A report by payment services company Mastercard has revealed that South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya are among the most vibrant fintech markets in the continent. The study conducted to evaluate and determine the state of fintechs in the African markets also said that fintechs in Africa grew by 81% in 2021.

The report titled ‘The Future of Fintech: Rapid Growth Attracts Smart Capital, further revealed that fintech startups took up 27% of all the record-breaking deals closed and 61% of the US$2.7 billion pumped into the startup ecosystem in 2021...

MTN Group and Microsoft have announced a strategic alliance agreement to accelerate digital and cloud transformation working towards a shared vision of driving Africa’s growth.

The agreement is in support of MTN’s strategic intent of leading digital solutions for Africa’s progress to support governments, businesses of all sizes and customers using the versatility of Microsoft platforms, solutions and capabilities to accelerate value creation. The agreement centres on transforming and modernising MTN’s communications and...

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has opened its second-largest office in Africa in Lagos, Nigeria five years after setting up a similar office in Johannesburg, South Africa.

The move demonstrates the company’s commitment to investing in Africa, bringing its core businesses to the continent. The new station will house account managers, partner managers, and solutions architects to grow and support businesses across the continent. “Lagos offers a highly skilled and creative talent pool, and the area is home to...

Smart Africa and MTN have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to advance digital skills in Africa in an effort to develop capacity for Africans to utilise ICTs and be fully empowered participants of an ICT-driven economy and society.

The partnership establishes a digital skills ecosystem between the Smart Africa Digital Academy (SADA) and MTN Skills Academy to advance digital literacy, digital and financial skills training, and digital competencies. It seeks to unlock...

YEGO Global, a ride-sharing platform from Rwanda has entered the Kenyan market to take on Uber and Bolt through its subsidiary – YEGO Mobility Kenya Limited.

The firm is entering the Kenyan market when Uber and Bolt drivers have been threatening to down their tools pushing the companies to lower their commissions. YEGO is offering drivers who sign up to the platform the lowest commissions in the industry at 12%, compared to the 18% offered by platforms like Uber. The firm says it is coming to Kenya to...

MTN GlobalConnect, a pan-African digital and infrastructure services company, launched its new Customer Success Centres in Ghana and Kenya. Through this initiative it will enhance better customer experience globally, by enabling all support requests to be managed more efficiently.

The Customer Success Centres will include the insourcing of their Network Operations Centre (NOC) and the establishment of a new Service Operations Centre (SOC). This is the first step of their phased investment which forms part of the...

Teraco has announced the completion of the first phase of JB4, its new hyperscale data centre addition to the Bredell Campus, Ekurhuleni, east of Johannesburg, South Africa.

The new facility supports the growing demand by enterprises and cloud providers for data centre capacity. JB4 offers highly resilient and secure colocation facilities in line with Teraco’s long-term vision of enabling digital transformation across Africa. As one of Africa’s economic powerhouses, Gauteng (the greater Johannesburg Metropol) is a logical destination for...

West African private equity fund manager, CardinalStone Capital Advisers (CCA), has announced a $6 million investment in Nigeria's healthtech startup AfyA Care as part of the company’s Series A capital raise.

AfyA Care provides integrated healthcare services including hospital care, health insurance and health technology services in Nigeria. The investment reflects CCA’s strategy of backing high-potential growth businesses with the ability to positively impact communities, and to deliver sustained attractive...

The Social Loan Company (TSLC) announced that its transformative TSLC Platform Services, has gone live in Africa through two partnerships in Nigeria to improve financial inclusion in the region.

Deepak H. Saluja, Co-founder and Group CEO, TSLC: ''Financial exclusion negatively impacts the lives of over 50% of adults in Africa. Despite massive fintech usage, financial inclusion remains a concern for Africans. As a fintech innovator, we aim to provide affordable and transparent...

nCino, a pioneer in cloud banking and digital transformation solutions for the global financial services industry, announced that Absa Bank (Absa), has selected the nCino Bank Operating System, to deliver a single platform solution to automate its debt case management and portfolio reporting processes in its Relationship Banking Business.

Kate Jane Johnsen, Regional Vice President, nCino: ''The introduction of nCino will provide Absa with a single centralized workflow solution, which will streamline its internal processes. I am eager to see the results of this partnership...

Subex, a pioneer in driving AI-led Digital Trust, announced it has been selected by Ethio Telecom to deploy its Fraud Management solution.

The solution, which is built on Subex's AI orchestration platform, HyperSense, will replace Ethio Telecom's existing legacy fraud management system, thereby enabling them to move from a traditional rules-based approach to an AI-first approach. This approach will, in-turn, enable them to detect new and unknown threats in real-time. Ethio Telecom...

Trive South Africa announced it has begun onboarding clients. Based in Bryanston, Johannesburg, Trive South Africa is a new multi-asset investment firm, providing digitally advanced competitive offerings and products, bringing to clients a seamless trading experience.

Trive South Africa offers a wide selection of diverse investment products to suit client's investment needs. The initial line up of core products comprises local and international cash equities, as well as South African and international derivatives, Tax...

AfriLabs, the largest Pan-African network of technology and innovation hubs has joined the Smart Africa Alliance in a partnership aimed at guiding and advancing the basic framework to develop the startup ecosystems across the continent.

As an international non-profit organization with the Alliance, AfriLabs will closely support the Smart Africa startup and innovation ecosystem initiatives. ICTs, especially startups, can be a considerable lever of action for African States as they...

CMC Networks has launched IP Premier, a high-performance dedicated internet access (DIA) solution designed to accelerate the adoption of SD-WAN across Africa.

IP Premier provides strict service level agreements (SLAs) related to jitter, packet loss and round-trip delay (RTD), in addition to the standard availability. It provides a trusted foundation for rolling out SD-WAN services and delivering optimised user experience in some of the most challenging markets in the world. The firm says IP Premier delivers...

The African Business Roundtable (ABR), set up in 1990 by the African Development Bank has long since become and remained the foremost institution promoting the interests of the African private sector.

The champion of the local industry, both large and small, the ABR has not slowed down its efforts in bringing to the international stage the impressive potential that lies in African zeal and diligence. Thirty-two years on, the ABR is keeping with the times in every way possible. It's latest move in this...

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...

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...

Organisations around the world are on high alert for rapid and effective ways to boost their sustainability through cutting their carbon emissions – but are they missing the obvious?

Notoriously energy hungry data centres are an issue that every enterprise can tackle. Using edge computing to move the processing of data closer to where it’s created can reduce the amount of data centre capacity you need. Added to this, edge computing can support Artificial Intelligence (AI)...

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...

At the start of the pandemic, anything that could facilitate remote work for scattered business teams, flourished overnight. Microsoft saw two years’ worth of digital transformation in two months.

Video calling company Zoom’s sales went up 370%. And communication platform Discord’s value more than doubled. And cloud is no different. In 2020, 87% of global IT decision-makers concurred that the pandemic would accelerate the shift to cloud. And it has, says Benjamin Coetzer, Director of...