As African governments grapple to manage economies digitally, integrated digital payment and e-commerce company, Interswitch, has tipped blockchain technology to be the surest way. Blockchain technology is a digital ledger that stores transactions. The digital system essentially records transactions in multiple places at the same time, thereby making it impossible to falsify the data stored on…
Nigerian fintech startup Baxi, one of the country’s leading super-agent networks, has been acquired by the pan-African payments company MFS Africa to enable the latter’s expansion into Nigeria. Founded in 2014 by Degbola Abudu and Folu Majekodunmi, Baxi provides a cash-in/cash-out offering as well as value-added services – account opening, money transfer, bill payment and more –…
South African fintech startup Peach Payments has set up an office in Mauritius as it continues its pan-African expansion following a foray into Kenya in 2018. Founded in South Africa in 2012, Peach Payments enables businesses to easily accept payments on their websites and mobile apps, integrating with leading e-commerce platforms like WooCommerce, Shopify, Wix and Magento….
Rideshare group Bolt has announced its food delivery service Bolt Food has launched in Johannesburg. The service will provide the city’s residents with access to food deliveries from more than 300 restaurants and fast food outlets. Bolt Food has been available in Cape Town since April 2020, where 800 restaurants have been added to the…
Microsoft has published a new advisory warning of a security bypass vulnerability affecting Surface Pro 3 convertible laptops that could be exploited by an adversary to introduce malicious devices within enterprise networks and defeat the device attestation mechanism. Tracked as CVE-2021-42299 (CVSS score: 5.6), the issue has been codenamed “TPM Carte Blanche” by Google software engineer Chris…
On Wednesday, just before bitcoin surpassed the digital asset’s all-time high (ATH), the crypto analyst known as “Techdev” says the “2-week chart looks strong and ready for much higher highs.” Just 26 days ago, Techdev said that “$200-300K bitcoin looks almost too programmed” and this week, the analyst noted that we are “nowhere near a…
In what may seem like a pat on the shoulder to investors who are bullish on Bitcoin, the world’s leading cryptocurrency has stunned critics to rake in profits for investors, climbing to a new ATH of $66,000 today. Bitcoin has maintained its bullish pace to surpass its previous ATH of $64,863, soaring to $66,950 today,…
Francophone region-focused neobank PaySika has completed a fundraising round. The funding will allow the fintech to deploy online payment services to Cameroon, Benin, and Gabon. These funds are from British, French, and Nigerian investors. The company is soon gearing for an official launch in the first quarter of 2022. The investment roundtable was led by top fintech…
Crypto adoption in Africa continues to grow at a rapid pace, with Luno today announcing that 45% of one million new customers added since June are based on the continent. Luno, the crypto company founded by two South Africans, now has 9 million customers in over 40 countries. The remarkable growth of the company is…
Egyptian logistics startup ILLA has secured a US$2 million seed funding round to boost its growth in the market and diversify its offering to the FMCG value chain. Launched through the Flat6Labs Cairo accelerator in March 2019, ILLA caters for corporates and SMEs, providing full-fledged transportation and logistics solutions tackling major pain points unique to the FMCG…
Green businesses in Uganda are invited to apply for an accelerator programme that offers free finance-focused workshops and discounted loans to help them scale up. The Ugandan Green Enterprise Finance Accelerator (UGEFA) is looking to help high-potential small and medium-sized enterprises that specialise in eco-tourism, clean energy, sustainable transport, waste management and green manufacturing. During…
Liquid Intelligent Technologies, a leading pan-African telecommunications technology group has announced the launch of its shortest terrestrial fibre route between the East to the West coasts of Africa, connecting Mombasa, Kenya to Muanda, DRC. With the completion of this route, Liquid establishes a new global internet transit route between Asia and the USA through Africa,…
Mobile apps keep changing and evolving every single day. It is so hard to keep up with customer demands since they are ever-increasing. However, app developers from around the world constantly improve used technology. According to Tech Surprise, the following mobile app technologies are going to be quite huge in 2020. This is why you should…
Facebook is planning to rebrand itself with a new name next week to reflect its focus on building the metaverse, the Verge reported on Tuesday, citing a source with direct knowledge of the matter. Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg plans to talk about the name change at the company’s annual Connect conference on October 28, but it…
Non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, are altering our perceptions of art, and financiers are paying attention. NFTs have risen to prominence in the cryptocurrency industry in recent years. Artists have taken use of the technology’s ability to generate real-world scarcity for digital goods using cryptographically unique tokens. NFT markets like Nifty Gateway and OpenSea marketplace have experienced record trading volumes…
To solve problems African businesses have when settling payments within the continent, convince banks to transition from centralized systems to those based on a blockchain. That is the argument by Appzone, a 13 year-old Nigerian fintech company that has launched a payment processing system built on its own private blockchain network. Appzone’s blockchain-based payment processor,…
Asante Financial ServicesAsante Financial Services, an African fintech, has raised a $7.5 million Series A round of funding to expand its credit offers to the underrepresented MSMEs in Kenya and Uganda, as well as Nigeria and Rwanda. Asante stands out with its ecosystem-based digital lending platform, which approves loans to SMEs using alternative data and…
Sales are a determinant of whether a business would survive or not. The life blood of every business is embedded in the day-to-day activities that can generate consistent cash flow. Some organizations get caught up in trying to do many things are at time which makes their progression towards activities that contributes to their down line flawed and…
The latest edition of Kaspersky’s annual IT Security Economics report reveals the growing severity of cybersecurity incidents affecting businesses through suppliers that they share data with. The average financial impact of such an event for an enterprise reached $1.4 million in 2021 which makes it the costliest type of incident worldwide, while the same type of attack…
Egypt’s Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA) has announced the launch of the third edition of the African App Launchpad Cup, aimed at supporting African tech startups in the field of digital applications and game development. ITIDA, the executive arm of the Egyptian Ministry of Communication & Information Technology (MCIT), founded to spearhead the development…
The Attacks From All Angles 2021 Mid-year Cybersecurity Report by Trend Micro highlighted a 47% year-on-year increase in email threats as well as malicious files and URLs in the first quarter of 2021 globally. South Africa’s technology landscape is almost identical to that of other countries, which has seen black hat hackers using it as a testing…
Crypto adoption in Africa continues to grow at a rapid pace, with Luno today announcing that 45% of one million new customers added since June are based on the continent. Luno, the crypto company founded by two South Africans, now has 9 million customers in over 40 countries. The remarkable growth of the company is…
The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has strongly warned telecoms consumers to ensure they do not allow their National Identification Number (NIN) to be linked to another person’s Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) cards, no matter how close the person is to them. The Commission gave the warning during its third run Telecom Consumer Town Hall on Radio (TCTHR)…
WhatsApp has integrated its joinable calls feature — which lets users join an ongoing group video — directly into group chats. The latest update will give users the option to join an ongoing group call right from the group chat tab. Joinable calls were first introduced on WhatsApp in July this year. The instant messaging…
The market capitalisation of all the cryptocurrencies put together has crossed a milestone of $2.5 trillion (roughly Rs. 1,87,42,625 crores) according to cryptocurrency tracker CoinMarketCap. The development comes at a time when Bitcoin, which is the most-valued cryptocurrency in the world, is trading at over $65,000 (roughly Rs. 49,000) on Indian exchanges CoinSwitch Kuber, and…
What is it about information systems that makes them so important in the modern world? Why are companies spending so much money on information systems and technology? Information systems are critical to running a firm on a daily basis and accomplishing long-term strategic goals. However, without significant investments in IT, entire sectors of the economy…
Sendbox, the Nigeria-based e-commerce fulfillment platform for merchants in Africa, has today announced the completion of a $1.8 million seed round from investors including 4DX Ventures, Enza Capital, FJLabs and Golden Palm Investments. With participation from Flexport and YC Combinator as part of its 2021 winter cohort, Sendbox’s total investment raised has now reached $2 million following a pre-seed round from Microtraction and 4DX Ventures in…
Egypt-based life science startup Nawah Scientific has sold a strategic stake to Essam Abdelhadi, the former vice president Middle East, Turkey, Africa and Pakistan (METAP) of Abbott, a US-based healthcare multinational, ahead of its upcoming Series A round. Founded in 2015, Nawah Scientific is an online platform that receives experiment requests, collects samples, conducts tests and returns…
Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, director general of the National Information Technology Agency (NITDA) has inaugurated a five-day capacity training programme for members of the Nigeria Information Technology Reporters’ Association (NITRA) in Lagos, Nigeria, TechEconomy.ng can report. The DG said the capacity training programme aims to upskill the members of NITRA – an umbrella body for journalists reporting information…
Decentralised Finance (DeFi) doesn’t only take power away from traditional governmental institutions and corporations, it also may provide an opportunity for underrepresented groups to break away from the restrictions placed on them by the world’s traditional trade and power systems. The term, DeFi, was coined in a Telegram group by a community of software developers…