News

The National Bank of Rwanda (BNR) is hosting a regional meeting to discuss ways on how to align rules and regulations that govern the microfinance industry within the East African Community (EAC) countries. The move is part of the regional Monetary Affairs Committee mandate through which the EAC’s Central Bank Governors are tasked to...
Read more »

Jamii Bora Bank, formerly City Finance Bank, is planning a rights issue to help finance a turnaround aimed at moving it into the profit zone. The bank is seeking to create 1.2 million shares that will be sold to existing shareholders as it targets between Sh350 and Sh500 million before December. It hopes to...
Read more »

For the world’s poorest, cellphone technology carries opportunity, aid groups say, as text messages and other mobile applications have created a new platform to reach the most remote farms and crowded urban slums of Africa, Asia and Latin America. The Grameen Foundation, a Washington-based group known for helping women with the smallest of business...
Read more »

The world’s poor have more urge to save, but are constrained by not enough safe places to put their money. Using new technologies, alternative distribution channels and new partnerships everyone can have a safe place to save, according to study by a top official of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It is estimated that...
Read more »

Standard Chartered Bank has given Sh5 million to the Top 100 mid-sized companies competition, which seeks to honour the fastest growing small and medium-sized firms in East Africa. The Top 100 survey is the brainchild of audit firm KPMG and Business Daily, a publication of the Nation Media Group. “Small and medium businesses are...
Read more »

M-Pesa, a mobile money transfer system that enables people to exchange funds without a bank account, is one of the biggest business success stories on the African continent. Created by Vodafone in Kenya, the system took just a few years to reach a market of 10 million users in a country where the population...
Read more »

Ray Menard, executive director of Cheetah Development in Hastings, Minn., takes adage about teaching a man to fish rather than giving him a fish one step further.  “Show him how to sell fish and he will eat steak”, says the Cheetah website. When Menard visited Africa in 2008, he came to the realization that...
Read more »

Newly-formed group Alquity Investment Management has launched an Africa fund for UK retail investors that sees 25% of management fees donated to support humanitarian projects in the region. Alquity Group, a company with $130m (£84.4m) assets under management, launched an investment management arm this year to provide a different type of investment that, it...
Read more »

Today, 1.6 billion people worldwide and more than 500 million in Africa lack access to electricity for basic needs such as household cooking and lighting. The number in Africa is expected to rise over the next 20 years to nearly 700 million. These people rely predominantly on fuel-based cooking and lighting (mostly with charcoal,...
Read more »

Kigali — In a move to improve the effectiveness of Microfinance Institutions (MFIs), 50 industry practitioners are set to receive training in MFI management. Ten will become certified trainers. The programme dubbed “Making Microfinance Work; Managing for Improved Performance” is designed under International Training Centre of International Labour Organisation for 24 modules. The courses...
Read more »