Airtel Networks Zambia Plc and the UN Capital Development Fund have announced a partnership designed to bring digital financial services closer to Zambians living in remote areas across the country through Airtel Money.

COVID-19 has created many disruptions in Ethiopia this year, impacting both merchants and consumers.

The new Base of the Pyramid Program will provide up to $400 million to microfinance institutions, non-bank financial institutions, and banks that are focused on micro, small, and medium enterprises.

Through this partnership, YSys aims to build networks, knowledge, and resources in a way that expands its solutions, products and services to Africa, Asia and Europe.

The new online payments system, Raast, has been launched to support women who might have been financially marginalized or unable to access modern financial services for a long time.

The bank’s chief executive Gideon Muriuki said the funds would be used to support businesses to better cope with the disruptions brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The project will entail market studies with rural households in Latin America, Southeast Asia, and Africa, to investigate the nexus between energy access, access to WASH, and food security.

This investment will help to finance small and medium enterprises with the objective to create jobs in nine countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, that have joined the G20 Compact with Africa program initiated by the German Government.

The program is designed to increase climate lending by participating banks in Egypt, Mexico, the Philippines, and South Africa to 30 percent of their portfolios by 2030.

This is a continuation of the EIB's action carried out for several years in favor of microfinance in Morocco and is part of the bank's response aimed at supporting  micro-entrepreneurs, in the context of the COVID-19 crisis.