In a region where only a minority of the population has access to a bank account and SMEs struggle to get financial help from traditional banks, Albert Alsina, CEO and Founder of Mediterrania Capital Partners, explains how the PE industry is becoming a catalyst for the African Fintech ecosystem’s development, enabling large-scale banking and supporting entrepreneurs and SMEs in their expansion plans (pp. 10-12).

In this month’s issue of Africa Global Funds, we also caught up with Kenneth Kaniu, Britam Asset Managers CEO, to learn about their anchor investment in Tiserin Capital, and the needs and constraints of institutional investors in Kenya and East Africa (pp. 14-15).

On the infrastructure front, we hear from Moritz Breickmann, Investment Director at African Infrastructure Investment Managers (AIIM) who showcases some successful airport redevelopments in Africa. Read on to find why airport infrastructure projects on the continent can provide attractive long term returns to investors (p.17).

In this month’s issue we also learn that the FTIF Templeton Africa Fund  was merged into the FTIF Templeton Frontier Markets Fund. We speak with Ahmed Awny and David Haglund about the Fund and its African investments (p.16).

Finally, Rob Childs, Head of International for Prescient Fund Services shares his views on the global distribution challenges facing African fund managers and why the firm decided to domicile their offshore fund range in Ireland (p. 22).