Kenyan fintech startup Paylend, which is helping MSMEs better record data and access loans, is conducting surveys in Tanzania and Nigeria ahead of beta tests in those markets.
Absa Bank Kenya, a subsidiary of South Africa’s Absa Group, has launched a WhatsApp banking solution called “Abby” to assist users in making basic transactions. According to the Bank, customers can use the service for bill payments, balance enquiry, inter-account transfers, as well as transfers between bank accounts and M-Pesa/Airtel money.
CDP vendors are stepping up to help clients meet expanded privacy requirements. The latest to announce new features is mParticle, which has changed default settings to not collect Apple’s Identity for Advertisers (IDFA) device tag, stores consent decisions under Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) program, prevents unauthorized data sharing, and notifies companies when partners change their APIs. Boring but useful.
Martech keeps taking larger bites out of marketing budgets: 17.3% last year, 19.9% this year, 23.5% next year, and 30.9% five years from now, according to the latest CMO Survey. This despite barely more than half (56.4%) of current tools being used and nearly half (48.8%) of the survey respondents reporting worse-than-expected results. Oddly enough, marketers rate selecting marketing technologies as the thing they do best.