Setting the scene… Blink and you might have missed it. But as dusk gave way to darkness on a sunny afternoon in Kigali, UNHCR Livelihoods, Access to Finance Rwanda (AFR) and FSD Africa received a brief but deeply significant email from Equity Bank Rwanda… “This is...
In September 2017 we set out to Kinshasa, the capital city of the Democratic Republic of Congo, to conduct FSD Africa’s first scoping mission in the country. Having had a new fragile states strategy approved by the board earlier in the year, we were excited to finally...
After many years, the involvement of many partners and many iterations, M-Akiba, a Kenyan government bond sold through the mobile phone, was launched in 2017. M-Akiba (M – mobile, Akiba – savings in Kiswahili) was a three-year bond sold in denominations as small as...
Refugees are not an obvious customer segment for financial service providers (FSPs). It is not hard to see why: in a world where refugees are too often portrayed as very poor, vulnerable, with few tangible assets and little stability, where are the incentives to enter...
This blog focuses on key ingredients necessary in obtaining buy- in for Change Management to happen in a large insurance company. 1. Create a structure First, it is vital that insurers put in place a structure to guide, plan and review the change process. A steering...
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This month, we celebrate International Women’s Day united in the 2018 theme “Press for Progress.” While much of the discussion is around how global actors are pressing for progress on women’s equality at the macro level, I’d like to take a deeper look at how a...
Just as in technology and finance industries around the world, fintech companies in Africa are grappling with a severe underrepresentation of women in leadership roles and throughout their businesses. When compiling the data in the 2017 Fintech Talent Africa report,...
There are growing calls for regulation of the cryptocurrency market, which is rapidly approaching a market capitalisation of $1 trillion. But there’s little agreement about the forms this should take. If the case for government regulation is strong, the case for a...
On 14th and 15th November 2017, the FSD Network came together for the first time ever in Livingstone, Zambia to discuss the Changing Landscape of Financial Sector Development in Africa. With over 100 participants from across sub-Saharan Africa, the conference brought...
