Shaping the future of finance
I’ve written a lot about Alibaba, Ant Financial and Alipay. This is not because I endorse or want to advertise the company, but because they are the first company to have embarked on a global financial inclusion strategy and have been marking it happen. Ant Financial is now some of the technology power behind PayTM…
A last post about financial inclusion and banking. I pondered the thought of how people who get inclusion will gradually rise and upscale to full service banking. I see it almost as a ladder of steps from exclusion to banked as follows: Step One: Financially Excluded (Hawala) These are people who have no access to…
As mentioned yesterday, I always get a new take on life when I come to Africa, and this visit is no exception. I’m chairing conferences where a range of start-ups, telco’s and banks are talking about their experiences and views. Halfway through the dialogue, a lightning bolt cracked through my forehead. Not literally obviously, that…
I just hosted a conference in Africa and you cannot attend a conference in Africa without financial inclusion, mobile wallets and microfinance coming up. It’s always on the agenda and top of mind, because most Africans have been excluded from financial services to date. In particular, focusing upon Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)*, which includes Kenya, Nigeria,…
