Mastercard Launches 2KUZE Agtech Marketplace For Farmers In East Africa

Several well-respected voices we featured on the show last year predicted that we would see some major Agtech plays happen in 2017. 

Sure enough, Mastercard made headlines last week for launching a digital marketplace platform called 2KUZE which connects smallholder farmers, agents, buyers and banks in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. The app allows farmers to buy, sell and receive payments for agricultural products via their feature phones.

If this initiative works half as well as we hope it will, it should make a heck of a difference to small-scale farmers looking to sell their produce to the right buyers more efficiently and at the best possible prices.

This week’s African Tech Round-up features a conversation I had with Katherine Liew. Katherine is the Head of Digital Disruption at Barclays Africa. Given what’s fixing to be an exciting year for fintech on the continent, I was keen to tap Katherine’s mind to get a sense of how one the continent’s largest banking incumbents is going about keeping up with the frantic pace of innovation within the financial services industry.

First published on AfricanTechRoundup.com.

 

Barclays Africa’s Blockchain Transaction A World First

It’s been a busy week for the continent’s fintech scene.

The past week saw MTN South Africa announce that it would be discontinuing its mobile money service due to “a lack of commercial viability”. This revelation comes just months after Vodacom South Africa ended its catastrophic attempt at copying and pasting Kenya’s M-Pesa magic.

Meanwhile, Madagascar became only the second African country after Tanzania to to roll out mobile money interoperability across the country’s mobile networks.

But easily one of the catchiest headline stories of the past week was about Barclays Africa’s involvement in what’s being celebrated as the very first blockchain verified financial transaction in the world by a major banking institution. The pilot deal between The Seychelles Trading Company Ltd. and Ornua saw the two companies harness a blockchain platform developed by Wave to trade a letter of credit. This transaction has to be Barclays’ most overt show of confidence in the potential of blockchain technology to deliver improved efficiencies in international trade.

Also in this week’s African Tech Round-up is a discussion I had with the Kenyan journalist, Eric Mugendi. Eric is Editor-at-large at iAfrikan.com, and also writes for his Tumbler called Kenyan Longreads. Eric joined me on the show to discuss the controversy that unfolded on Twitter around the African Tech Summit happening in London on September 29th. The event’s conspicuously mostly male, non-black/non-African speaker list included folks many people in the Twitterverse did not feel were representative of Africa’s tech ecosystem, and also managed to leave out many worthy participants. Eric and I went about unpacking the issues at play.

First published in AfricanTechRoundup.com.

Banking Africa With Stephen van Coller

Stephen van Coller is the Chief Executive for Corporate and Investment Banking at Barclays Africa.

Stephen is a Chartered Accountant who worked for Ernst & Young in South Africa and the UK for many years, before leaving the professional accounting industry to join Deutsche Bank— where he served as head of coverage and corporate advisory.

Since joining Barclays in 2006, Stephen has held the positions of Deputy Chief Executive and Head of Investment Banking at Absa Capital and was appointed to his current position in 2009.

In this extended chat, Stephen talks about how Barclays Plc’s imminent plans to shed its investments in Africa will impact the business he runs, and why he is confident that fintech startups on the continent will never completely disrupt incumbents within the financial services industry.

First published in African Tech Conversations.

 

Ghana’s Police Threaten Social Media Blackout (feat. Stephen van Coller)

So, turns out Ghana’s top cop— Inspector General of Police John Kudalor thinks that blocking social media access across the country might be necessary to ensure Ghana’s national security on election day in November 2016.

Mr Kudalor reckons that Ghana might do well to learn from the example set by other countries on the continent and around the world that have take similar steps in the recent past— Uganda no doubt being top of mind.

I sense that the Inspector General’s comments might have been made to test public sentiment on the issue ahead of the polls. However, if the chill I’m picking up on Twitter is anything to go by, Ghanaians don’t seem to be terribly concerned at the prospect of having to survive 24 hours or so without access to Facebook and Twitter come November 7th. Ah, well…

Meanwhile, in place of our discussion segment on the African Tech Round-up this week, we feature part of a recent in-depth conversation I had with Stephen van Coller, who is the Chief Executive for Corporate and Investment Banking at Barclays Africa.

Listen in to hear Stephen tell me how Barclays Plc’s imminent plans to shed its investments in Africa will impact the business he runs, and why he is confident that fintech startups on the continent will never completely disrupt incumbents within the financial services industry.

Bonus: Look out for a comment made by Nigeria’s leading podcaster, Andre Blaze Henshaw, on why he reckons that podcasting as a medium is likely to be a big deal in the media scene of the future.

First published in AfricanTechRoundup.com

A Year Of Great African Tech Conversations

And so the African Tech Round-up’s First Birthday Celebration continues…

Over the past year, our sister podcast, African Tech Conversations, has featured relaxed in-depth chats with leading entrepreneurs, innovators and thought-leaders from Africa’s tech scene. In place of this week’s discussion on the African Tech Round-up, we’re sharing memorable moments from the series.

In this episode, you can look forward to hearing candid bits and insights courtesy of Mteto Nyathi, Alan Knott-Craig Jr, Matsi Modise, Ashley Veasey, Justin Spratt and Trevor Wolfe. We obviously couldn’t share snippets from every conversation we had, but you’re welcome to listen to every single one of them in their entirety at conversations.africantechroundup.com

By the way, Happy Birthday to my homeland— Zimbabwe!

First published on AfricanTechRoundup.com

Living Life Like It’s Global With Ashley Veasey

On this week’s episode of African Tech Conversations, I chat with a globe-trotting Brit who has spent the last 20 years working in retail, investment and corporate banking in no less than four continents.

Before Ashley Veasey’s current gig as Chief Information Officer at Barclays Africa Group, he served in senior leadership positions at corporate giants like Citi Group and JP Morgan. Prior to joining Barclays, however, Ashley worked for Standard Chartered Bank as CIO in Singapore, Thailand and Hong Kong, where he made a name for himself as somewhat of a disruptive technologies maverick.

Nowadays, Ashley enjoys travelling, and has an inexplicable passion for Italian motorbikes. Listen in to find out what the man literally has under his skin.