Quick Connections - w/c 27.03.23

Fintech News w/c 27th March 2023

• Two MENA tech powerhouses, Careem and e& are in advanced investment talks. E&, owner of the Etisalat mobile operator, is discussing an investment into Careem, the Uber owned ride-hailing company, to help expand their services and build the region's Super App.

• 苹果 has finally rolled out Apple Pay Later in the US, a BNPL service for customers to spread the cost of purchases up to $1,000 made on their devices. Local services Tabby , Tamara , Valu , Sympl will hope to built a solid customer base prior to launch in MENA.

• A new report from EZDubai.ae and 欧睿 revealed that the MENA region’s total e-commerce market size reached $37billion in 2022. It has a double-digit growth rate from 2021 and a 32% CAGR over the 2018 – 2022 period. View the full report here.
• Zawya reports that the number of companies in Saudi Arabia's fintech sector has nearly doubled and is starting to rival other markets in MENA, including the UAE and Egypt.?(Link)

• Africa’s payment technology company, Flutterwave , is gearing up to expand its services across MENA following the recent approval from the Egyptian authority to let it operate as a Payment Service Provider in the country.

• BNPL is never out of the news as it continues its rapid adoption across the region, following the success of international services such as Klarna , Affirm and Zip Co . However, the spectre of greater regulation for the sector to prevent the a consumer debt bubble always looms. Norton Rose Fulbright published a paper detailing the current regulations for BNPL is each market.

• Visa ?and?Mastercard?Visa and Mastercard currently facilitate?more than three-quarters?of all credit card transactions in the US, which account for roughly 57% of all transactions?(in 2016, it was only 45%). Given their dominance, what would it take to disrupt this duopoly and start a new payments Goliath? Introducing Target's RedCard.

• Moove , an African?mobility FinTech that offers vehicle financing to drivers of ride-hailing companies such as?Uber and other gig platforms, raised $30 million from a debut sukuk issuance to build the largest electric vehicle ride-hailing fleet in MENA.

• U.S. regulators sued Binance , alleging the operator of the world’s?largest cryptocurrency exchange kept an illegal foothold in the American market and violated rules designed to prevent illicit financial activity. (Link)
• Amazon Web Services (AWS) is encouraging all pre-seed and seed stage fintech start-ups operating in Africa to?apply to join its FinTech Africa Accelerator programme. An equity-free 10-week programme, designed to provide entrepreneurs with?‘everything from technology, product development, go-to-market strategy, and preparing founders for the nuances and complications of fundraising’.