China is reportedly in active talks with South African authorities about the construction of a high-speed rail linking two of the country’s economic hubs – Johannesburg and Durban.
The plan to build the rail has been in the works for over a decade, reports Business Insider, though only recently has it emerged from dormancy. The Chinese ambassador to South Africa, Chen Xiaodong, spoke at the JobFairSA 2022 event last week, saying that 100 Chinese companies are planning to introduce 20,000 more jobs to the economy over the next three years.
High Speed Train
“China stands ready to work with South Africa to move China-South Africa ties forward towards a deeper level and broader scope,” Xiaodong said, continuing that China is “also continuing to connect with South Africa on major projects, such as a Joburg-Durban high-speed railway.”
The major obstacle to the construction of the proposed rail system, which would see the largest ever investment in a single transport project in South Africa, is funding. The idea for a similar rail system has been in the works since 2010, with then Transport Minister Sibusiso Ndebele saying that details about the Joburg-Durban rail were being finalised. However nothing concrete ever materialised even though several Chinese firms offered to provide project financing.
Currently, the project seems more like a pipedream than a serious cause for investment, with only those in the political space showing enthusiasm and non-politically aligned associations like the US credit rating agency FitchSolutions publishing a “negative outlook” on rail infrastructure construction in South Africa.
FitchSolutions believes that the project simply won’t be finalised ever due to its enormously high costs, as well as the project wasting away in the pipeline for over a decade, the government’s limited fiscal capacity for funding such a project, and the likely limited private sector interest in funding such a massive ordeal.
Kelechi Deca
Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry
Radisson Hotel Group, one of the world’s leading hotel companies, has set a record in its North African expansion, with the signing of nine hotels, to date this year. This has boosted the Group’s North Africa portfolio, comprising of the Maghreb countries along with Libya and Egypt, to over 30 hotels in operation and under development, placing them firmly on track to reach over 50 hotels by 2025.
Radisson Hotel Group
Alban Mabille de Poncheville, Director, Development, North Africa at Radisson Hotel Group says, “We are delighted to be leading the market in North African hotel expansion, setting a record for ourselves and the industry. Our flagship brand, Radisson Blu, has been one of the leading brands in the region and as we continue to grow and diversify across North Africa, we look forward to capitalizing on our brand name and introducing new brands in the area such as Radisson, in the upscale segment and Radisson Collection, our entry level luxury brand. The market has shown a great potential in various segments but also in different product types, from resorts to city hotels but also serviced apartments and boutique hotel offerings. We aim to further accelerate our presence across all North African countries and key cities and also expand in new touristic areas as recently announced with the launch of our resort offerings across Morocco.”
In response to the need for independent hotel owners to gain further brand exposure and consumer confidence, the group launched a new brand, Radisson Individuals, aimed at individual hotels with strong service scores and existing hotel identities that wish to remain independent or may be considering transitioning to one of the group’s core brands.
Mabille de Poncheville adds, “This initiative further demonstrates the ability for our group to provide solutions that not only supports our partners but also reflects our focus on conversions with a tailored offering which provides all the benefits of our network and scale with limited pre-requisites.”
The results of the pandemic have shown two major trends: the resilience of serviced apartments across the industry and the rapid growth of leisure and domestic demand. The Group’s recent signings respond to those trends but also cement their future in benefiting from the post-covid recovery with a balance and adequate presence covering all segments and capitalizing on market priorities.
“Conversions have and will continue to remain a priority in our expansion strategy, especially post-pandemic, as there is less liquidity for newer developments. We therefore seek to form wider partnerships and strategic ventures with local or regional chains and forge ahead with our city scale and critical mass strategy,” says Mabille de Poncheville.
As part of the Group’s new African development strategy, the African regions have been subdivided based on priorities, focus and potential scale. Egypt and Morocco have been identified as the Group’s focus countries for North Africa due to the opportunity to leverage further synergies and operational support through a clear development plan in these markets.
Morocco: As Africa’s number one tourism destination, driven by the constant growth in corporate and leisure segments, Morocco has been identified as a priority to support Radisson Hotel Group’s growth journey and deliver these operational efficiencies.
Elaborating on the Group’s Moroccan expansion strategy, Mabille de Poncheville says, “Our development approach in Morocco is based on two pillars:
Firstly, proactively establishing a presence and growing our portfolio in each of the key cities, namely Casablanca, Marrakech, Rabat and Tangier. We are confident that our multiple brands and different operating models such as hotels and serviced apartments will have a positive performance in these markets.
Secondly, the diversification of the countries unlocks further opportunities for city breaks, beach resorts and cultural tours. In addition to these already established cities, we see the emergence of new destinations such as Al Hoceima, Saïdia and Taghazout, each showcasing a strong potential to complement our existing footprint.”
To date this year, Radisson Hotel Group has secured a record growth in Morocco with an additional nine hotels, all aligned with this development strategy, some of which include the debut of our Radisson brand in Casablanca with the signing of Radisson Hotel Casablanca Gauthier La Citadelle as well as the recent partnership established with Madaëf, the leading Moroccan investment company, which translated to seven additional hotels across key leisure destinations in the country.
“From our 2016 debut in Morocco with the opening of Radisson Blu Hotel Marrakech, Carré Eden (https://bit.ly/3hu656p), our robust development strategy and dedication to contribute to the growth of the country have placed us firmly on track to exceed our ambition to reach 15 hotels in operation and under development in the country by 2025,” says Mabille de Poncheville.
Egypt: In Egypt, Radisson Hotel Group is proactively looking at its capital city, Cairo, for both hotels and serviced apartments.
“There is evident potential for our core brands, Radisson Blu and Radisson, through greenfield projects in newly developed areas in particular, the new administrative area as well as conversion opportunities in established parts of the city, covering both corporate and leisure demand. We have also identified the potential for our lifestyle select brand, Radisson RED, filling a gap in the market for a hotel of this kind, in select locations,” says Mabille de Poncheville.
Further expanding on the Group’s leisure offerings and the growth of domestic tourism, they have identified growth opportunities along the Red Sea, with a priority to re-enter Sharm el Sheikh to reinforce and complement their resorts portfolio in the country and across North Africa.
The group has also defined a clear strategy for countries like Algeria and Tunisia where they have established world class hotels and resorts and are now capitalizing on its success, expanding within the capital cities such as Tunis and Algiers. The ambitions in these markets are driven by creating critical mass and also ensuring market proximity.
Algeria: The Group’s current portfolio in Algeria consists of one hotel in operation, the Radisson Blu Hotel, Algiers Hydra and another under development, also within Algiers. With a strategy to create critical mass in key cities such as Algiers, Constantine and Oran with a multi-brand approach, focusing on the Radisson Blu and Radisson brands and a strong potential identified for Serviced Apartments, Radisson Hotel group aims to add five additional hotels to this portfolio.
“Complementing this strategy in Algeria, we have also identified secondary locations we’d like to add three more hotels to, focusing on the Radisson and Park Inn by Radisson brands. We believe Algeria has the potential to become a top travel destination due the diversity in its landscape, from coastal and mountainous to desert. This also allows the country to position itself as the alternative destination for the Mediterranean, especially with its abundance of national parks and leisure activities,” says Mabille de Poncheville.
Tunisia: Radisson Hotel Group’s initial presence in Tunisia, a country with strong beach, adventure and eco tourism, focused on resort locations such as Djerba and Hammamet where the Group currently operates two resorts.
“Our current expansion strategy in Tunisia takes on a proactive approach in the capital city, Tunis, focusing on the Radisson Blu brand and our serviced apartment offerings. Here we see an opportunity to add three additional hotels to our current portfolio of four hotels in operation and under development,” Mabille de Poncheville concludes.
The group also plans to reinforce its brand presence in resort and MICE locations such as Tunis la Gammarth, Sousse and Hammamet, where they look to add a further two hotels.
Kelechi Deca
Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry
Farmers in Nigeria’s South-South region have received a boost to improve productivity and access finance through a new partnership between Releaf and OnePipe. This development is fundamental against the backdrop of the fact that it has provided well over 2,000 oil palm farmers in Cross River and Akwa Ibom states now have access to digitized financial services, thanks to a partnership between Releaf , a raw material procurement & logistics platform that is making it easy for crops to move from farm to factory, and OnePipe, a digital gateway enabling financial services.
OnePipe’s Founder and Chief Plumber, Ope Adeoye
The need to help farmers access finance stems from the fact that over 65 percent of Nigerians are outside the financial services envelope, with millions unbanked or under-banked. The combination of COVID-19 disruptions and the widening digital divide in the rural and underserved areas has threatened the attainment of financial inclusion targets in Nigeria. This partnership between Releaf and OnePipe is thus a welcome initiative to the National Financial Inclusion Strategy and provides opportunities for thousands of rural farmers across Nigeria’s South-South region.
Speaking on the collaboration, co-founder and Chief Technology Officer for Releaf, Uzoma Ayogu, said; “Since inception, Releaf has empowered over 1,000 farmers to supply over 10 million kilograms of quality crops to various food factories. While disbursements to our farmers have been largely cash-based, we now have access to digitized fund disbursement via embedded, customised accounts, provisioned by OnePipe, to drive financial inclusion of previously financially excluded farmers in the digital economy. As a result, we can provide increased funding to farmers in a more seamless, scalable, and safe manner. We are also exploring other products like insurance and other services leveraging OnePipe’s infrastructure and strategic partnerships with an array of Financial Institutions.
The embedded customised accounts for the farmers are provisioned leveraging OnePipe’s partner bank APIs. They are opened and operated via USSD and *PWA (Progressive Web App) channels and branded as Releaf Wallet for ease of adoption by the farmers. As full-utility accounts, farmers can receive inflow from any bank/channel and can transfer funds to any Nigerian bank account; they can also access readily available services such as airtime top-up (self and third party), savings/investments and various loan options. The loan options are configured such that consistent usage of the Releaf wallet by the farmers results in a correspondingly increasing credit line.
OnePipe’s Founder and Chief Plumber, Ope Adeoye described the partnership with Releaf as “an exciting opportunity to co-create value with Releaf. Releaf is reviving agricultural infrastructure and crafting a sustainable path to prosperity for farmers who previously did not have commensurate return for their labour”. According to him, “working with Releaf was inevitable as the company’s vision to transform Africa’s agricultural future by making decentralized food processing scaleable coincides with OnePipe’s social mandate to drive financial inclusion through technology for all – including the 700M+ smallholder farmers on the continent.”
OnePipe’s platform provides a single gateway that aggregates financial services from industry leaders and combines them in unique ways to create new brand propositions that help organisations reduce time to market by embedding financial services within their products. OnePipe is at the vanguard of the embedded finance movement in Sub-Saharan Africa and has assisted companies like Releaf to provide seamless digital financial services to their partners. In addition to the ongoing partnership with Releaf, OnePipe is also working with key players in the Retail, FMCG and Asset Management space to facilitate embedded finance within their existing offerings.
Kelechi Deca
Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry
Stellenbosch, South African based fintech startup, Paymenow has entered partnership with Africa’s largest retail outlet, Shoprite with an offer that will give more than 50,000 users the opportunity to buy food from retailer Shoprite directly in the Paymenow app. Founded in 2019 by Deon Nobrega alongside business development head Bryan Habana (a Rugby World Cup winner), technical director Willem van Zyl, head of software development Gerry Potgieter, and founder investor Garth Mackintosh, Paymenow aims to ease the burden inflicted by payday and micro lenders through affordable, real-time, access to cash.
Paymenow cofounders Bryan Habana and Deon Nobrega
Paymenow went live with its first customer a week before lockdown hit in March 2020. Its platform allows employees early access to their wages, but utilises gamification to take them on a journey to financial wellness. As they complete stages their status improves, and they get rewards by way of lower service fees.
The company has now expanded its offerings, giving employees who have signed up on the Paymenow app the ability to fund a Shoprite Money Market Account. This acts as a virtual wallet so that they can redeem their funds at any Shoprite, uSave or Checkers store as well as send grocery vouchers to family or friends anywhere across South Africa at the touch of a button.
“This is just another way in which Paymenow is looking to help our users stretch their money further and allow affordable, responsible access to necessity items,” said Nobrega.
These necessities include food, prepaid airtime and prepaid electricity. The provision of these value-added services, at much reduced fees, has taken off better than anticipated, with Paymenow having seen almost 15 per cent of all transactions going towards the purchase of airtime, data, and electricity since they were launched in late March.
Following on from the success of its Shoprite partnership, Paymenow will be rolling out a similar offering to Pick n Pay and Boxer Superstores, which will allow Paymenow users to buy essential grocery items, airtime, data, and prepaid electricity from more than 700 stores nationwide. Habana said Paymenow was working on adding other necessity-type value-added services to its offerings.
“With real inflation seemingly much higher than the official 3.2 per cent, we want to help as many South Africans as possible stretch their rand when it comes to life’s necessities,” he said.
Kelechi Deca
Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry
Africa’s underinvested youth are in need of urgent attention and youth entrepreneurship investment banks must become the focus of global support, the African Development Bank President Dr. Akinwumi A. Adesina said Monday in a discussion on scaling up financing for the continent’s youth.
Adesina was speaking at a virtual roundtable at which he presented a novel concept for youth entrepreneurship investment banks. The roundtable, organized by the African Development Bank, came a day ahead of the Summit on Financing African Economies convened by President Emmanuel Macron.
Akinwumi Adesina, president of AfDB
Spanish Foreign Minister Arancha González Laya, Jean-Michel Severino, CEO of Investisseurs et Partenaires; Ashish J. Thakkar, CEO of Mara Phones; Yana Kakar Global Managing Partner Emeritus at Dalberg Advisors; Yvonne Otieno, CEO, Miyonga Fresh Greens, and other representatives of the private sector joined in the meeting.
Otieno urged the world to believe in the youth and to put their hands in their pockets. “Take a risk on us. You will never regret it,” she said in a moving presentation in which she described her career trajectory which began in a bookshop, progressed through journalism, to starting her own business growing French beans on 1.5 acres of land.
“Failure is only a weakness if you don’t learn from it,” said Otieno.
With lack of access to finance a serious bottleneck, the proposed youth entrepreneurship investment banks would coordinate financial and non-financial actors and partners to more effectively support youth entrepreneurs.
“We must support the youth to go beyond looking for jobs. We must unleash the entrepreneurial drive and capacities of the youth to create jobs, Adesina said. “We must grow, finance and support large scale successes of youth -led businesses in Africa.”
Speaking immediately after Dr. Adesina’s opening remarks, Spanish Foreign Minister Arancha González Laya expressed strong support for the initiative. “Spain welcomes the African Development Bank’s youth entrepreneurship investment initiative, geared towards unlocking entrepreneurship and promoting the growth of businesses of the youth.” she said.
Thakkar, chair of the African Development Bank’s Presidential Youth Committee, advised that the youth investment banks would need to be scalable and self-sustaining. He said it was very important to create the right incentive structures for governments to encourage the private sector to play a key role.
Research suggests that Africa needs to create 18 to 30 million jobs annually through 2030, and Ladi Balogun, CEO of First City Monument Bank Group, reiterated the urgency of this challenge. He said time was of the essence in terms of mounting a response as well as accelerating decision-making processes for the extension of financing to entrepreneurs. He also advised working through local money managers to achieve scale.
“We have a ticking time bomb on our hands,” Balogun said.
Participants also commended the African Development Bank for taking a lead role in the effort to support youth entrepreneurs, as well as calling on the Bank to play a number of roles.
Yana Kakar said the African Development Bank has an important knowledge transfer role to play. She added that the Bank has much to share about what is needed in tech-enabled segments versus what might be needed to enable entrepreneurs in more production-oriented segments.
The African Development Bank has demonstrated its strong commitment to the youth of Africa through its Jobs for Youth in Africa Strategy to help create 25 million direct and indirect jobs, and empower 50 million youth by 2025. The institution has also set up a $40 million trust fund in partnership with several European countries to advance youth entrepreneurship and innovation.
Kelechi Deca
Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry
Nigerians stand to gain from the new facility from startup CDcare which just developed an online marketplace that lets users buy appliances and pay in monthly or weekly instalments at zero interest. CDcare combines savings and loans features in its marketplace, allowing users to automate the payment of a monthly or weekly amount towards buying an appliance. When up to half of the cost of the item has been saved, it is shipped, and the automatic payments continue until full payment is made. All of this at zero interest.
Ayodeji Farohun and Oluwatobi Odukoya, CDcare cofounders
The bootstrapped CDcare, which is in the process of trying to raise a funding round, has delivered more than 1,000 items across 20 Nigerian states since it was launched in February of last year by Ayodeji Farohun and Oluwatobi Odukoya. The pair go way back.
According to Odukoya, “Deji and I were classmates at university. Our friendship started when he patronised the loan-a-laptop scheme that I created in the university. He later became the operations manager of the scheme.”
“Together, we built Computer Doctor, which is the first mobile computer repair workshop in Africa. We fixed more than 10,000 units of computers within two years for firms and people in Nigeria, amongst which are Paystack, Flutterwave, Cowrywise and Aella Credit. Deji was in charge of Computer Doctor’s operations while I was the lead technician. We also trained more than 100 Nigerians to become computer technicians.”
Now, the pair are applying themselves to CDcare, believing they have identified a significant problem that can be fixed by combining elements of both savings and lending platforms.
“Salaries are paid monthly in Africa. It is a problem that there is no way for Africans to buy items and pay in instalments as it exists in other countries,” said Odukoya.
“What exists are loan platforms that are either difficult to access or have very high-interest rates that people cannot usually afford to pay back. Many Africans have had to either settle for less, or buy substandard products because they can’t afford to pay one lump sum for things that they want.”
CDcare’s solution, a payment plan that lets buyers save half and get the remaining half as a zero-interest loan, is entirely new, Odukoya believes, with people in the past having resorted to high-interest buying schemes, interest-charging loans, or simply waiting until they have saved the full price of the item.
“I built our MVP within two weeks,” he said. “Having sold gadgets and appliances for many years in Nigeria, it wasn’t hard to get the major distributors of appliances in Nigeria to partner with us.”
The startup has plans to launch operations in Ghana and Kenya in early 2022, has an interesting revenue model.
“We make a profit of at least 10 per cent of the total cost of every item delivered on CDcare. Since we only loan our users half of the item’s value, we make an interest of 20 per cent on our capital,” Odukoya said.
Kelechi Deca
Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry
In March 2020, investment firm Actis announced the launch of a $250 million pan-African data centre platform that will comprise independent data centres across key African markets. The first of these investments was in Nigeria’s Rack Centre, a co-location data centre with over 80 clients, including telecommunications carriers and internet service providers.
A data centre is a facility used to house computer systems or servers and associated components, such as network communications and storage systems.
Guy Willner, CEO of data centre operator IXcellerate
Last month, African Infrastructure Investment Managers (AIIM), an infrastructure-focused private equity firm, acquired a majority stake in Ngoya Etix DC, a carrier-neutral data centre located in the Greater Accra region of Ghana. “Whilst we have seen considerable interest in the African data centre sector, the evolution of in-country capacity in many markets outside of South Africa, remains nascent and inadequate to meet rising data demands, migration of enterprises to the cloud, and the need for content closer to end users. Data centres underpin and enable the digital economy and present strong growth prospects for long-term investors such as AIIM,” says Ed Stumpf, investor director at AIIM.
In a further development, Raxio, a pan-African data centre operator, has partnered with French infrastructure investment firm Meridiam, to deploy a network of data centres. Meridiam will inject $48 million in the venture. Raxio has so far invested in data centre facilities in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda and Ethiopia.
In its recent Africa Horizons report, real estate consultancy Knight Frank identified the following six drivers encouraging investment in African data centres.
Localisation
Traditionally, data centres have been clustered in a select few geographies at existing peering points, or internet exchange points. These locations have been in the US (Virginia), Europe (London, Paris, Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Dublin) and Asia-Pacific (Tokyo, Hong Kong and Singapore).
However, as technology and content has become more complex, the quantity of data required has increased to a level where the existing model is no longer viable.
As a result, cloud-based service providers are now looking to be closer to population centres, which will enable them to deliver more sophisticated services in a timelier manner and reduce transit costs.
Further, as Guy Willner, CEO of data centre operator IXcellerate notes, adoption of data sovereignty in countries such as Nigeria and Morocco means that new data centres will need to be built in these places.
Supply gap
Africa remains underserved for data centre provision. Live IT power in markets such as Dublin and London stands at 795.8MW and 728.25MW, but in Africa this figure is significantly lower with leading markets such as Johannesburg and Nairobi recording a total live IT power of 54.9MW and 19.04MW respectively, according to DC Byte.
There are clear opportunities for the development of not just retail and wholesale co-location, but also built-to-suit hyperscale data centres in the tier one markets. This will help to narrow capacity gaps and enable the market to keep up with increasing – and increasingly complex – demand at both individual and state level.
To house these data centres, a range of different types of real estate provision will be required. Depending on the type of demand, this could mean build-to-suit industrial units, repurposed industrial or office units or even build-to-lease data centre real estate.
Demographics
With a population of 1.3 billion people, the continent has over recent years provided an opportunity for the rapid and accelerating deployment of technology into a young and dynamic populace.
Africa currently accounts for less than 1% of total available global data centre capacity, according to Xalam Analytics, despite being home to approximately 17% of the world’s population. However, with the continent’s urban population set to grow by 60% by 2050, characterised by an increasing technology talent pool and an emerging middle class, the demand for data centres is set to increase.
From a supply standpoint, the southern African region continues to be the best served, accounting for 54% of data centre space across Africa. But with at least half of Africa’s growing population expected to have internet access by 2030, according to GSMA, and legislation encouraging data localisation, the potential for data centres in Africa is set to continue growing exponentially.
Connectivity
Recent progress in fibre optic connectivity offers Africa the ability to leapfrog other continents in establishing a world-class system of network infrastructure. Geographically, cities such as Mombasa in Kenya are incredibly well located on sub-sea fibre links offering a gateway to Asia and, as such, see a large amount of internet traffic working through them.
Currently much of Africa’s data content is driven through Marseille rather than being domiciled on the continent, limiting those operators who need to offer premium latency (data transfer) speeds to their customers. However, the commencement of Google’s Equiano project, an underwater cable connecting west Africa to Europe, and Facebook’s 2Africa, a 37,000km sub-sea cable that will circumnavigate the continent and connect it with Europe and the Middle East, clearly shows how the tide is changing.
Green energy
Data centres consume a vast amount of power. This is especially the case in Africa, due to the added cooling requirements. In Europe for example, the requirement is 99.99% of uptime power at a minimum. Unreliability in Africa’s grid network is therefore considered the main stumbling block to investment by international data centre operators.
However, the unfolding revolution in Africa’s market for renewable energy is set to create new opportunities. Between 2010 and 2017 the average cost of producing solar energy fell by 73%, and by 22% for onshore wind power, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency. Renewable energy is set to spur growth and ensure accessibility even in the most remote regions across Africa, while achieving the sustainability goals of the cloud computing powerhouses such as Microsoft and Google.
Competitive capital
As the proliferation of smartphones and mass adoption of business software on the continent leads to soaring demand for data centres to power technology, international investors, including private, institutional and sovereign capital, are increasingly keen to win lucrative investment deals.
By way of example, see the recent $250 million investment by private equity firm Actis. Further, in 2019, Boston-based private equity firm Berkshire Partners acquired a stake in Teraco Data Environments, which owns Africa’s largest data centre and powers much of the cloud computing in South Africa, with the aim of doubling capacity from 30MW to 60MW in the next few years.
Liquid Telecom’s Africa Data Centres, which has earmarked $1 billion for expansion across Nigeria, Ghana and further into Egypt and Morocco, also recorded an influx in investor interest including US$300 million from the US government’s International Development Finance Corporation.
Growing competition between emerging powers such as China and countries with longer-standing economic ties with Africa, such as the US, UK and France, is anticipated to open up this sector further to more lucrative investments, with Chinese capital expected to debut in the sector in the near future
Kelechi Deca
Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry
African telecoms giant MTN is exploring the deployment of other electronic payment platforms for its customers in Nigeria to recharge their phones after disagreements with commercial banks led to disruptions of USSD services. The decision comes after its customers suffered a series of disruptions and inability to recharge their phone lines and some other services offered jointly by MTN and commercial banks owing to disagreements between the two parties over commission and service charges.
MTN
It could be recalled that over 77 million MTN subscribers were disconnected from all banking channels by the commercial banks, due to disagreements over banks’ commission which was reduced by the mobile network operator from an average of 3.5% to 2.5%. The commercial banks, in an earlier written communication with MTN, were reported to have asked for a reversal to the old commission or they would block MTN airtime recharge services in all their channels.
All the commercial banks, except Zenith Bank which was connected directly to MTN, thereafter barred MTN from their banking channels, leaving many MTN subscribers stranded and frustrated as they were unable to recharge airtime through USSD and bank apps amid the Easter celebrations. To overcome the challenge, MTN is looking at alternative channels include payment solutions platforms such as Flutterwave, Jumia Pay, OPay, Kuda, Carbon and BillsnPay.MTN said its customers could recharge airtime by dialling *904# and *606#. Adding that “It will interest you to note that for the benefit of our customers who have been greatly inconvenienced by the service suspension, we now have alternative channels of accessing MTN services electronically.
The list and links to access the various alternative platforms are MTN On Demand is on *904# and also via https://mtnondemand.flutterwave.com; Barter By Flutterwave (app);Jumia Pay (app);Pay (app);MTN Xtratime airtime loans (*606#);Carbon (app);Kuda (app);BillsnPay (app and web);myMTN Web Momo agent *223#.The Apps can be downloaded from the Playstore and the Appstore.”
Kelechi Deca
Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry
Africa’s future depends mostly on its ability to embark on digital transformation, and run a climate-smart economy. This was the submission of the Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed who said that if the continent wants to compete for the future, it has to start working assiduously towards achieving digital transformation, a climate-smart economy, and an enabling institutional structure.
Ethiopian prime minister Abiy Ahmed
Abiy Ahmed made the remarks in his opening address to a conference of African ministers of finance, planning and development as part of the 53rd session of the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA).
“There is no doubt that Africa will overtime be a vital linchpin to the global economy,” said the 2019 Nobel laureate. “However, it must do these three things well and quickly to improve its chances of success.”
“We must scale up our investments – a trend already turbocharged by the COVID-19 pandemic. The digital economy is both a source of growth and a key competitive enabler of other productive sectors,” he said.
The ECA annual event – skipped last year due to the pandemic – was launched last Tuesday under the theme “Africa’s sustainable industrialization and diversification in the digital era in the context of COVID-19.”
“The second goal that every African country must adopt is making our economies climate-smart and resilient in diverse ways,” he said, calling for a climate-smart manufacturing sector to drive increasing exports and foreign currency earnings and create employment opportunities.
Africa, he said, must also put in place resilient institutions capable of implementing reforms to help the continent withstand the challenges of the future. Digital transformation is a key driving force for innovation and sustainable growth that can transform Africa into a global powerhouse, said the prime minister.
Kelechi Deca
Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry
Infobip has announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement with Amdocs to acquire OpenMarket – a mobile messaging solutions company – in a deal worth approximately $300 million. The transaction is expected to close following regulatory approvals. Infobip has announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire OpenMarket in a deal worth approximately $300 million.
Silvio Kutic, CEO of Infobip
According to Infobip, this acquisition brings together complementary regional footprints, merging OpenMarket’s scale in the US with Infobip’s strengths outside the US to process “more than 14 billion monthly customer interactions across the full range of communication channels, in more than 190 countries around the globe”.
“This transaction marks a significant leap forward in our journey towards exponential growth,” says Silvio Kutic, CEO of Infobip. “Combined, Infobip and OpenMarket have some 10,000 customers, including many of the world’s leading enterprises. We will now be better able to meet the customers’ needs in every region, with best-in-class direct connectivity to more than 650 mobile operators and a best-in-class combined portfolio of cloud-based messaging and SaaS offerings.”
Kutic adds, “I’m thrilled that the OpenMarket team will become part of our Infobip family: they’ve built a great and rapidly-growing business, but we also know we all share a common vision and values. It’s a truly exciting time for us all in both companies – and, as we say at Infobip, “we are just starting”.”
The transaction comes just three months after the closing of Infobip’s first institutional investment from One Equity Partners, a private equity firm.
Kelechi Deca
Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry
