African banks have been late to the fintech party, but after leaving huge swaths of the population to get their financial services from telcos (most famously Safaricom’s M-Pesa in Kenya), banks here are increasingly seeing the continent as a testing ground for new financial technologies like bitcoin and the blockchain. “You have a headwind from Silicon Valley and Europe blowing into Africa now around the disruption in fintech. The banks are really nervous and they want to get ahead of this,” says Mbwana Alliy, managing partner at African technology venture firm, the Savannah Fund. Blockchain is the hot topic at …
Africa’s big banks are betting on fintech startups and bitcoin to beat disruption
More of Today's Solutions
Europe removed a record 602 river barriers last year
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM A dam fell in Iceland last December, the first the country has ever deliberately dismantled. The structure on ...
Read MoreThis ultrasonic espresso method uses 75 percent less energy and tastes just a...
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM So many of us participate in the same morning coffee ritual: the machine warming up, the pressure building, ...
Read MoreMexico’s tequila fish brought back from the brink of extinction
Mexico’s tiny tequila splitfin fish was once a common inhabitant in the country’s Teuchitlán river in the western part of the country. But due ...
Read MoreHow Bogotá is tackling air pollution by greening its poorest neighborhoods
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM In Bogotá, Colombia’s bustling capital, the battle against air pollution isn’t just about cleaner skies. It’s about equity. ...
Read More
