Safaricom announced the availability of 5G Wi-Fi to empower its customers with superfast internet at home and at work, complementing its growing fibre network.

Safaricom became the first service provider in Kenya to announce 5G trials in March last year, and this development now empowers customers in 5G-ready areas to enjoy fast and reliable internet connectivity for their homes and businesses. “We believe in the transformative power of the...

The European Investment Bank (EIB) has agreed to €100 million financing with MTN Nigeria to support the telecommunications company’s network expansion programme. The investment will aid the acceleration of 4G coverage in Nigeria and expand broadband access in line with MTN’s Ambition 2025 strategy.

This transaction represents EIB’s largest financing for mobile telecoms network expansion in Africa and is consistent with MTN Nigeria’s digital transformation and inclusion efforts. It will improve network capacity across the country to...

NALA, a Tanzanian fintech startup facilitating remittances from the African diaspora in the UK and US, has integrated Google Pay into its suite of payment options for users.

With this announcement, NALA, currently on a three-week streak of announcing improvements to its product, is cementing itself as the first Tanzanian startup to enable a global payment service for users, and the first African startup to roll out Google Pay for all its customers. Following NALA’s integration of Apple Pay into its product last week, this...

Large organisations that operate in Africa often have issues with payment collection due to the varying currencies on the continent, differing government policies and fragment payment systems. To remedy this, these organisations have to hire an in-house team to build custom payment solutions. 

Providing an alternative for large companies is  MoneyHash, an Egyptian US-based fintech company that provides a platform for businesses that want to remove the complexity and effort of building and maintaining a payment infrastructure...

Glovo launched its third micro fulfillment center in Nairobi, Kenya, as the company expands its ‘Q-commerce’ division. Q-Commerce means that consumers can use Glovo to order from their favorite supermarkets and neighbourhood stores. 

The first micro fulfillment center was launched in June 2021, while the second was opened in June 2022, now with the opening of the third MFC, Glovo is looking into leveraging their advanced affordability value proposition and offer affordable fresh and consumer packaged goods (CPG) to the lower...

UK-based computing solutions provider Raspberry Pi plans to produce some of its flagship hardware devices in Kenya through a partnership with Gearbox Europlacer.

The products to be manufactured at Gearbox Europlacer beginning mid-November 2022 will bear a  ‘Made in Kenya’ mark and will be available to its customers both in Kenya and the East and Central  Africa region. Raspberry Pi, since its inception, has been instrumental in the resurgence of teaching basic computer science skills across the world through its popular Raspberry Pi single-board computers. These devices...

NTT Ltd., a leading IT infrastructure and services company, today announced the opening of its latest data center in Johannesburg, South Africa. Johannesburg 1 Data Center is part of NTT’s expansion into the African continent with a capacity of 12MW covering 6,000m² of IT space once fully built out.

The technical infrastructure is supported by N+1 uninterruptible power supply systems (UPS), N+1 generator backup, and highly redundant cooling systems. This will provide clients with dedicated sustainable infrastructure...

A report from the United Kingdom’s Department for International Trade (DIT) highlights the potential of mobile and digital services to grow African economies and deliver improved quality of life across the continent. 

In the ‘The rise of Africa’s digital economy - tackling the ‘usage gap’ to create a thriving market for mobile services’ report, which is launched at MWC  Africa in Kigali, Rwanda, the Department highlights the opportunities that exist if businesses and government’s work collaboratively to...

Founded in 2018, Tanda allows shop owners to access inventory on credit, and also become access points for essential services such as airtime, utility payments, banking and insurance services for their customers.

The platform aggregates all major financial services providers, allowing agents to sell various digital products, while it also delivers essential goods to shops. It also extends unsecured credit to its agents. Tanda’s platform and network supports 58 banks and saccos, four telecoms, 18 billers, and 12,000...

iDENTIFii has developed advanced face authentication technology that safely authenticates users via their cell phones or PCs within seconds. The startup operates across several industry verticals and is used by the largest pan-African banks, insurers and mining houses for both customer and employee authentication. 

Its US$15 million funding round was led by African investment company Arise, whose cornerstone investors include Rabobank Partnerships, Norfund, NorFinance and FMO. Investors in the round alongside Arise are growth-stage private equity firm...

Rural and remote areas with poor mobile network reception will now be able to receive better signals following the launch of a new solution by telecommunications technology firm Huawei.

Known as RuralLink, the new solution was first unveiled by Huawei at the Global Mobile Broadband Forum 2022 (MBBF2022) in Bangkok Thailand this week. Aaron Jiang, President of Huawei Wireless Product Line, noted the significance of RuralLink, pointing out that, "Rural areas...

International Finance Corporation, part of the World Bank Group, edges closer to buying US$160 million of equity and about US$100 million of debt of Safaricom Ethiopia.

It is worth noting that if the move is approved by the shareholders of the telecom company and IFC, it will bring down the share of Safaricom in the consortium to 50 per cent. In a statement, Peter Ndegwa, the CEO of the parent company for Safaricom Ethiopia, confirmed that the negotiation to sell some shares for the World Bank subsidiary is underway...

An innovative payment gateway is supporting the growth of SMEs by increasing their sales, increasing the order values of their products, and encouraging repeat purchasing. 

Payflex allows consumers to shop now and pay later interest-free and was the first buy now pay later (BNPL) solution in South Africa. Payflex is available at more than 2,200 online merchants. Consumers can apply in seconds and pay for their purchase with any Visa, Mastercard or American Express card over 6-weeks, interest-free. This BNPL service allows...

Fintech startups in Africa grew 81% in 2021, with South Africa, Nigeria, and Kenya emerging as key hubs on the continent, found a Mastercard study on the state of fintech in African markets.

The white paper titled ‘The Future of Fintech: Rapid Growth Attracts Smart Capital’, was released at Mobile World Congress (MWC) Africa, one of the continent’s most influential connectivity events, of which Mastercard is a founding partner. Some of the key findings from the paper include how the...

Traditional banks have monopolised the banking industry for a long time – not just in South Africa, but globally. We have trusted banks as intermediaries with our money and paid their fees – not because we were happy about it, but because there was no real alternative.

Over the last decade, banking customers have switched to digital channels in both their personal and professional capacities – in many cases, demanding that their suppliers follow suit. This has compelled merchants to digitalise the...

Recent advances in automated tools for migrating legacy applications to the cloud have altered the mainframe market. Many companies that rely on mainframes are now migrating to modern cloud-based platforms in order to stay relevant and ultimately, to save costs. 

However, one of the biggest challenges when migrating from any mainframe is moving transactional and master data. These large-scale migrations normally take longer than 18 months and given the scale and complexity of these projects...

The past few years have been immense for the African tech space. Thanks to substantial infrastructure investments, connectivity has become increasingly ubiquitous and affordable. The addressable market for technology-focused solutions has grown massively with millions of people coming online.

Investors have taken note of this growth, with startups across the continent attracting a record US$4 billion in funding in 2021. Despite ructions in other technology markets, things have yet to slow down on the continent. In the first half of...

Most entrepreneurs understand how important it is to constantly be innovating and building new products. But doing that the traditional way can be incredibly time and resource intensive.

Even if you have the investment and funding needed for a team of developers, that doesn't guarantee you'll get new applications out at the speed you need to remain competitive. It also doesn't guarantee you'll get the best possible applications for your wants and needs. After all...

Data is the foundation of an intelligent business. But data, data consumers and the business expectations of data have changed. The shifting realities call for a higher level of data maturity and the right technologies to achieve outcomes.

It’s time for businesses to rethink and modernize data management strategies to ensure they’re set up to achieve better outcomes and digitally differentiate.  As every organization races to transform, here are some key shifts...

Any physical, intangible, financial or non-financial investment has an element of risk associated with it and an investor can either accept the risk, try to mitigate it or avoid it entirely. However, to do any of these, the risks must first be understood.

The same applies to the investment of digital assets such as cryptocurrencies, where investors have been able to generate significant returns through various revenue streams including trading, decentralised finance (DeFi) and arbitrage...