Funding for tech-start-ups doesn’t really exist in Nigeria. The banks tend not to lend to those who aren’t wealthy already and even for those that do, interest rates are prohibitively high. Without private investment, you almost certainly will not be able to start up your own internet company; the vast majority of young people cannot even afford a decent internet connection for themselves, let alone enough bandwidth to power an office.

Payments solutions business Pay Corporation, part of Boxhill Technologies PLC, has signed an agreement with CRM software business Bright Office, further extending its reach outside of the gaming and lottery sectors.

Seamless is a great example of Ecosystem Economics™ in action in the financial services sector. Seamless are a global mobile payments company that provides prepaid top-up systems and mobile payment services for mobile operators, distributors, retailers and consumers.

The mobile payments revolution has begun. Cheques are declining in usage, most of our banking activity has moved online and digital players such as Square, Apple’s Passbook and Google Wallet are all vying for the number one spot in mobile payments and transactions.

Mark Hoffman is an American-born entrepreneur who has spent most of his career founding billion dollar companies right out of the country's tech hub, Silicon Valley. He tells entrepreneurcountry what growing up in the US taught him about being an entrepreneur, why he’s now disrupting financial services with his latest start-up, Oxygen Finance, and what he thinks British businesses could learn from the US.

This month I spoke to Stefan Jeschonneck, Co-founder of SumUp. SumUp is a great example of Ecosystem Economics™ in action within the realm of financial services, offering a digital, disruptive solution to payments. SumUp empowers any business or sole trader to accept debit and credit card payments securely, using a smartphone and their portable card reader. With recent investment from American Express and daily deals company Groupon, I ask Stefan to share how his entrepreneurial journey began and to reveal his plans for the future.

Today, 75 percent of people globally have access to a mobile phone. Of the six billion subscriptions worldwide, 77 percent are held by people in developing countries. And despite the great disparities among high and low-income regions globally, there is a reasonable parity in access to mobile phones.