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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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,...
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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...
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Polaris Software Lab Ltd, and MFI Enterprise Solutions, both international company, signed a strategic agreement to provide Intellect, a software product of the former, to Ethiopian banks, insurance companies, and microfinance institutions, on Friday, August 27, 2010. Polaris gave the licence for its Intellect software to MFI Enterprises Solutions to customise, implement and give...
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The Association of Microfinance Industry (AMFI) has adopted rules designed to govern and promote accountability among its members. AMFI Chairperson Jennifer Riara, said rising concern worldwide on the effectiveness of microfinance to fight poverty had prompted the signing of the new regulation that was witnessed by 43 of its members at a Nairobi hotel....
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US $350,000 in prize funds to be awarded to the continent’s most innovative and inspiring entrepreneurs. Applications exceed previous totals by 40% with most from Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya and Uganda. Entries close at the end of August. This July Legatum, a privately owned international investment group, in conjunction with Omidyar Network, a philanthropic investment...
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Gross corruption, constant wars, and irrational economics long made Africa a poor, troubled continent where natural-resource companies were almost the only multinationals that dared or cared to do business. But in the 1990s, the picture improved. The wars started subsiding. Many governments balanced their budgets and created a better, safer environment for companies, both...
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