The company focuses on the country’s unbanked — On February 1, Egyptian fintech startup MNT-Halan announced it has secured a significant funding round. Here are some key points: MNT-Halan’s main target market is the unbanked/underbanked population in Egypt (roughly 70% of the total population). Products include business loans, consumer finance, payments as well as e-commerce solutions. Chimera Abu…

The timing of this Fintech deal can seem strange… — Marqeta, a U.S.-based platform specializing in card issuing which is certified to operate in 40 countries, announced today that it intends to acquire credit card program management startup Power Finance, Inc. Here are five things to know about the deal: The acquisition price is $223 million in cash, with about…

The new agreement builds on a partnership that started in 2017 On January 23, Amazon and fintech company Stripe announced they are expanding their partnership. The ecommerce giant began utilizing Stripe in 2017 to facilitate millions of Prime Day, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday purchases globally. Here are some key…

According to a Listen Notes report, new podcast creation dropped by 80% from 2020 to 2022 — As per a report from podcast search engine Listen Notes, the number of newly created podcasts had decreased by 80% from 2020 to 2022 worldwide. Here are some key points: 219,178 new podcasts were created in 2022 as opposed to 337,063 in 2019. The peak was 1,019,2072 newly created podcasts…

The publisher’s recent stories that were generated by artificial intelligence contained some errors… — CNET, a venerable tech and business news website founded in 1994, recently came under fire for its use of artificial intelligence software to generate personal finance content in the past few months. AI in journalism is nothing new. In 2014, AP collaborated with Automated Insights to start automating quarterly earnings…

Here’s a roundup of recent job cuts in the tech industry — Amid the prospect of an imminent global recession, tech companies have accelerated layoffs. Here is a list of notable announcements. Amazon Today, Amazon began laying off thousands more employees, as the ecommerce and cloud computing behemoth begins the greatest wave of layoffs in company history, only months after laying off 10,000…

The Canadian fintech firm is acquiring US-based Paya in an all-cash transaction — Montreal-based fintech company Nuvei has agreed to acquire U.S.-based Paya for a substantial USD $1.3 billion. Here are five things to know about the deal: Nuvei (formerly known as Pivotal Payments) is an OG Canadian fintech player at this point, operating since 2003. The company is mostly known for its…

It’s the end of an era… — Jack Ma, the Chinese billionaire, will give up control of Fintech giant Ant Group. On January 7, the Hangzhou, China-based company communicated it was altering its ownership structure to ensure “no shareholder, alone or jointly with other parties, will have control over Ant Group”. Ma will hold 6.2 percent of…