Tag Archives: cross border trade

The African Continental Free Trade Agreement and the Age of Interoperability

By Niti Bhan | Published: July 15, 2019

I have been writing on cross border mobile financial flows across the African continent since early 2015, when the partnerships and agreements made between African telcos to provide interoperability between their mobile money services first began to hit the headlines. In my last post back in August 2016, I asked if Cross Border Mobile Money […]

Posted in Africa, Afrique francophone, Airtime, Alternative currency, Analysis, Assumption filter, Banking, Base of the Pyramid, Biashara Economics, Business Models, Cashless transactions, Commerce en ligne (e-commerce), Economy, Ecosystem, Emerging Futures, Ghana, Income, Informal & Flexible, Kenya, Mobile platform, Perspective, Platforms, Prepaid Economy & Informal Sector, Research, Strategy, Sub Saharan Africa, Systems, Technology, UEMOA | Also tagged , , , , , , | 1 Response

West Africa’s incipient mobile platform boom will transform the ECOWAS economy

By Niti Bhan | Published: April 13, 2018

While East Africa has tended to grab the headlines as the mover and shaker in mobile platform innovation, there’s an imminent boom due to emerge in West Africa. The GSMA’s most recent report on the West African mobile ecosystem contains all the signals of this happening within the next 3 or so years. Even in […]

Posted in Africa, African Consumer Market, Afrique francophone, Biashara Economics, Commerce en ligne (e-commerce), Consommateurs, Consumer Behaviour, Ecosystem, Emerging Markets, Ghana, Innovation Planning, Marchés africains, Marketing, Migrant worker, Mobile platform, Nigeria, Prepaid Economy & Informal Sector, Report Review, Senegal, Strategy, Sub Saharan Africa, Technologie, Technology, UEMOA | Also tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Not Disaggregating the Informal Economy Properly Hinders Development Efforts

By Niti Bhan | Published: April 12, 2017

Michael Kimani (@pesa_africa) brought this prize winning essay on the importance of understanding the informal economy to my attention, together with a snippet of text from our last inception report highlighting a major oversight that we believe is of critical importance. Mike took issue on Twitter with the author’s very first sentence introducing his work […]

Posted in Africa, Assumption filter, Biashara Economics, Informal & Flexible, Literature review, Perspective, Prepaid Economy & Informal Sector, Research, Sub Saharan Africa | Also tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Will Cross Border Mobile Money Boost intra African Trade and Regional Integration?

By Niti Bhan | Published: August 13, 2016

Over the past 18 months, since I started tracking the spread of cross border mobile money payments across the African continent, there has been visible progress in leaps and bounds, as documented by the GSMA. In fact, back then, I’d written: Top down reportage on banking and interoperability seems to focus only on the customer’s […]

Posted in Africa, African Consumer Market, Business Models, Cashless transactions, China, Economy, Ecosystem, Kenya, Mama Biashara, Marketing, Mobile platform, Perspective, Platforms, Strategy, Tanzania, Technology | Also tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Borderland Biashara: Mapping the Cross Border, National and Regional Trade in the East African Informal Economy

By Niti Bhan | Published: June 10, 2016

And, we’re back! With apologies for the long delay in posting on the blog, we’d been busy wrapping up our groundbreaking design research for development programming project for Trade Mark East Africa this past month or so. As you can imagine, the last few weeks of any project suck all the bandwidth out and leave […]

Posted in Africa, Analysis, Base of the Pyramid, Business Models, Cashless transactions, Design, Economy, Ecosystem, Frameworks, Indigenous & Traditional, Informal & Flexible, Innovation Planning, Kenya, Literature review, Mobile platform, Perspective, Platforms, Prepaid Economy & Informal Sector, Process, Projects and Reports, Research, Retail in Africa, Strategy, Sub Saharan Africa, Systems, User research | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Cross-border mobile financial services in Africa are going to be huge

By Niti Bhan | Published: December 22, 2015

Analysis Mason has an excellent article on the next big thing in mobile money across the African continent – cross border payments. I covered the emergence of these services, through regional operators as well as partnerships based on interoperability earlier. This is what I asked for: Mapping it all I’d love it if someone could […]

Posted in African Consumer Market, Afrique francophone, Airtime, Alternative currency, Business Models, Cashless transactions, Commerce en ligne (e-commerce), Consommateurs, Consumer Behaviour, Economy, Flexibility, Marchés africains, Marketing, Migrant worker, Mobile platform, Perspective, Platforms, Prepaid Economy & Informal Sector, Research, Retail in Africa, Strategy, Sub Saharan Africa, Systems, Technologie, Technology, UEMOA | Also tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Growth in Africa’s informal trade with China needs more formal diplomacy

By Niti Bhan | Published: April 15, 2015

China Southern Airlines announces 3 flights a week between Nairobi and Guangzhou. This can only be a signal of increasing informal cross border trade between the greater African continent and China’s manufacturing hub. Earlier, we’d noted the importance of this trade for Kenya Airways when they announced the opening of a ticket office in Nairobi’s […]

Posted in Africa, Business, Emerging Markets, Informal & Flexible, Perspective, Prepaid Economy & Informal Sector, Sub Saharan Africa | Also tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Traveling on the New Silk Route with African traders to the Far East

By Niti Bhan | Published: March 18, 2013

The 21st century’s version of the old Silk Road that led caravans of traders from around the world to China and back is the flight path between the African continent and China. Bangkok Airport is one of these new oasis for caravaneers on the New Silk Route, where I caught the Kenyan Airways flight on […]

Posted in Africa, African Consumer Market, China, Ecosystem, Emerging Markets, global, Informal & Flexible, Perspective, Prepaid Economy & Informal Sector, Sub Saharan Africa, Systems | Also tagged , , , | Leave a comment


  • Subscribe to this blog's feed or you can receive updates by email

  • Recent Posts

  • Choose Topic

  • Archives