Several well-respected voices we featured on the show last year predicted that we would see some major agtech plays happen in 2017. Sure enough, Mastercard made headlines last week for launching a digital marketplace platform called 2KUZE which connects smallholder farmers, agents, buyers and banks in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. The app allows farmers to buy, sell and receive payments for agricultural products via their feature phones.

If this initiative works half as well as we hope it will, it should make a heck of a difference to small-scale farmers looking to sell their produce to the right buyers more efficiently and at the best possible prices.

This week's African Tech Round-up features a conversation Andile Masuku had with Katherine Liew. Katherine is the Head of Digital Disruption at Barclays Africa. Given what's fixing to be an exciting year for fintech on the continent, he was keen to tap Katherine's mind to get a sense of how one the continent's largest banking incumbents is going about keeping up with the frantic pace of innovation within the financial services industry.

Music Credits:

Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution