Flutterwave, the Africa-focused fintech firm, has obtained a switching and processing licence for electronic payments in Nigeria as it seeks to expand across the region.
The permit from Nigeria’s central bank allows Flutterwave to process fund transfers between banks and fintechs, handle card transactions, participate in agency banking, and engage in other payment services without an intermediary, it said in e-mailed statement.
Flutterwave’s CEO Olugbenga Agboola
The licence comes at time when the Lagos- and San Francisco-based firm is planning an initial public offering on the Nasdaq while battling allegations of financial misconduct, including claims of money laundering in Kenya and irregularities related to stock options and bullying of staff in Nigeria, its biggest market.
Flutterwave, valued at more than US$3-billion (R52-billion) and backed by B Capital Group and Tiger Global Management, plans to use the funds raised during the IPO to expand operations in its existing markets and enter new ones in Africa.
This is “an important milestone in our growth story”, Oluwabankole Falade, Flutterwave’s chief regulatory and government affairs officer, said in the statement. “As a switch, we have more responsibilities and will continue to work with regulators to ensure we meet and exceed their expectations.”
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
Global tech giant Samsung in partnership with The Gates Foundation has developed a ‘reinvented toilet’ that has the capability to kill pathogens and safely dispose of human waste.
According to Samsung the new toilet also recycles and safely disposes of humans.
The South Korean tech giant was responding to the foundation’s Reinvent the Toilet Challenge that started in 2011, which aims to develop cost-effective toilets that can deliver inclusive sanitation services without the need for sewage treatment systems.
Samsung vice chairman Jay Y Lee
The company’s advanced research arm Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology had been working with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation since 2019. The institute recently completed the development of core technologies and made a prototype of the toilet that has gone through a user test, Samsung said.
According to Samsung, the toilet, aimed for household use that meets the performance requirements of the foundation, comes with heat-treatment and bioprocessing technologies to kill pathogens from human waste and the released material is safe for the environment.
The treated water can be fully recycled, while the solid waste is dried and combusted to ash and the liquid waste is purified, Samsung said. The company added that it plans to offer licenses of patents related to the toilet for free to developing countries during commercialization.
According to the South Korean tech giant, Samsung’s initiative to develop the toilet was started by Samsung vice chairman Jay Y Lee, the de facto leader of the conglomerate, who met with Bill Gates earlier this month to discuss the progress of the project.
Lee shared his commitment to using Samsung’s technologies to help “address the challenges facing humanity,” the company added.
Samsung has announced multiple corporate social responsibility projects in recent years. At Unpacked in February, the company said it was incorporating materials made from discarded fishing nets to make its Galaxy devices.
Last year, the company said it was repurposing used Galaxy phones and modifying them into eye care devices for use in underserved communities around the world.
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
Fintech Challenge offers early stage and mature start-ups the potential to partner with Ecobank across 33 African countries; Applications open until 16 September.
Pan-African banking group, Ecobank Group, has launched the fifth edition of the Ecobank Fintech Challenge and encourages African Fintech entrepreneurs to enter the competition.
Fintechs that are aligned with the Bank’s strategic objectives stand a chance to win an overall cash prize of US$50,000 for the top winner and the opportunity to partner and scale their solutions across Ecobank’s 33 African markets.
Fintech companies and developers originating from any of Africa’s 54 countries, as well as global Africa-centered Fintechs, are eligible to enter the Fintech Challenge by visiting: https://bit.ly/3KnrDz2. Applications can be made until 16 September 2022.
Ten finalists will be inducted into the Ecobank Fintech Fellowship after the finals and awards ceremony which will take place in October 2022.
In addition, all Fellows will qualify to explore the following opportunities with the Bank and its partners:
Multinational products roll out: an opportunity to pursue integration with Ecobank and potentially launch products in all or part of Ecobank’s pan-African 33-country ecosystem.
Service provider partnerships: Ecobank may select some Fintechs as pan-African service partners within the Bank’s ecosystem.
Access to Ecobank’s Pan-African Banking Sandbox: Fellows will be given access to Ecobank’s APIs to test and improve their products for the pan-African market.
Priority Access to Ecobank’s Venture Capital partners for funding exploration.
Ade Ayeyemi, Chief Executive Officer, Ecobank Group, said “Ecobank believes that the only way to transform financial services in Africa is for Pan-African banks like Ecobank to continually support and collaborate with innovative Fintechs and start-ups. We invite and welcome Africa’s best Fintechs to work with us through the 2022 Challenge.”
Dr. Tomisin Fashina, Operations and Technology Executive, Ecobank Group said, “The uniqueness of the Challenge is that it welcomes both early stage and mature start-up Fintechs alike and seeks to align them with different kinds of partnership opportunities within Ecobank that match their differing levels of maturity.”
The Ecobank Fintech Challenge was designed in partnership with international advisory firm, Konfidants and is supported by partners across Africa and globally. So far 46 Fellows have been admitted into the Ecobank Fintech Fellowship programme since it was launched in 2017.
For more information about the competition, its benefits and how to apply, please visit https://bit.ly/3AMixIM
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
The much anticipated launch of Fifth Generation (5G) network by Nigeria has taken place. It was a historic moment for Nigerian telecoms as MTN Nigeria Wednesday officially turned on its fifth-generation (5G) mobile internet services at 190 sites across the country, with the main concentration of sites in Lagos and Abuja.
Some users in these areas are reportedly already experiencing internet speeds greater than 1.4GBs per second. The country’s National Communication Commission (NCC) had previously set Wednesday 24 August as the date for the rollout of 5G after nearly 3 years of preparation from the Federal Government.
Nigeria now joins South Africa and Kenya as the three African nations to launch 5G services. South Africa received 5G first in 2019 through a humble rollout by provider Rain, while Kenya saw Safaricom launch its first 5G services in March 2021. In the rest of the continent, Ghana and Egypt are hot on the heels of these three nations, expecting a rollout sooner rather than later.
Nigeria’s 5G deployment has lagged compared to contemporary economies due to regulations and a bloated spectrum auctioning approval processes. In July 2021, Nigerians were still waiting on the Federal Government to approve the technology’s deployment even as the NCC claimed it was ready for the rollout.
Approval finally came in September. The NCC held its first 5G spectrum auction in December 2021, where MTN and Mafab Communications were awarded licenses.
While MTN has managed to launch its 5G per the scheduled time, Mafab has reportedly been given a five-month extension for its rollout of 5G in the country. Both MTN and Mafab had to pay a combined $550-million for licenses as early as February.
By October, MTN Nigeria expects to increase the rollout of 5G sites exponentially, taking the superfast internet to 500 – 600 more sites across Africa’s most populous nation.
Not every user will be able to use 5G as of today, however, as certain software updates are required by mobile devices, other devices may not be able to use the service at all.
However, only Nigerian Samsung and Apple users may only be able to take advantage of 5G services after 6 weeks (Samsung) or even after October (Apple) as manufacturers will need to deliver their respective upgrades.
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
Meta owned messaging platform WhatApp has introduced a new feature as part of efforts aimed at creating a more engaging and improved quality of its services and making them more user-friendly. The new filter called “unread” reminds users of their unread messages.
The introduction of the new filter was made known early this week on WhatsApp’s verified Twitter account.
According to the management of WhatsApp, the new “unread” filter will give its over 2 billion active users more control over their chats and ensure users never miss messages from their loved ones again.
whatsapp
The statement read: “Now you can sort your chats with an “unread” filter for extra control and organization. Never miss another message from papai or the message from your irmã asking why you didn’t respond to papai ”
To locate the new “unread” filter is quite straightforward. These are all you need to do.
Open your WhatsApp
Click the “search” button on the App interface
The new “unread” filter will appear alongside other filters such as photos, videos and links. Click the “unread” filter
After clicking the unread filter, your yet-to-be-attended messages will be displayed.
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
There are indications that Meta-owned Instagram appears to be copying another up-and-coming social media competitor: BeReal, a popular photo app that prompts users to take and post an image once a day at the same time as all their friends.
Instagram, Meta’s own photo- and video-sharing app, is testing a feature that looks almost identical to BeReal, according to a screenshot posted on Twitter by developer Alessandro Paluzzi. In the image, Instagram asks users to “Join IG Candid Challenges” and “everyday at a different time, get a notification to capture and share a photo in 2 minutes”.
Instagram
That’s the basic premise of BeReal. An Instagram spokesman said the tool is an “internal prototype” that is “not testing externally”. A BeReal spokesman had no immediate comment.
BeReal, founded in 2020 and headquartered in Paris, has become popular with teenagers thanks to its push to get people to post at the same time. Snapping images at an unexpected time each day has also led to a less polished experience, because users aren’t spending time staging, editing or perfecting the images — a frequent criticism of the posts on Instagram.
Meta has a history of copying the features of upstart competitors, including Snapchat’s Stories product and TikTok’s short-form videos. BeReal has raised money from venture capital firms such as Andreessen Horowitz and Accel.
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
Apple has announced that it will unveil the all new iPhone 14 to the market on 7 September 2022. Other products expected to launch alongside the iPhone 14 include multiple new Mac computers, affordable and high-end iPads and three new Apple Watch models.
Expected New Features Coming to iPhone 14
Speculations for new features coming to the iPhone include a revamped lock screen, with a new widget system that will display the weather, calendars, financial information such as stocks, and other data while the screen remains at a low brightness and frame rate, just like the Apple Watch.
Apple CEO Tim Cook
Other features that will be on the iPhone 14 Pro include a much-improved front-facing camera, a new rear-camera system that includes a 48-megapixel sensor, thinner bezels, a faster A16 chip, and a redesigned notch with a pill-shaped cutout for Face ID and a hole punch for the camera.
New MacBooks
“The new M2 chip, part of the MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro announced at WWDC and optimized with macOS Ventura, is also the core of several other products in the pipeline,” Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman said about the expected Mac launches.
He adds that the M2 Macs might come in quicker succession than the M1 Macs did.
The New M2 Macs Expected to Launch Soon Include:
an M2 Mac mini.
an M2 Pro Mac mini.
M2 Pro and M2 Max 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros.
the M2 Ultra and M2 Extreme Mac Pro.
New iPads
Gurman also hinted at a new low-end iPad with an A14 chip and 5G. He added that the new iPad might have Stage Manager for users who want better multitasking capabilities.
“I expect Apple to release new 11-inch and 12.9-inch models with M2 chips later this year that work with Stage Manager. They’re code-named J617 and J620,” he said.
“That will let Apple say it has five different iPads that support the interface, versus three today (the current M1 iPad Pros and iPad Air).”
Another iPad with a bigger display – between 14 and 15 inches – might be released in the next coming year or two. Gurman says Stage Manager might make more sense on a device that is that size.
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
Most of the continent’s leading fintechs, investors, crypto platforms, ventures and digital finance stakeholders will converge at the upcoming Africa Money & DeFi Summit West Africa edition on September 27-28 in Accra, Ghana.
This edition promises to be a hit following the sold-out Money and DeFi Summit in Nairobi early this year, the Africa Money & DeFi Summit – West Africa, produced by Africa Tech Summit, will again connect and showcase industry leaders including Polygon, Paystack, VerifyMe, Celo, Flutterwave, BitPowr, Visa, YouVerify, Workpay and many more.
Two days of sessions and networking events will share insights on payments, crypto, DeFi, neo banking, mobile money, investing, BNPL, mobile money while connecting corporates, investors, start-ups, regulators, media and industry stakeholders.
Andrew Fassnidge, founder of Africa Tech Summit
According to Andrew Fassnidge, founder of Africa Tech Summit, “We are delighted to be hosting the West African edition of Africa Money & DeFi Summit, showcasing fintech leaders, crypto innovators, new rising ventures, and investment opportunities across the region. The growth of crypto across Africa continues and a new wave of DeFi is coming, so it’s exciting times in the digital finance space for driving business and investment forward, with the continued support from our outstanding partners across Africa.”
The summit will feature more than 400 delegates, over 150 companies, and more than 75 speakers covering topics via panel session, keynotes and fireside chats, plus multiple networking events, masterclass sessions and a sold out exhibition showcasing leading ventures.
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
As part of ongoing changes aimed at both security and better user experience, there are indications that Meta owned Facebook is working on deploying the use of end-to-end encryption for all chats and they’ll all be stored on Facebook servers rather than a user’s devices. The new security and privacy feature is said to be trialling for Messenger.
Meta has started to test end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) chat as a default for Messenger chats and, as a companion to it, launched a new online E2EE storage service dubbed Secure Storage for backing up chat histories.
It’s also going to trial an unsend feature like the “delete for all” option in WhatsApp group chats.
Facebook enabled E2EE for Messenger in 2016 but users needed to turn on encryption for each chat thread. In the near future, users won’t need to enable it.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg
E2EE means chats are encrypted in transit and at rest, be it on the user’s device or a remote server. Currently, the content of each chat thread protected by encryption in Messenger is only stored on each user’s device. This would consume a lot of storage on a smartphone if all chats are kept on-device. So, in the future, these chats, which will all be E2EE, will by default be stored on Facebook servers in its Secure Storage service.
The move to default E2EE for Messenger itself isn’t unexpected and falls in line with Meta’s plans announced in November when it pushed back default E2EE for Messenger and Instagram from the end of 2022 until “sometime in 2023” while it weighed up user privacy versus public safety and working with law enforcement.
Messenger’s Secure Storage feature is new and will become “the default way to protect the history of your end-to-end encrypted conversations on Messenger” , said Sara Su, Product Management Director, Messenger Trust said in a blogpost.
“As with end-to-end encrypted chats, secure storage means that we won’t have access to your messages, unless you choose to report them to us,” says Su.
With encrypted Messenger chats stored in Meta’s data centers and not a user’s device that means users who lose their device can still access chat histories. But it also means now all encrypted chats are stored on Meta’s servers.
E2EE will make it harder for law enforcement access to content like photos and chats, but they can still access metadata, such as location, device identifiers and account creation timestamps.
Facebook started testing Secure Storage on Android and iOS this week, but hasn’t made it available on the Messenger website, the Messenger for desktop app or chats that are not E2EE protected.
To access Secure Storage backups, users need to create a PIN or generate a code that they must save in order to access the backups in future. The private key can be saved in services like Apple’s iCloud Keychain password management system in order to access the backup conversations. But as Su notes, Apple’s key storage service isn’t protected by Messenger’s E2EE.
Su notes Facebook is planning to bring end-to-end encrypted calls to the Calls Tab on Messenger will come in future.
It’s also introducing Code Verify, a browser extension for Chrome, FireFox and Microsoft Edge that automatically verifies the authenticity of the code when using the Messenger website.
“This will let you confirm the effectiveness of our end-to-end encryption security by showing that your web code hasn’t been tampered with or altered,” Su notes.
Another change resulting from default E2EE is that Messenger is losing vanish mode for disappearing messages. It will retain disappearing messages (where messages vanish after a set time) in E2EE messages. Vanish mode remains available on Instagram but aren’t E2EE.
“We will continue to provide updates as we make progress toward the global rollout of default end-to-end encryption for personal messages and calls in 2023,” said Su.
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
Bitcoin, the global leading cryptocurrency, hit $25K on Sunday, reaching its highest level since June 13. It has now risen five days in a row, a run spurred by US consumer-price index data that came in below expectations. In anticipation of the successful completion of its blockchain’s eagerly awaited software upgrade known as the Merge, Ether is currently trading at $2K, having reached the mark on Saturday for the first time since May 31.
It could be recalled that JPMorgan Chase, the most valuable bank in the world, stated that the cryptocurrency market has been on the rise for the past week or so amid risk on sentiments
Bitcoin
The asset’s increase from $23,000 to over $24,000 on August 10 in response to the most recent US CPI data was the most striking. Shortly, it continued to rise and reached a multi-month high above $24,800.
Crypto struggled during the first half of the year as the Federal Reserve raised rates to combat persistently high inflation, resulting in price drops of more than 50% for Bitcoin, Ether, and other tokens.
Risk assets like the US dollar index are rising as a result of US inflation data coming in below forecasts over the past week, which may pave the way for less aggressive tightening measures from the Fed.
The Ethereum blockchain’s Merge is now anticipated to occur around September 15, according to network co-founder Vitalik Buterin, who said this following the network’s final test stage known as Goerli a few days ago.
The Merge signifies a shift away from the proof-of-work method of mining blocks and toward the proof-of-stake approach for creating new Ether tokens and validating transactions.
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
