When I sit down with Moses Lutalo, the Managing Director of Broll Uganda, the conversation quickly settles on the forces reshaping Uganda’s real estate landscape: financing pressures, currency volatility, talent flight, and the urgent need to reinvent business models across the region. Broll operates from a distinctly different vantage point. It is not a developer, not a landlord, not a builder of malls or apartments. It is a real estate services company, an identity that gives it a panoramic view of the industry’s strengths and stress fractures. “We don’t own property,” Lutalo says. “We manage. We are consultants. If we…
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A decade ago, Africa’s fintech revolution began as a response to one of the continent’s most persistent challenges: access to finance. In 2011, only 23% of people in sub-Saharan Africa had access to formal financial services, according to the World Bank. The launch of M-PESA in Kenya marked a turning point, proving that mobile technology could leapfrog traditional banking barriers. By enabling millions to send and receive money using basic feature phones, M-PESA laid the foundation for a continental digital finance revolution. As mobile penetration surged, surpassing 500 million unique subscribers by 2022 (GSMA), fintech startups began filling the gaps…
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Christine Aber wakes before the sun does in Northern Uganda. She sets up her modest stall and begins the daily grind – selling a humble mix of millet flour, rice,…
It’s just after sunrise in the hills of Kapchorwa, eastern Uganda. A smallholder farmer, barefoot and bent over with age, tends to her coffee shrubs. She’s been growing the crop…
“Counting people should never cost a country its ability to make people count.” These words, first voiced during a 2015 keynote address by South African statistician Pali Lehohla at a UN Data Forum, warned of a dangerous paradox in national planning. In essence, Lehohla meant that the act of collecting statistics—however important—should not compromise the delivery of essential services that those statistics are meant to improve. Uganda’s 2024 national census embodied this contradiction. For instance, UGX1.61 billion meant for the Parish Development Model (PDM)—a programme targeting 39 percent of households stuck in subsistence—was diverted to plug funding gaps in the…
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For the past nine years, Siddy Latabu has been trading in fish, supplying silver fish and smoked fish in Kitgum Main Market to sellers in Kitgum and neighboring districts including; Pader, Agago, and Lamwo. But it wasn’t until she discovered dfcu Bank’s GROW loan that her business truly grew to new heights. Before taking out the GROW loan, Siddy was already familiar with dfcu Bank. As a loyal customer, she had just successfully paid off a UGX 10 million loan when her Loan Officer introduced her to the GROW loan; a product tailored for women entrepreneurs. Intrigued by its low-interest…
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The last 24 months have been some of the most volatile and unpredictable for several African markets. From steep currency fluctuations, persistent inflationary pressures and oscillations in consumer expenditure. There have been multiple unprecedented waves of change that have set in course a series of adjustments in consumer, talent, and financial markets. The World Bank indicates that 5 of the top 10 African countries shrank in economic output last year compared to the previous period. Nigeria: 23% from $472bn to $362bn. South Africa: 2 years in a row, -4% in 2022 vs 2021. And in 2023, it shrank -7% more…
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PostBank Uganda driven by its purpose of Fostering Prosperity for Ugandans has completed UGX 6 billion disbursement of the first tranche of the GROW loan to 353 women entrepreneurs, a project funded by the World Bank and implemented by the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development in partnership with Private Sector Foundation Uganda (PSFU). GROW Loan is a government-backed initiative aimed at fostering entrepreneurship among women by providing affordable loans and business development support, focusing on boosting financial inclusion and promoting economic growth in Uganda. The GROW project aims to support women in transitioning from micro and small to…
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Over the past decade, the banking industry has been part of the digital age continuously adapting the latest technology innovations to redefine how customers interact with banks. The digital age, which is a successor to the Industrial age, has its peculiar challenges because most of the information is too massive, and the human brain may not have the capacity to make sense out of it. That’s why Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning comes in handy to make use of that information. The thinking we have as PostBank is to leverage data to improve our banking experience for customers. How? Move…
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Finance Trust Bank has launched a UGX 23 billion kitty in GROW loans to over 3000 women during a financial literacy training program at UMA Multi-purpose hall in Kampala. Ms Annet Nakawunde, the Managing Director of Finance Trust Bank said the UGX 23 billion is an open fund targeting women across the country with the need of financing between UGX 4 million to UGX 200 million. The GROW loan product designed to support women in business, agriculture, and trade at 10.5 percent. The loans have been clustered into three segments including; Women in Business Loan designed for a category of…
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