Fintech, blockchain and startups in Africa and other emerging markets, 2016-2019.
Who will win the ride sharing competition? In the USA, will one company come out on top, and drive the the other out of the market? What makes a platform defensible? According to academics, a multi-sided marketplace will take all…
Here’s a paper I wrote for my Strategy class. It’s not as good as I wanted but there was a hard limit on words. Conciseness is important, I get it! I got a 73 on this, which is towards the…
Today a report came out that M-Pesa processed 99.6% of the value of mobile money deposits in Kenya. This should raise eyebrows for a couple reasons. M-Pesa processes about $38.5 billion a year, or almost half the Kenyan GDP for…
I support Hong Kong and their protest against the Chinese government’s infringements on on their freedom. Surprisingly, that honestly wasn’t that hard to write, but based on what’s happening in the US now you’d think I was a geopolitical analyst…
One thing I’ve noticed now that I have both Monzo and N26 is that Monzo has more features. It’s a better app and the user experience is better. Their budgeting tools are great, their focus on personalization wins, and the…
I went on a three week trip to China and Hong Kong this year. My wife and I try do one long trip a year, and since we’ve got several friends around China with contracts ending now was the right…
So Facebook finally came out with some details on their Crypto project. It’s been led by David Marcus, of Paypal fame, and has been surrounded by lots of speculation for over a year. What they’ve actually released is = not…
McKinsey released a good piece on practical applications of blockchain in retail banking. Most all of them apply more to emerging markets than the rest of the world, so it’s a good idea to post here. The three applications are…
WeChat Pay was everywhere in China. We noticed its ubiquity after arriving in Hong Kong, where mom and pop stores, as well as big retailers, accepted WeChat Pay. However, the dominance of WeChat Pay became clear after we arrived on…
Some awesome news coming out of the fintech scene yesterday as Branch raised $170 million from some top tier venture capital firms. I met Matt Flannery 8 years ago when I was at the GSBI incubator in Silicon Valley. He’s…
This story is actually one of mine. Before I moved to JUMO I was Head of Product for a company I cofounded in Tanzania. We ended up building a great prototype which we dog fooded around the streets of Dar…
Telco operators (MNOs) across Africa are experiencing declining revenues in their core businesses. Generally, in the past seven years, OTT players have taken up to 40% of the market in messaging, 25% in fixed voice, and 7% in mobile voice.…