Financial services firm gets $20m for Africa expansion

Women who operate small and medium enterprises (SMEs) attend a workshop in Dar es Salaam. Operators of SMEs will be among the beneficiaries of AFB’s new Sh40 billion investment. PHOTO | FILE 

By The Citizen Reporter

In Summary

• GEMCORP is an investment management firm which focuses on emerging markets.
• AFB is a financial services company providing innovative consumer and SME credit products in sub-Saharan Africa. Committed to responsible lending, afb is the first to offer mass-market, voluntary repayment products in the markets in which it operates. These products are delivered through technology-based solutions.

Dar es Salaam. A Mauritius-based financial services firm, afb, which provides innovative consumer and SME financial products, has signed a $20 million (about Sh40 billion) investment deal with GEMCORP, that enables the former to hasten its speed of growth within sub-Saharan Africa.

GEMCORP is an investment management firm which focuses on emerging markets.

A statement from afb, availed to The Citizen yesterday, quoted the firm’s chief executive officer, Karl Westvig as saying that the deal will help them extend to a number of countries within the next five years.

Currently, afb operates in Tanzania, Ghana, Kenya and Zambia. “This new investment will help accelerate our growth strategy into sub-Saharan Africa…..it will help us realise our plans to expand into a number of other African countries by 2020,” reads the statement.

According to the World Bank Global Financial Index, there are over 400 million adults in sub-Saharan Africa still outside of the formal financial system. “afb aims to provide accessible, responsible and inclusive financial products to those who have been traditionally excluded, and in so doing give them the tools to improve their lives,” said Mr Westvig.