A talk on venture capital (VC) was given by Vincent Kouwenhoven and Brian Hirman of the eVA (eVentures Africa Fund BV) at the iHub in Nairobi. They both have about 15 years experience in VC and enumerated the criteria the fund uses for investments including that target companies in Africa should have profitable track records (not start-up's) to qualify for VC investments of between 25,000 and bankelelehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01180926084939364063bankelele@hotmail.com6http://bankelele.blogspot.com/2010/06/venture-capital-in-nairobi-vc101.html

On Monday June 28 at the iHub in Nairobi there will be a talk on venture capital, in continuation of a series of events that bring together local financiers and entrepreneurs. In preparation for that, we had a chat with Eline Blaauboer of TBL Mirror Fund which is a Dutch venture capital fund that has made four investments in Kenya and are also branching around East Africa. The Fund invests abankelelehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01180926084939364063bankelele@hotmail.com0http://bankelele.blogspot.com/2010/06/vc-coffee-chat.html

Tracking changes from three months ago Mar’ 10 and one year ago – Jun' 09 The World Cup is on going in South Africa and helpful guides for price comparison have been provided for comparison. Also the Kenya budget speech for 2010-2011 was read by Uhuru Kenyatta the Finance Minister and has been trumpeted as a trillion shilling budget despite a deficit of resources. In reaction to some changes bankelelehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01180926084939364063bankelele@hotmail.com0http://bankelele.blogspot.com/2010/06/urban-inflation-index-june-2010.html

From focusing on money transfer in Kenya, where there has been a lot of development and competition especialy in the area of mobile money transfers, it now moves on to what about across Africa? From country to country? Today in Nairobi Ecobank formally launched their Rapidtransfer which was rolled out in October 2009 is now available in Kenya. With Rapidtransfer one can send money to families bankelelehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01180926084939364063bankelele@hotmail.com7http://bankelele.blogspot.com/2010/06/money-transfer-across-africa.html

On June 16 at the iHub in Nairobi, a talk was given by Jon Gosier the director of Swift River which I first heard of Swift River following its use with Ushahidi following the Haiti earthquake early in 2010 when crisis rescue & response teams faced a challenges of processing 200,000 SMS messages a day. So the question was how do you filter that information to get help to the people (i.e. bankelelehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01180926084939364063bankelele@hotmail.com1http://bankelele.blogspot.com/2010/06/swift-river-101.html

Banking Hall Woes: Last week I spent about 6 hours in 6 different banking halls, trying to deposit or withdraw cash, make cross-bank transfers, utility payments and complete other bank transactions. Some observations: - Banks with several empty ‘teller’ windows even as customers queues get very long - Employees who sit at the front desk but don’t serve customers as they do back office bankelelehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01180926084939364063bankelele@hotmail.com4http://bankelele.blogspot.com/2010/06/agency-banking-and-micro-savings.html

Part II of Ecobank 2010 AGM After the Ecobank  AGM in Nairobi on June 11 for shareholders only, there was a media briefing after with Arnold Ekpe - Group CEO, Kolapo Lawson- Group Chairman, Tony Okpanachi - Managing Director: Kenya and the Executive Directors of Ecobank.
 At the brief were journalists from several African countries including Ghana Nigeria Rwanda Uganda Zambia, Kenya and various bankelelehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01180926084939364063bankelele@hotmail.com0http://bankelele.blogspot.com/2010/06/pan-african-banking.html

Ecobank a Togolese based banking conglomerate makes history today by having its 22nd annual shareholders general meeting, not in Togo or Accra where it is listed, but in Kenya. Why Kenya? While it has presence in over 30 African countries, in 2008 they completed a buyout of a homegrown financial institution that has been known as East African Building Society, and which is now known as Ecobank bankelelehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01180926084939364063bankelele@hotmail.com1http://bankelele.blogspot.com/2010/06/ecobank-2010-agm.html

There was a small advert in the Nation this week for a private placement to raise Kshs 600 million ($7.5 million) as investments in the public service vehicle (PSV) transport business. The promoters, PSV Investments, say they have already investment in PSV’s commonly known as matatu’s through transport companies, savings & credit societies (SACCO’s), and individual owners. They are selling 6 bankelelehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01180926084939364063bankelele@hotmail.com5http://bankelele.blogspot.com/2010/06/matatu-ipo.html