| Summary: | The Africa Digest is a fortnightly e-newsletter scanning the key trends in the macro-environment and industry to promote knowledge and raise understanding of business in Africa. This issue explores 1. Trends on China in Africa - Although China’s involvement in Africa is far from secret, conspiracy theories abound regarding the motives for this rapidly growing relationship and how its end game will evolve. The scale and scope of China’s activities on the continent is undeniable. Current projects include agriculture, energy, housing, mining, and infrastructure development across a broad range of sectors.
2. Financial Services - The financial services sector in Africa faces new technologies, changing user behaviour and evolving regulatory trends, leading to phenomena such as the rise of the mobile money sub-sector. Related shifts include increasing digitalisation, cash losing its shine, and in some markets, deregulation.
3. Southeast Asia in Africa - Southeast Asia offers substantial growth opportunities with well-understood risks for those in the region. Recently, a number of Southeast Asia based corporates, identifying Africa as a high growth region, have joined investors from China, India, Japan and South Korea, to name but a few.
4. Fintech and Mobile Money - The fintech and mobile money sector in Africa is developing, and filling gaps in banking infrastructure in large parts of the rural areas of the continent. These gaps, combined with a general lack of trust in the formal banking sector, opened the door to the emergence of the mobile money sector on the continent. The trend toward mobile money has raised financial inclusion to significant levels in many African countries, and the number of players is on the rise, with large countries such as Nigeria recently deciding to license mobile phone operators to enter this sub-sector.
5. Linking Africa to the World - An increasing number of foreign players beyond the traditional sources of capital now target Africa as an investment destination. Some of these sources are based outside the usual well-known countries. This is good news for Africa as it provides governments and growing companies with alternatives, and reduces their dependence on, and subsequent vulnerability to, the few large economic powerhouses that are already quite active on the continent.
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