The research assessed newspaper coverage of fintech in Kenya, Uganda and South Africa.
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Coverage is celebratory and offers limited cautionary and critical reporting to the public and to policymakers.
Mobile operators also offer money sending and receiving services.
Wikimedia Commons/Flickr
The outcomes of increased financial inclusion in Ghana have been mixed
Mobile money operators using point of sale machines are increasingly popular in Nigeria.
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More Nigerians are using mobile money but it is fraught with inherent dangers that must be tackled.
Cash is still king in Nigeria.
Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP via Getty Images
Nigeria’s Central Bank didn’t have an adoption strategy for its digital currency. It was a missed opportunity.
Ghana’s e-levy has hit traders in the country’s informal sector the hardest.
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Domestic resource mobilisation cannot be achieved by over-taxing the livelihoods of the most vulnerable workers in the informal sector.
A lot of African countries have implemented taxes on electronic transactions.
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The tax on electronic transactions has not generated as much revenue as the government of Ghana expected.
A Ugandan woman sending money by phone. Godong/Universal Images Group via.
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E-payments make it easy for banks to keep trail of transactions because they are recorded in real time.
Mobile operators also offer money sending and receiving services.
Waligorahim/Wikimedia Commons
The introduction of these technologies in Ghana has created an enabling platform for consumers to use their mobile phones to pay for goods and services
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A levy on electronic transactions in Ghana makes sense if the government gets the architecture for it right
Mobile money has deepened financial inclusion in Ghana.
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Mobile money service providers are on the path to find new ways of growing their customer base and keeping them.
Electronic payments have expanded the Ghanaian economy.
Wikimedia Commons
Taxing electronic payments is key to raising revenue form the informal sector
A woman places her mobile phone over credit card reader at grocery store checkout counter.
Luis Alvarez via Gettyimages
The FinTech ecosystem in Ghana provided the basis for understanding how various actors work together to shape financial inclusion.
Ghana is in the throes of a mobile money boom.
Wikimedia Commons
An attempt to prevent fraud in Ghana’s burgeoning mobile money sector could be a setback for access to financial services.
Parts of South Africa’s economy, such as the transport sector, are dominated by a few companies, which raises barriers to entry.
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South Africa needs some serious structural reforms before its moribund economy can come to life.
A closed mobile money kiosk in Harare. Up to 50,000 small agents are affected countrywide.
Tampiwa Mahari/Great Gatsby Photography
Stringent restrictions could stifle innovation among mobile money operators and hinder access to financial services.
Taking a loan has never been easier thanks to the proliferation of mobile lending platforms.
Rosenfeld Media/Wikimedia Commons
Mobile loan platforms have given Kenyans access to easy loans, but they come at a high price.
A customer and vendor exchange electronic money through a mobile phone in Uganda.
Ndiwulira/Wikimedia Commons
Plenty of Western officials and media outlets have criticized Libra – but it’s not meant for them.
About nine out of ten Somalis above the age of 16 own a phone.
Omar Abdisalan/Amisom/Flickr
Mobile money transfers have become the norm in Somalia. Transactions total as much as $2.7bn a month.
Solar panels sit on the roof of a home in Enkanini, on the outskirts of Stellenbosch, Western Cape, South Africa.
(Shutterstock)
Innovation in small-scale solar systems and mobile money systems is giving people in sub-Saharan Africa access to electricity at a lower cost than diesel or kerosene.
A group of Maasai men look at the mobile phone belonging to one of them.
Timothy Baird
What do traditional Maasai people use mobile phones for?