Zambia.

Says Leon de Wit, managing director at Kazang Zambia: “Zambia has made enormous strides in terms of financial inclusion, with card usage and penetration growing at a rapid pace. With Kazang Pay, merchants can now easily accept card payments on the same all-in-one terminal they already use for vending of VAS products.

“Card transactions help merchants to grow basket sizes and potentially attract more customers, and at the same time, reduce the risks and costs of handling cash. Moving towards digitalised payments will also enable merchants to track sales, manage cash flow,  and create a footprint that could make it easier for them to access loans.”

Ashley Naidoo, director of Kazang Pay in South Africa says: “Our Zambian merchants have eagerly embraced our card acquiring service as a valuable part of our one-stop solution. Following the launch of Kazang Pay in Zambia, we have seen higher VAS sales across our merchant base and much-improved merchant retention and with our card acquiring solution we now appeal to a broader merchant base.”

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