Category: Finance

InfraMed Invests in Eutelsat’s ‘Broadband for Africa’ Satellite Venture

Eutelsat Communications  and InfraMed have entered into an agreement whereby InfraMed becomes a c.21% shareholder in ‘Broadband for Africa,’ the venture set up by Eutelsat to provide satellite broadband services on the African continent. By investing in ‘Broadband for Africa,’ InfraMed is pursuing its strategy to focus on opportunities in regions characterised by dynamic demographics and infrastructure insufficiency.

Laurent Grimaldi, CEO of ‘Broadband for Africa’ commented: ‘In leveraging state-of-the-art satellite technologies, ‘Broadband for Africa’ will offer telcos, Internet Service Providers and government agencies a quality solution that enables more Africans to get online. We welcome InfraMed as a shareholder and look forward to benefiting from its track record of successful infrastructure investments.’

A.M. Best Upgrades Ratings of African Reinsurance Corporation

A.M. Best has upgraded the financial strength rating to A from A- and the issuer credit rating to ‘a’ from ‘a-‘ of African Reinsurance Corporation (Africa Re) (Nigeria). The outlook for each rating has been revised to stable from positive.

The upgrade reflects Africa Re’s excellent risk-adjusted capitalisation, consistently strong operating performance, and robust market position in the increasingly competitive African reinsurance sector. Additionally, the ratings factor in the framework in place to mitigate Africa Re’s exposure to the heightened political and economic instability on the continent.

Africa Re’s risk-adjusted capitalisation remains at an excellent level, supported by robust earnings derived from its expansion within its core African market. Additionally, A.M. Best expects the corporation to continue benefitting from its strong financial flexibility, which is derived from the long-term capital support of shareholders, owing to its shareholding structure and status as a Pan-African reinsurer. Africa Re’s shareholders consist of member states, African and international (re)insurance companies and supranational organisations. Prospectively, A.M. Best expects strong internal capital generation, a conservative balance sheet and excellent financial flexibility will likely continue to underpin Africa Re’s financial strength.

Africa Re’s strong operating performance is consistently supported by stable and excellent underwriting results, as per the five-year average combined ratio of 90.3%. The corporation’s technical results are attributable to its geographically well-spread insurance portfolio and evolving risk management, which has resulted in strengthened risk controls and monitoring capabilities to support operations. The technical performance of the South African account remains a partly offsetting rating factor. This reflects the impact of the protracted soft market conditions and the high frequency of weather-related events in this country. Nonetheless, the operating results of the South African business remain a solid contributor to the corporation’s overall earnings. At the same time, the historically weak technical results of the modest international portfolio continue to have a negligible effect on Africa Re’s operating performance.

Africa Re’s robust market position is supported by its privileged access to business through its compulsory legal cessions, strong reputation in the market and long-standing relationships with stakeholders. Despite the difficult operating environment overshadowing certain countries across the continent, as a result of low commodity prices, depreciating currencies and increased propensity for political instability, Africa Re has continued to expand in local currency terms as most markets continue to develop. However, downside risk remains owing to the scenario of a protracted economic slowdown across the continent and its potential impact on reduced insurance demand. Nonetheless, A.M. Best believes that Africa Re’s well-diversified portfolio (by product and geographic spread) will support its ability to manoeuvre through these market conditions.

 

OT Dubai Service Center Certified by UnionPay International

OT (Oberthur Technologies), a leading global provider of embedded security software products and services, today announced that its Dubai Service Center has acquired UnionPay International certification for Magstripe and EMV card personalization.

OT’s Dubai Service centre is a state-of-the-art facility with over 800 Sq Meters providing personalization services to the majority of banks in the UAE and also for banks in other countries across Middle East and Africa. The service centre also includes a brand new facility to personalize Metal and Powered cards and is integrated with OT’s manufacturing facility in Dubai.

‘OT is the market leader in the MEA region and we are pleased to certify its Dubai service centre for card personalisation services’ said Han Wang, General Manager at UnionPay international Middle East ‘This certification will allow UnionPay to support and boost the country’s economy as the UAE can now export UnionPay personalized cards around the world. Furthermore, UnionPay International will contribute to local banks economic profitability as they will no longer need to spend money on importing personalized card plastic’.

‘It is a great milestone for OT’s Dubai Service Center to receive this accreditation from UnionPay International. Over the last few years, OT has consistently invested in the region and in particular in our Dubai service centre to make it one of the best facilities in the world. UnionPay accreditation will add another capability to the service centre and UnionPay issuers can now rely on OT’s commitment to provide personalization services in the region’ said Muzaffar Khokhar, Regional President for Russia, Middle-East and Africa at OT.

 

 

OT Acquires Xantium and Strengthens Its Leadership Position on African Continent

OT (Oberthur Technologies), a leading global provider of embedded security software products, services and solutions, today announced that it has acquired Xantium Integrated Solutions (Xantium).

Xantium is a renowned South African supplier of cards and personalization services to a wide variety of market segments including Banks, Retailers and Third party payment processors in South Africa and several African countries.

Through this acquisition, OT will grow its footprint in the promising Southern African market and strengthen its base in Johannesburg to address customers across the African continent.

Xantium brings to OT an experienced team which has excelled in providing high levels of service to its broad client base with a focus on quality, speed and flexibility. This has been supported by an innovative approach to card personalization with expertise developed in the fields of card distribution and reporting.

‘OT’s ambition is to strengthen our leading position in Africa by addressing the growing demand for payment, authentication and related services through providing best in-class expertise and state-of-the-art products that meet our clients’ demands. Xantium has built up an impressive customer base across the continent and through this acquisition, OT pursues its strategy of acquiring, targeted companies which enhance our global footprint through a strong local presence’ said Muzaffar Khokhar, Regional President for Russia, Middle-East and Africa at OT.

 

KoolSpan Partners with EMS to Increase Global Availability of Encrypted Secure Voice and Messaging Solutions

KoolSpan, Inc. a leading provider of encrypted secure voice and messaging solutions for mobile phones, today announced a partnership with EMS, a leading provider of mobility solutions and services in the Middle East, Africa, Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), Eastern Europe and Asia. This partnership aims to increase worldwide availability of KoolSpan’s mobile encryption solutions for carriers, enterprises, and government organizations, in order to address growing demand for secure communications technology. Enterprise and government customers in the EMS footprint will now be able to enjoy the benefits of KoolSpan’s centralized technology management and administration while maintaining robust end-to-end encrypted mobile communications.

This partnership will enable more organizations to integrate encrypted communications across its employees, business partners and supply chains and ensure the protection of sensitive calls and messages from global surveillance threats. Attacks on mobile communications ‘ including cellphone calls and text messages ‘ by foreign governments, corporate competitors, hacktivists and cyber criminals, are not only amongst the fastest growing cyber threats to both government and commercial organizations, but also are particularly hard to detect.

EMS’s mobility solutions blend cutting-edge technology with business acumen, and meet the most challenging requirements of today’s quickly evolving mobile security and privacy landscape to address the concerns of any modern-day entity. KoolSpan and EMS’s partnership focuses on making highly secure and, easy-to-use encryption technology more accessible for organizations around the world.

‘KoolSpan is thrilled to enter into this strategic partnership with EMS,’ said Nigel Jones, CEO of KoolSpan. ‘Combining EMS’s market leadership, extensive international reach and deep mobility expertise with KoolSpan’s innovative end-to-end secure mobile calling and text messaging technology will provide our partners and customers in the EMS footprint with best-in-class solutions to combat the proliferation of surveillance threats to sensitive mobile communications worldwide.”

Offering a range of flexible mobile communications security options, EMS designs and delivers technology-enabled business tools with high-quality customer support to a range of organizations in various industries such as financial services, government organizations, the energy sectors and health care. EMS’s broad technology and expert services portfolio will help deliver KoolSpan’s secure messaging capabilities to 65 countries, including locations in the Middle East and Africa, a region where there is significant demand for secure voice communications and messaging.

‘In the regions that we service, we have seen firsthand growth in demand for end-to-end mobile encryption technology,’ said Zuilfiqar Khan, CEO of EMS. ‘This partnership with KoolSpan, a global leader in the secure communications field, will provide our customers with a broader range of encrypted voice communications and messaging options, empowering emerging markets with innovative services and software solutions to enhance mobility, privacy and security in the wireless industry.’

KoolSpan’s newest offerings, TrustCall DIRECT Enterprise Version 4.0 and TrustCall DIRECT Service Provider Version 4.5, have been specifically designed for enterprises. These solutions put the world-class secure communications capability of KoolSpan’s TrustCall technology in the hands of government and commercial organizations, such as those served by EMS. These are the first enterprise-grade secure mobile communications solutions designed in order to enable seamless integration with organizations’ existing infrastructure and service providers’ core systems, thus providing organizations with easy-to-use encryption solutions that are flexible for both ‘on premise’ as well ‘as a service’ options.

TrustCall combines a familiar, easy to use interface with FIPS 140-2 validated and end-to-end 256-bit AES encryption to let users of popular iPhone, Android and BlackBerry smartphones exchange secure calls and text messages anywhere they travel. TrustCall is simple to install and supports all GSM, CDMA, Wi-Fi and LTE wireless networks. It ensures that meaningful communication is only accessible to the initiator and intended recipient and is never left unencrypted.

 

 

TSYS Signs Leading African Banking Group

TSYS today announced that Ecobank, the leading pan-African banking group, has deployed the latest version of the PRIMESM payments solution platform, PRIME 4, to support its acquirer processing of MasterCard, Visa and UnionPay International point-of-sale (POS) transactions across 28 countries in Middle Africa.

Ecobank has a major presence in Africa with more than 1,100 branches servicing over 10 million customers in 34 countries, making it one of the largest providers of financial products and services on the continent. With a mission to advance Africa’s economic and financial integration, Ecobank sought a proven acquiring solution to further improve its merchant services.

Eric Coffie, group head, cards and electronic banking at Ecobank, said ‘We were seeking a robust solution to support our multi-country acquiring operations across the African continent and PRIME 4’s support for hosting multiple institutions on a single platform, along with its support for multiple international and domestic payment schemes, made it the clear choice.’

PRIME is a web-based, flexible and scalable solution optimised for extensive interoperability and highly parameterised, with built-in support for multiple languages and currencies, to enable exceptional versatility in meeting diverse banking requirements. It offers an integrated solution across the entire payments value chain, from issuing to acquiring, as well as the regulatory, compliance and value-added services crucial to those managing merchant portfolios.

‘We are delighted that Ecobank chose PRIME to provide it with a future-proof platform to further expand its acquiring business. We have had an African presence dating back to 1995, so we are also pleased to take this opportunity to re-affirm our commitment to the continent and its future development,’ said Rene Kruse, chief operating officer, PRIME Business Solutions, TSYS International.

PRIME has an extensive issuer and acquirer footprint throughout Africa, Europe, CIS, the Middle East and Asia. Its footprint extends across more than 100 financial institutions in more than 70 countries.

 

 

MasterCard, Western Union Join bKash to Make Cross-Border Money Transfers into Mobile Phones a Reality

Today, MasterCard, Western Union, bKash, one of the world’s leading mobile financial service (MFS) providers and BRAC Bank launched a new, international remittance receiving service in Bangladesh. The new service enables bKash’s registered customers to use their mobile phones to receive remittances from abroad directly into their bKash accounts.
Bangladesh is the eighth1 largest receiver of international remittances in the world, and therefore the new service stands to improve the ease and convenience with which millions of people are able to receive money from their loved ones abroad – a vital lifeline for many families.

The new service builds on the unprecedented success of bKash, which has attracted more than 22 million customers since its launch in 2011. Now people around the world can use Western Union’s trusted global network for sending cross-border remittances that can be received by bKash customers directly onto their mobile phones or collected from a Western Union’ Agent location. Western Union’s network includes an unparalleled 500,000 Agent locations in over 200 countries and territories* as well as digital channels such as WU.com and bank account based transfers.

MasterCard plays a critical role in this relationship by providing the real-time, back-end solution via its innovative MasterCard Send Platform, which, by connecting bKash, BRAC Bank and Western Union, helps to further enhance the efficiency and reliability of the end-to-end remittance process.

By using the new service, bKash’s registered customers can receive remittances from every Western Union send market and channel directly into their bKash account, 24 hours a day. The process is simple to use – customers simply enter the Western Union money transfer control number (MTCN), amount and bKash PIN and the request will be processed using MasterCard’s secure payment technology and funds credited to the bKash account.

The service accepts single transaction remittances of up to BDT 35,000 (approximately US$500); up to BDT 115,000 (approximately USD $1,500) over five transactions per customer per day; and combined monthly remittances of up to BDT 150,000 (approximately US$1,900) and a maximum of 20 transactions a month.

Once the transfer is completed, the funds can be accessed instantly. Customers can then either cash out the money via 120,000 bKash agent locations across the country, or can utilize the account balance to make person-to-person fund transfers, top-up mobile airtime, pay bills and shop in-store. They can also store the money in their bKash accounts and earn interest on savings.

bKash makes financial services accessible and affordable to millions of Bangladeshis, who would not otherwise have access to simple banking services, and helps drive financial inclusion by bringing the poor and unbanked into a regulated financial system. The service is approved by Bangladesh Bank, the central bank of Bangladesh and the overseas fund flow will be processed by BRAC bank as per foreign remittance regulation practice.

Kamal Quadir, Chief Executive Officer, bKash said: ‘We are excited to launch the new remittance service together with MasterCard and Western Union, who are leaders in their respective fields, allowing people in Bangladesh to receive money into their bKash accounts from their friends and families abroad, 24/7. It brings tremendous value to Bangladeshis living at home and abroad.’

Matthew Driver, group executive, Global Products and Solutions, MasterCard, said: ‘This relationship is another step towards achieving our global commitment to make the financial system accessible to 500 million more people by 2020. The widespread adoption of mobile phones, not only in Bangladesh but around the world, presents the most exciting opportunity to enable mass adoption of financial services and facilitate financial inclusion. Working with companies such as bKash and Western Union is crucial to taking advantage of the latest technology; digitizing money transfers and supporting financial inclusion efforts in the South Asia region and worldwide. The choice, flexibility and convenience of this new bKash service will help to expand financial inclusion to some of the most remote parts of this thriving nation.’

Jean Claude Farah, EVP & President of Middle East Africa, Asia Pacific, Eastern Europe & CIS, Western Union said: ‘We are pleased to launch this international mobile money transfer service in collaboration with bKash, BRAC Bank and MasterCard. Western Union’s cross-border platform leverages our technology, regulatory, compliance, and anti-money laundering infrastructure to enable efficient and reliable money movement. Being able to offer international money transfers onto mobile phones accelerates financial inclusion in a nation that has a greater penetration of mobile phones than bank accounts. We are proud to be a fintech player that really understands consumer needs.’

Selim R. F. Hussain, Managing Director & CEO, BRAC Bank Limited, said: ‘The relationship among bKash, MasterCard, Western Union, and of course BRAC Bank, has allowed remittances to be received literally at the fingertips of our customers. This ground-breaking service helps to receive remittance money right into the mobile wallet of the customers in Bangladesh and it is an example of how local and international collaborations can make a difference to the lives of the Bangladeshi people. At BRAC Bank, we are committed to providing customers with a better experience through innovation. This is just the beginning of our relationship and we look forward to introducing more services for the ease and comfort of our customers.’

 

Ford Invests $170 million in South Africa to Build the All-New Everest SUV, Creating 1,200 New Jobs

Ford Motor Company is investing R2.5-billion ($170 million U.S. dollars) to expand operations in South Africa at its Silverton Assembly Plant in Pretoria, South Africa to produce the all-new Ford Everest, along with the new Ford Ranger that was launched at the end of last year.

This investment will create approximately 1,200 new jobs at Ford South Africa and within the South African supplier network.

‘Our customers love the capability and utility offered by the all-new Ford Everest,’ said Jim Farley, Ford executive vice president and president of Europe, Middle East and Africa. ‘By producing the Everest in South Africa, we will be able to make it more readily available, and in a greater variety of models, for customers throughout Sub-Saharan Africa.

‘The R2.5-billion investment reaffirms the importance of these markets as part of our growth strategy across the Middle East and Africa,’ Farley added. ‘It further reinforces South Africa’s position as a strategic export base for Ford Motor Company.’

The Silverton facility joins AutoAlliance Thailand in Rayong; Ford’s Chennai plant in India (where it is sold as the Endeavor) and the JMC Xiaolan Plant in Nanchang, China, as production hubs for the Everest. Initial production at Silverton of the Everest will commence in the third quarter of 2016, with the first units expected to come to market in the fourth quarter. South African-produced models will be sold locally and exported to markets across Sub-Saharan Africa.

Part of this investment has been directed towards the production of the new Ranger, which is already running at maximum capacity at the Silverton Assembly Plant ‘ with domestic sales and export demand at an all-time high.

The Silverton Assembly Plant features state-of-the-art automation utilising Ford’s global manufacturing processes, and will be equipped to produce 10,000 Everests annually.

‘The all-new Everest has been extremely well received since it was launched in September last year, with demand far outstripping supply,’ said Jeff Nemeth, president and CEO of Ford Motor Company Sub-Saharan Africa Region.

‘This crucial investment will enable us to increase volumes and expand the Everest range to eight derivatives across a broader price range. It will allow customers across Sub-Saharan Africa to choose from two powerful engines mated to robust six-speed automatic or manual transmissions for exceptional capability.’

Currently, the all-new Everest is imported from Thailand, using the locally produced 3.2-liter five-cylinder Duratorq TDCi engine. It is only available in South Africa in 3.2 Automatic guise in two specification levels ‘ XLT and the range-topping Limited. With the commencement of local production, a 2.2-litre Duratorq TDCi four-cylinder diesel engine will be added to the range, along with a wider spread of specification levels.

Built at Ford’s Struandale Engine Plant in Port Elizabeth, the latest-generation Duratorq TDCi diesel engines ‘ which are also used in the new Ranger ‘ offer maximum fuel economy along with exceptional performance.

The all-new Ford Everest is a rugged seven-seat SUV featuring body-on-frame construction, intelligent four-wheel drive and an Advanced Terrain Management System to help navigate challenging terrain with ease.

In recent years, Africa has emerged as an increasingly important region for Ford, with continued investment and growth.

In 2008, Ford announced plans to build the Ford Ranger at its Silverton Assembly Plant with an investment of R3.4 billion. The investment allowed Ford to transform both of its South African plants into world class facilities to produce the Ford Ranger and Duratorq TDCi engines for local consumption and export.

The Ford Ranger is exported to 148 countries in Africa, Middle East and Europe, while engines and machined components are supplied to Argentina, Thailand, North America, India and China.

In 2014, Ford formed its newest business unit, Middle East and Africa comprising 67 markets to support the region with a dedicated focus and clear understanding of the unique conditions and customer needs.

The African growth story continued in 2015, when Ford confirmed that it would assemble the Ford Ranger in Nigeria, using semi knock-down (SKD) kits and components imported from South Africa.

Ford Motor Company’s growth story goes beyond its manufacturing expansion in South Africa. In 2015, Ford sold 78,471 passenger cars and light commercial vehicles in South Africa, the highest number on record. The South African-built Ranger pickup performed particularly well, with an 18.1 percent year-on-year increase in sales and a total of 33,920 Rangers sold in 2015.

‘As we continue to grow our business here in South Africa we are committed to improving the skills of our employees and creating new opportunities within the company and the broader supply chain. It is only through the dedication and commitment of our work force, suppliers, dealers, union and government partners that we have been able to secure this investment and expand our operations, broadening our footprint in Africa even further,’ Nemeth concluded.