Africa Tech News

South Africa’s Information Regulator has fined the Department of Justice R5 million for not renewing its licences for antivirus software. The Protection of Personal Information Act sets basic rules for gathering and exchanging personal information. Mail & Guardian reports that when the regulator discovered that the department was breaking some of these rules, it issued an enforcement notice on...

A new crypto regulation in South Africa will see crypto exchanges unable to operate in the country without licences by November 30. South Africa’s Financial Sector Conduct Authority will require that crypto exchanges in the country operate with licences by the end of the year. Commissioner of the FSCA, Unathi Kamlana says the regulator has received about 20 applications since the commencement of t...

Ethiopia has kicked off the bidding process for a new telecommunications licence. This move not only brings in a breath of fresh air but also paves the way for intensified competition in Ethiopia’s telecom sector. It’s also another significant step forward as the nation continues to break free from the shackles of monopoly, in hopes of boosting its economy. Ethiopia’s only telecom service, Ethio T...

Mastercard, a leading global payment services provider, has partnered with SomBank, a Sharia-compliant bank in Somalia, to launch the SomBank Card, a Mastercard-branded debit card. The collaboration aims to enhance financial inclusion in Somalia by providing customers with access to digital payment options. In the initial phase of the partnership, 100,000 SomBank customers will receive the SomBank...

Airtel became the second telecom to launch 5G in the East African country, following Safaricom’s October 2022 launch. Airtel says that it has 370 5G sites spread across 16 counties. However, the service is expected to focus on customers in major areas and cities such as Nairobi, Nakuru, Mombasa, and Kisumu. Ashish Malhotra, the managing director of Airtel Kenya, says Airtel 5G will revolutionise v...

Twitter is putting limits to how many tweets its users can read as the Elon Musk-owned service suffers an extended outage that has stymied users’ ability to track new posts. Musk detailed the revised usage quotas. Verified account holders can peruse a maximum of 6,000 posts daily, while unverified users must contend with a drastically reduced limit of 600 posts. Newly registered, unverified users...

Safaricom customers can now use internet bundles for payments millions of customers can use their internet data balance to pay for goods and services. Both Safaricom post-pay customers having a data balance of 5GB and above, and prepaid customers with no expiry bundles exceeding 5GB can access this service provision. For pricing, Ksh500 is equivalent to 7.7GB. This could mean that customers could...

Kenya’s Finance Bill 2023, recently passed and signed into law, impacts digital content creators, crypto traders, and digital lenders. Content creators will now face taxes on their earnings, while crypto traders will be subject to a digital asset tax. Kenya’s controversial Finance Bill 2023 affects many people in the digital space, including content creators and crypto traders. Content creators, f...

Zuvy, a Nigeria-based invoice financing company, is changing the vendor-buyer relationship by offering cash upfront to vendors to meet their business needs and invoice management software for buyers to eliminate inefficiencies tied to traditional pen-and-paper. Angel Onuoha, Zuvy’s CEO and co-founder, says Millions of small businesses on the African continent are hindered by their capital being ti...

Amazon plans to more than double its investment in India in the next seven years, the e-commerce group said, joining a roster of other high-profile American giants ramping up commitment to the South Asian market after meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Amazon chief executive Andy Jassy says the e-commerce group has invested about $11 billion in India to date and plans to pour $15 billion m...

Google is granting equity-free funds to startups in Europe and Africa through its Black Founders Fund. This year’s cohort showcases remarkable diversity, with 25 out of 40 startups originating from Africa, and an impressive 72% of them being led or co-founded by women. Google’s BFF grants 25 African startups $4 million in funding and support. Each startup will receive up to $150,000 cash, $200,000...

President Abdul Fattah El Sisi has announced a five-year tax exemption for startups, with an aim to boost the country’s ecosystem and retain its talent. Entlaq’s CEO, Mohamed Ehab highlighted the pivotal role of partnerships between the government, private sector, and startups in driving growth. The Egyptian entrepreneurial ecosystem experiences a growth rate of 50%, it will be possible to establi...

Fintech unicorn Flutterwave isn’t just racking up licences across Africa, it’s also entering big deals. The company announced that it had signed a 5-year deal with Microsoft. The partnership will see the fintech company build a new generation of payment services on Microsoft Azure, powering payments infrastructure across the African continent and beyond. This partnership will enable the African pa...

The Central Bank of Nigeria released its Customer Due Diligence Regulations 2023 for all financial institutions under its regulatory purview. Under the new regulations, the apex bank has made it mandatory for all financial institutions to use social media handles for KYC Know-your-customer operations. The CBN’s new regulations will make it so that banks have to ask users to confirm their identitie...

The company is defying the country’s ICT regulator’s guidelines by selling phones without chargers in Kenya. Kenya isn’t having it and it enforced laws to stop brands from selling phones without chargers. In 2018, Kenya’s ICT regulator, the Communications Authority dropped some guidelines on features and technical specifications for mobile devices imported and distributed within the country. Appar...

YouTube is relaxing the rules for its partner program, so new creators can start earning as early as possible from their video-making careers. YouTube relaxed its eligibility rules for creators, opening the door for these creators to start earning on the platform faster. The partner program also gives creators access to fan funding features like channel memberships, Super Chat, Super Thanks, and m...

President William Ruto ordered a review of Kenya’s proposed content creator tax, the tax has now been reduced to 5%. This reduction comes hot on the heels of local bloggers, YouTubers, influencers and other content creators protesting against the tax. The Kenya Revenue Authority even formed a special unit that will oversee tax collection from digital companies. However, local content creators said...

The Kenyan government has allocated $110 million for the ICT industry. However, nearly half of that amount will be used to develop Konza, a green city outside Nairobi. The government is also focused on boosting connectivity across the country. Kenya’s cabinet secretary for treasury, Njuguna Ndung’u, presented the state’s budget for the 2023/2024 financial year. The total budget is a whopping KES 3...

Users of Flip, an app developed by crypto startup Fluidcoins, have been facing persistent issues accessing their funds for several months now. These users, some of whom are in Flip’s Telegram group with over 300 members, have expressed frustration over the perceived indifference of Flip’s operators towards their plight. Blockfinex, a crypto exchange company that acquired Flip’s parent company Flui...

The FTC confirms that it has requested a temporary restraining order preventing the deal from going through while reviews are underway. Microsoft and Activision Blizzard have represented in the past that they cannot close their deal due to antitrust reviews of the transaction in other jurisdictions. But Microsoft and Activision have not provided assurances that they will maintain that position. Mi...

Hong Kong is forging ahead with a regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies pegged to traditional financial assets. The city’s Undersecretary for Financial Services and the Treasury, Joseph Chan Ho-lim, says the Hong Kong Monetary Authority is in the process of seeking comments from the public regarding stablecoins and aims to introduce a regulatory framework by the end of 2024. The crypto communi...

The Nigerians Communications Commission has granted licences to 25 companies to offer telecom services under the Mobile Virtual Network Operators framework. The newly licensed companies will offer services similar to other telecommunications providers like MTN, 9mobile, Airtel, and Globacom, despite not having their own infrastructure. Seven companies have been licensed under tier 2 and 3, three c...

Nigerian Inter-Bank Settlement System, Nigeria’s largest payment infrastructure, has reduced the processing fee for transactions on its platform. NIBSS has reduced the processing fee for transactions on NIBSS Instant Payment. The new ₦3.75 pricing for instant transfers—down from ₦5—will take effect on July 1, 2023. NIBSS says that the reduction resulted from commercial banks asking for a reduction...

Safaricom’s expansion into Ethiopia is getting a major boost. International Finance Corporation announced that it would invest Ksh21.8 billion in Safaricom, in exchange for 7.25% of the company’s equity. IFC will also loan Safaricom a further Ksh13.9 billion. In May 2021, Safaricom won a bid to become the first external—and second overall—telecoms company in Ethiopia. Before Safaricom, state-owned...

TikTok’s sister app LetsChat is expected to compete with WhatsApp and Telegram, but users believe the data-saving app isn’t a worthy challenger. Launched in 2021 by Beijing-based tech firm and TikTok owner ByteDance, LetsChat was designed for young African users to compete with bigger rivals WhatsApp and Telegram. LetsChat’s entry into the African market has all the makings of a company looking no...