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AXIAN Group and the African Development Bank have launched a programme to deliver digital financial services to more than 34,000 women-led businesses across five African countries.
The two announced it from Antananarivo on Sept. 2. It will run through AXIAN's Mixx and MVola mobile money platforms and combine digital lending, alternative credit assessment, financial literacy training and business development support.
The programme has two components. The first provides financial products and services to 34,000 women-led micro, small and medium enterprises in Madagascar, Tanzania and Senegal. The second delivers financial and digital skills training to 25,000 women across those countries plus Togo and Comoros.
The African Development Bank is supporting it through its Affirmative Finance Action for Women in Africa initiative and the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative.
The shortfall it targets is large and well measured. Africa has the highest rate of female entrepreneurship in the world, and the bank estimates that women-owned and women-led small businesses on the continent face a financing gap of $49 billion.
Mobile money is the mechanism because conventional banking has not reached these customers. MVola dominates mobile money in Madagascar and Mixx operates across AXIAN's other markets, giving the programme a distribution network that does not require branches or formal credit histories. Alternative credit assessment allows lenders to score borrowers on transaction data rather than collateral, which is what has excluded most of them.
The launch follows a much larger commitment. The African Development Bank approved a $160 million senior corporate loan to AXIAN Telecom in January 2025, aimed at digital connectivity and financial inclusion across nine African markets.
Hiridjee built AXIAN into one of the largest privately held groups in the Indian Ocean region, spanning telecommunications, financial services, energy and real estate. AXIAN Telecom reported revenue of $1.4 billion and serves 42.9 million mobile subscribers and 15.2 million mobile money users, ranking it the sixth-largest telecommunications operator in Africa.
He has raised more than $730 million from development finance institutions since 2025, including €170 million from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in June and €300 million from Proparco in May. He also joined the International Finance Corporation in a $50 million capital raise for Jumia in August, where AXIAN Telecom holds close to 10 percent and Hiridjee sits on the board.
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