In a country-first for Malawi, mobile money service provider TNM Mpamba has launched a Mastercard debit card, enabling its customers – even those without bank accounts – to make safe and seamless in-person and online digital payments on the Mastercard network.

Dubbed “Khadi Mbambande”, the new card is expected to enhance financial inclusion and improve access to the digital economy. Powered by National Bank of Malawi, the physical Mastercard debit card is linked to the TNM Mpamba mobile...

Lleida.net and the international organization Smart Africa have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to cooperate in the digitization of all types of public processes through the use of the SaaS services belonging to the Spanish company.

Smart Africa is the African Union agency in charge of promoting the digitization of the continent. Its partners include Google, Huawei, Microsoft, Facebook, Intel, Softbank, the World Bank, and the United Nations. The agreement will empower state organizations in African countries to...

Africell has taken another major step towards launching services in Angola by opening a data center in Luanda. The facility results from a substantial financial investment and will be the cornerstone of Africell's network in Angola, providing a platform for a digital ecosystem for mobile users, entrepreneurs and innovators.

"The opening of the data center is a significant milestone," says Christopher Lundh, CEO of Africell Angola. "We want to lead a digital transformation. Africell is...

Equity Bank has revamped its online banking offering, previously known as Eazzy Net, in line with the bank’s One Equity strategy to provide a seamless customer experience across all banking channels.

The newly revamped platform dubbed Equity Online provides a unified service offering across channels, an improved customer experience with simpler customer journeys, fresh and user-friendly interface and more digital financial services such as buying Mpesa float, paying for parking among others. This...

Mondia Digital, a consolidation of the Mondia Group's digital content distribution business, an end-to-end, product-centric and data-driven company with a focus on opportunities in the B2B segment, and its digital payments company, Mondia Pay, have contributed their expertise and innovative payment, content and B2B platforms to Vodacom’s VodaPay “Super App”, which launched in South Africa in August 2021.

The VodaPay Super App, designed in collaboration with Alibaba Group-owned fintech services platform Alipay, allows consumers to do everything from paying bills to sending...

The South Atlantic Cable System (SACS) has seen a considerable increase in traffic as major telco players look for direct access to markets in the US and South America.

When the 6 156 km intercontinental subsea cable came on stream in September 2018, latency between Africa and the Americas was almost halved, opening an express digital connection to accelerate digital and economic growth on either side of the Atlantic. Since that time traffic on the system has increased tenfold providing major telecoms, content delivery...

The African Development Bank (AfDB), signed a grant agreement for $500,000 with Y’ello Digital Financial Services (YDFS), a fintech subsidiary of MTN Nigeria, to be used for a study into economic, religious, and social factors hampering access to finance for women in northern Nigeria.

The research, which includes a feasibility study, women-focused design and testing, will focus on both agents and customers to provide insights into women’s use of mobile money services, will be funded through the Africa Digital...

Vodafone has partnered with Thales to connect customers with an Eco-SIM card, a product whose card body is made out of 100% recycled plastic from refrigerator interiors. Vodafone initially plans to deploy the Eco-SIM in ten countries in Europe and Africa.

Over 4.5 billion SIM cards are produced every year2, representing 20,000 tons of plastic - the equivalent weight of two Eiffel towers. Developed in partnership with Veolia, the global leader in ecological transformation, the Thales Eco...

Announced back in September 2019, the new Pakistan & East Africa Connecting Europe, PEACE, submarine cable has now landed on the shores of Marseille. It will connect Europe to Asia via East Africa.

PEACE system will provide the most direct and high-capacity route from Asia and East Africa to Europe. These features, combined with exceptionally low latency, are vitally important for a wide array of commercial and consumer applications. Moreover, PEACE deploys a state-of-the-art “system within a...

Brass, a Nigerian digital bank delivering easy access to affordable premium banking services for small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs), has today secured $1.7mn in funding to address the heavily underserved banking needs of local entrepreneurs, traders, and fast-growing businesses.

The financing round sees participation from Olugbenga ‘GB’ Agboola (Co-Founder of Flutterwave), Ezra Olubi (Co-Founder of Paystack, acquired by Stripe), Hustle Fund, Acuity Ventures, Uncovered Fund and Ventures Platform. The new...

Pan-African digital payments hub MFS Africa signed an agreement to acquire Baxi, one of Nigeria's super-agent networks. The deal, which is subject to approval from the Central Bank of Nigeria, will be the second highest fintech acquisition in Nigeria to date.

Nigeria is home to one of the most dynamic markets on the continent; it is Africa's largest economy and home to the largest number of SMEs. It is also the largest remittance market in Africa and home to one-third of intra-Africa...

Mobile transacting is fast becoming the golden egg of financial services – and nowhere more so than in Africa.

According to the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSMA) 2021 State of the Industry Report on Mobile Money, the number of registered mobile money accounts grew by 12.7% globally in 2021 to 1.21 billion accounts – double the forecasted growth rate. Sub-Saharan Africa makes up the biggest slice of this pie on all fronts – number of accounts (548 million of the 1.2 billion accounts)...

Service, service, service. That’s been the call for businesses that want to keep their clients happy and turn one-time customers into lifelong fans. Now, however, the focus has moved to brilliant customer experience. But what does this mean? And why are we seeing the shift? 

Think about how you do business today compared to just a few years ago. Customer service was measured by metrics like how many rings there were before your service department answered. In addition, were your retail staff smiling and...

In what felt like the blink of an eye, the work landscape was transformed as the pandemic spread across the world in 2020. Entire workforces went mobile, seemingly overnight, while organisations bolstered existing remote working processes.

And when the world emerges on the other side of this life-altering event, it won’t revert to the way things were before. By some estimates, 70 percent of the workforce will work remotely at least five days a month by 2025. Even in South...

When a social media site throws out an ad for a product you were just discussing over the phone, it’s easy to jump to conclusions: They must be listening, surely.

But the truth is that the site employed artificial intelligence (AI) to predict your behaviour. You searched for a yeast starter last week and commented on a friend’s photo of sourdough bread yesterday. The ad for a bread-making course that seemingly pops up out of the blue was shown to you because the data predicted you might be interested in it – based on...

This has been a very interesting week in tech in Africa. We covered a number of great announcements from a  number of tech companies in the region, especially startups. 

Brass, a Nigerian digital bank delivering easy access to affordable premium banking services for small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs),  secured $1.7mn in funding. Wapi Pay Board of Directors announced that the company’s founders; Eddie and Paul Ndichu will be stepping down from their roles with immediate effect to allow for investigations...