Financial services giant Old Mutual has moved its entire IT infrastructure to the cloud and closed its on-premises data centre facilities, becoming one of the first South African companies of its size to do so.
The move, to Amazon Web Services (AWS) – the world’s largest cloud computing provider – will allow Old Mutual to “accelerate innovation, reduce IT infrastructure costs and harness machine learning to deliver more personalised customer experiences”, AWS said in a recent statement.
Old Mutual has moved its banking, insurance and wealth management systems to AWS, in the process reducing the average time taken to process financial transactions by two-thirds.
The full migration to the cloud involved moving more than 2 000 on-premises servers.
The full migration to the cloud involved moving more than 2 000 on-premises servers, 215 applications, 1 786 databases and more than 500 websites.
“The move will accelerate innovation, at a time of global economic uncertainty, by reducing the time required for new application testing from months to minutes,” AWS said.
“Old Mutual will use AWS capabilities to better anticipate customer needs and develop the next generation of financial products and experiences. The company will leverage AWS ML and generative artificial intelligence (AI) services—including Amazon SageMaker, a fully managed service to build, train and deploy ML models—to generate real-time, personalised financial forecasting and recommendations for customers.”
Information Fabric
AWS said the personalisation services possible thanks to the expansion of Information Fabric, the data lake that Old Mutual established on AWS. “The single, consistent view of customers provided by Information Fabric enables individualised recommendations and more seamless, intuitive customer experiences, including combined client rewards programmes that enable points earned in one area of the business to be redeemed through another,” the company said.
“Daily server outages, disconnected financial products, ballooning on-premises costs – those are all challenges we leave behind as we go all-in on AWS,” said Old Mutual acting CIO May Govender.
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
Dell Technologies has announced that Dell Apex Data Storage Services is now available in South Africa. Dell’s Apex as-a-service hyperconverged, storage and data protection solutions are powered by Intel hardware.
A recent survey conducted by Enterprise Strategy Group reveals that 54% of organisations would prefer a consumption-based model in which their data centre infrastructure is purchased on a pay-per-use basis.1 Dell Apex Data Storage Services delivers the industry’s leading enterprise storage portfolio as-a-service.
“This means customers pay for the storage capacity they use and can scale at the service level they need with infrastructure owned and maintained by Dell,” says Doug Woolley, GM, Dell Technologies South Africa. “Customers and partners have flexibility and control over who performs day-to-day management operations with both Dell-managed and customer-managed options.”
Doug Woolley, GM, Dell Technologies South Africa
Customers and partners have flexibility and control over who performs day-to-day management operations
This latest data storage offering from Dell Technologies helps South African organisations address challenges specific to the region. Firstly, a choice of consumption models allows companies to choose how and when they invest in technology, making it easier to preserve cash. Transparent costs and payments are spread over the length of the contract agreement, ensuring greater predictability.
Secondly, Apex delivers modern cloud and consumption experiences across Dell’s innovative portfolio, backed by global services, scale and supply-chain leadership. This helps ensure the customer’s technology stays aligned with business requirements to that they can react quickly to capture new opportunities.
“With Apex, our customers maintain more control of data to minimise risk and maximise performance, all on their own terms,” Woolley says.
In addition, load shedding challenges can be overcome with the Apex consumption-based model that can be hosted in any data centre, including shared facilities. Customers can use any vendor-neutral data centre that provides critical engineering infrastructure, physical security, and interconnections between clients and the ecosystem.
With traditional procurement models, forecasting future workloads is challenging and can result in over- or under-provisioning, leading to wasted resources or unwanted downtime. In contrast, Apex pricing is fixed in South African rand at the beginning of the contract term, and the scale-out options during the term are quoted at the same unit price. This adds even more stability and predictability to the customer’s financial commitment.
How Dell Apex Data Storage Services works
Organisations can select from multiple performance tiers for Dell Apex Data Storage Services File, Block and Backup Target, available in one- to five-year terms. Customers can easily configure and manage their data storage resources through the Dell Apex Console, a centralised platform for customers to manage and orchestrate their as-a-service and multicloud journeys. Customers can monitor capacity, performance and usage costs in real time and configure their subscriptions as needed.
The Dell Apex Data Storage Services portfolio includes the new Backup Target offer, a customer-managed option for secure backup storage in a pay-per-use, flexible consumption model. Dell Apex Data Storage Services Backup Target streamlines the process of purchasing, deploying and maintaining backup storage. Building on Dell’s leadership in data protection appliances and software2, the Backup Target offer helps reduce a customer’s storage footprint and can increase data availability.
Dell Technologies partner opportunities in South Africa
Dell Apex creates opportunities for partners to offer customers flexible and simplified IT solutions. With Dell Apex Data Storage Services expanded availability, Dell Technologies solution providers and storage authorised distributors in South Africa can earn incentives when reselling or referring these solutions. Cloud service provider partners can also host enhanced Dell Apex Data Storage Services on behalf of customers.
Dell channel services partners holding applicable services delivery competencies have an additional opportunity to grow their return on that investment by delivering deployment services for select customer-managed Dell Apex offers including Dell Apex Data Storage Services File, Block and Backup Target options.
Currently available in South Africa (both direct and via partners): Apex Private Cloud, Apex Hybrid Cloud, Apex Data Storage Services, Apex Flex on Demand, Apex Data Centre Utility.
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
At a forum with students and young innovators from Nigeria and across Africa, Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, discussed how science and innovation can accelerate positive change and contribute to a brighter future for Africa.
The conversation took place during ‘Advancing Africa: Unleashing the Power of Youth in Science and Innovation.’ The hybrid in-person and online event was co-hosted by the Lagos Business School and Co-Creation Hub (CcHub), in partnership with Africa.com and Channels Television.
former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates
Gates, who was visiting Nigeria for the first time since 2018, praised Nigeria’s youth and many Nigerian partners whom the Gates Foundation has worked with for more than a decade. These include scientists who are scaling up new interventions that save mothers and babies, researchers who are helping smallholder farmers thrive in the face of climate change and grow more nutritious foods, and companies that are expanding access to digital financial tools.
“When it comes to making the world a better place talented young people are the world’s most important asset,” Gates said. “Nigeria has one of the biggest youth populations in the world, and it’s growing fast. That represents a lot of potential skills and passion to solve big problems.”
Gates also stressed that progress had not been equally distributed. , highlighting poor digital access for many Nigerians and inconsistent availability of health services, education, and employment – especially for women. In Nigeria, the gender gap in employment has increased 25% in the last five years. Men are twice as likely as women to have mobile money accounts.
“I’m a huge believer in the power of science and innovation to help people lead long, healthy lives.” Gates said. “But one of the big lessons I’ve learned is that the benefits don’t automatically reach everyone. To do that, the people creating new breakthroughs, the people funding them, and the people getting them into the world all need to prioritize equity.”
Gates’ remarks were followed by a Q&A session with the audience. In his answers, Gates emphasized ways he sees Nigeria’s youth collaborating across sectors and encouraging the country’s leaders to follow through on commitments to make life in Nigeria better for everyone.
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
Somewhere at the intersection of money and climate are more than 600 million Africans who don’t have access to electricity, 890 million Africans without methods for clean cooking, dozens of African nations that depend on hydrocarbons to fund just about every service they provide, and African industrial development that can’t move forward unless it’s powered by fossil fuels.
Yet this week, the politicians, banking experts, civil society group leaders, and others who are gathering at that intersection — at a two-day event organized by French President Emmanuel Macron called The Summit for a New Global Financing Pact — are pushing an agenda that appears to be putting financing for African natural gas projects, the presumptive solution to many of the continent’s poverty woes, on the back burner, no pun intended.
The Paris summit was designed to lay the groundwork “for a new financial system suited to the common challenges of the 21st century, such as fighting inequalities and climate change and protecting biodiversity.” Though summit attendees didn’t arrive with an exact vision for what a new financial system would look like, their discussion is coalescing around four pillars:
Restore fiscal space to countries facing short-term difficulties, especially the most indebted countries.Foster private sector development in low-income countries.Encourage investment in “green” infrastructure for the energy transition in emerging and developing countries.Mobilize innovative financing for countries vulnerable to climate change. The truth is, we do need a new global financial system. It’s no secret that poor countries have more difficulty accessing financing for development projects that support economic and social growth than rich countries, and when they do, the cost of money is considerably higher, staggeringly so in some cases. It’s not unusual for rich countries to borrow capital at interest rates as low as 1%; for a poor nation with risky creditworthiness, the figure is more likely to be around 14%. Since the pandemic began, things have gotten even worse all around. Global debt has risen sharply, and amid additional borrowing, it’s become tougher for developing and low-income countries to repay their debts. As a result, those nations have been thrust into a vicious cycle of vulnerability, unable to grow their economies or, as the UN and summit attendees noted, to satisfy their Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). Being able to level the playing field and to create new financing sources is an honorable and perhaps overdue goal.
And, developing nations do need investment in green infrastructure. African nations need it — and welcome it.
It’s the missing wording in these pillars that that concerns me as I fear once again that the global path to net zero runs roughshod over African natural gas projects.
Valid Finance Concerns—Up to a Point
To understand how the summit arrived at its slate of priorities requires delving into something called the Bridgetown Initiative, a platform established by Barbadian Prime Minister Mia Mottley and named for the island nation’s capital city.
Since the COP26 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland, Mottley has been championing a new way for rich nations to finance poor nations in a climate crisis. The Bridgetown Initiative asks for development banks to lend an additional $1 trillion at below-market rates to developing nations for climate resilience. The plan also calls for a privately backed mechanism to fund both climate mitigation and reconstruction after a crisis.
NJ Ayuk, Executive Chairman of the African Energy Chamber, CEO of pan-African corporate law conglomerate Centurion Law Group
When Mottley — an outspoken critic of both the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF)— floated the Bridgetown Initiative at COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, late last year, the response was overwhelmingly positive. One observer said he had never before seen the level of consensus and momentum around a single set of ideas.
Macron seized on the Bridgetown agenda. Like Mottley, Macron appears to be no great fan of the World Bank or IMF, even though France is one of the World Bank’s biggest stakeholders. Without naming names, Macron has said that current financial institutions have not delivered measurable results on climate finance to poor countries. (Western nations were infuriated when World Bank’s then-president David Malpass refused at a New York Times event in September 2022 to say whether the burning of oil, gas, and coal was driving climate change. The subsequent uproar led to his resignation in February of this year. Detractors said that under Malpass’ leadership, the World Bank did too little to “align its lending with international efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and [moved] too slowly to help poor countries deal with climate impacts” — while it continues to fund oil and gas projects.)
Macron said that to fight poverty, decarbonize the world’s economies, and protect biodiversity, the rules of international finance have to be reset. Countries must be able to invest in sustainable development through easier access to international, domestic, public, and private financing in all its forms: concessional loans, guarantees, debt swaps, carbon markets, hybrid financing, and investments.
The Summit for a New Global Financing Pact is meant to serve as a sort of global think tank to determine the long-term strategies, multi-stake partnerships, and detailed investment plans that would allow governments to “mobilize incentives for a more targeted and efficient use of both international and domestic resources.”
And, again, that’s an excellent idea. But the brainstorming that takes place this week will be doing developing countries, including Africa’s gas-producing nations, a disservice if it focuses solely on green energy financing. I would also argue that while I recognize the need to prevent climate change and address the overall impact of the energy industry, not all fossil fuels have the same impact on the environment. Natural gas is a cleaner-burning fossil fuel than oil or coal, and it can play a significant role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It has a critical role to play in just energy transitions for many developing nations, including those in Africa.
To truly support developing nations, wealthier nations must accept that reality. Unfortunately, that’s not what we’re seeing.
Look at Afrieximbank’s Excellent Example
In the run-up to the summit, there have been increasing calls for lenders of all types to reassess and reconfigure their portfolios. That includes Africa’s important domestic banks.
For example, earlier this month, African civil society organizations urged the African Export-Import Bank (Afrieximbank) to “invest in clean energy projects that focus on regional integration of the power sector,” and to pull back on financing oil and gas projects that undermine “our efforts to achieve 1.5 degrees climate target and the Sustainable Development Goals.”
As the trade finance bank of Africa, Afrieximbank is motivated to see African economies, businesses, and people prosper. To that end, it supports a range of clients, including domestic energy companies.
Last November, for example, the bank signed a reserve-based lending facility term sheet with Nigerian independent oil and gas company Amni Petroleum. The USD635 million facility will allow Amni Petroleum to fund capital expenditure in the Okoro and Tubu oil and gas fields and is expected to help the company more than double its oil production in less than a year, boost liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports, and provide fuel for power generation across West Africa. This is a game-changing opportunity for a Nigerian company with Nigerian workers that will provide revenues to the Nigerian government. How could Afreximbank turn its back on that?
At almost exactly the same time, however, Afreximbank pledged USD250 billion to bridge the climate finance gap, ensuring it would have a major role in “revitalizing Africa’s climate adaptation and mitigation initiatives.”
To me, what this proves is that financing hydrocarbon projects and green energy can go hand-in-hand. In fact, monetizing our vast reserves of natural gas can provide the financial wherewithal to help us pay for our logical, sustainable transition to renewables.
This is No Time to Turn Our Backs on Gas
Again, the problem is that the green agenda ignores how important natural gas is to bringing life-changing prosperity to the continent in the form of jobs, business opportunities, capacity building, and, yes, electricity. Gas-to-power is nothing less than central to Africa’s economic and industrial future. Aligned with the UN SDG 7.1, the Africa Just and Affordable Energy Transition Initiative (AJAETI) hopes to leverage natural gas to bring affordable energy to 300 million Africans over the next four years and to transition them to clean cooking fuels. What’s more, it expects to increase access to electricity from renewables by 25% over the same period. As for Africa’s much-needed industrialization, we all know that’s not possible solely with wind or solar power, at least not with the technologies available now.
All of this requires money.
As I’ve written time and time again, we cannot allow the green agenda of other nations to ignore or dismiss our unique needs and priorities. Prioritizing the financing of green projects won’t work for Africa when it leaves resources in the ground that could be used to lift people out of poverty. We cannot hope to meet the UN’s sustainable development goals without energy access, and we must exploit oil and natural gas to do that. Further, as Namibia’s petroleum commissioner Maggy Shino reminded us at COP27, previous promises by wealthy nations to work alongside Africa to finance clean energy remain unkept.
“If you are going to tell us to leave our resources in the ground, then you must be prepared to offer sufficient compensation, but I don’t think anyone has yet come out to make such an offer,” she said.
The fact is, African resources offer an avenue toward a greener and more prosperous future, and not just for Africa. This is where the intersection of money and climate represents the best of all worlds.
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 South African comedian and author Trevor Noah, who until recently was the host of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, has inked a deal with Spotify to produce a podcast for the streaming audio platform.
“The weekly podcast will blend Trevor’s signature humour and razor-sharp wit with his global perspective to deliver a unique take on the hottest and most captivating topics of the moment,” Spotify said in a statement on Tuesday. It will be launched “later this year”.
The format will include in-depth conversations between Noah and “influential and interesting figures around the world”.
Trevor Noah
The news was revealed during a conversation between Trevor Noah and Spotify CEO Daniel Ek at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity in France.
New technologies
“In addition to his new podcast announcement, Trevor and Daniel discussed navigating different mediums to forge a deeper connection with audiences and how creators can effectively leverage new technologies in an ever-evolving media landscape,” Spotify said.
Terms of the agreement between Spotify and Noah were not disclosed, though it’s fair to assume Spotify will be paying big money to lure the well-known comedian. Spotify reportedly paid US$200-million to Joe Rogan to move his podcast to the platform exclusively. Noah’s new podcast will not be exclusive.
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 International Monetary Fund is working on a platform for central bank digital currencies (CDBCs) to enable transactions between countries,this was made known by the IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva early this week during a visit to Rabat, Morocco.
“CBDCs should not be fragmented national propositions… To have more efficient and fairer transactions, we need systems that connect countries: we need interoperability.” Georgieva told a conference attended by African central banks in Rabat, Morocco.
African Startups
“For this reason, at the IMF we are working on the concept of a global CBDC platform,” she said.
To have more efficient and fairer transactions, we need systems that connect countries: we need interoperability
The IMF wants central banks to agree on a common regulatory framework for digital currencies that will allow global interoperability. Failure to agree on a common platform would create a vacuum that would likely be filled by cryptocurrencies, she said.
A CBDC is a digital currency controlled by the central bank, while cryptocurrencies are nearly always decentralised. Already 114 central banks, including the South African Reserve Bank, are at some stage of CBDC exploration, “with about 10 already crossing the finish line”, she said.
“If countries develop CDBCs only for domestic deployment, we are under utilising their capacity,” she added.
CBDCs could also help promote financial inclusion and make remittances cheaper, she said, noting that the average cost of money transfers stands at 6.3% amounting to US$44-billion annually.
Georgieva stressed that CBDCs should be backed by assets and added that cryptocurrencies are an investment opportunity when backed by assets, but when they are not they are “speculative
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
United Kingdom Visas & Immigration (UKVI) is introducing a new, globally consistent, digital process for applying online for a UK visa and offers customers a safer, more convenient way of paying for visas.
From 20 June 2023, all applications made in Morocco for a UK visa must be paid using an online payment process. Currently, customers have the choice to pay cash at the Visa Application Centre or to use the official UK government website to pay for their visa application.
British High Commission
These changes are being introduced to streamline the payment process and to bring Morocco in line with other key international markets, as the ability to pay for a UK visa in cash becomes an anomaly.
All customers wishing to apply for a UK visa must make an online payment on the official UK government website before submitting their passport and biometrics at their designated Visa Application Centre.
Speaking on the development, Simon Martin, British High Ambassador to Morocco, said that “The UK continues to be a popular choice for those wishing to work, study or just visit. In the year ending December 2022, over 19,000 visas were issued to Moroccan nationals, a 65% increase from the previous year. Now is the time to adopt a fully digital approach to visa payments and streamline the payment process for applicants from across the globe.”
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 Data Centres (www.AfricaDataCentres.com), a business of Cassava Technologies group, is pleased to announce that the London Internet Exchange (LINX) (www.LINX.net) has brought them on board as a full point of presence (PoP) for the new East African interconnection hub, LINX Nairobi (https://apo-opa.info/43TVYhp).
The announcement follows news (https://apo-opa.info/3JpfWbM) of a strategic partnership last month between the two organisations, to ensure growth and opportunities across new markets in Africa, to enhance connectivity, and bring digital services to citizens.
LINX Nairobi is set to go live in the coming weeks and is the region’s first interconnected, multi-site Internet Exchange Point (IXP). The technical specification of the platform mirrors LINX’s designs in the UK and the US, offering redundancy and resilience for networks peering there.
Stephane Duproz, CEO at Africa Data Centres
Kenya is in a unique position to serve the entire East Africa region with its fast-growing fibre connectivity, through the well-connected submarine cable network that has pathways to Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.
With this announcement, customers at the Africa Data Centre’s NBO1 (https://apo-opa.info/3pdeBxO) facility in Nairobi will have direct access to the new LINX Nairobi peering community in Kenya via a single cross-connect and will also benefit from additional services such as LINX’s around-the-clock, on-call support and portal access.
In addition, networks that connect to LINX Nairobi from any of the data centre locations will be able to set up peering arrangements with each other, building a strong digital ecosystem in the area and encouraging traffic to be kept local.
According to Nurani Nimpuno, Head of Global Engagement for LINX “With LINX Nairobi, we are not only creating a hub for Kenya, but for all of East Africa. The rapidly growing region has a huge demand for low latency, high-speed, improved interconnectivity. LINX Nairobi will not only serve local networks, but also attract international Internet providers and hyperscalers.”
“ADC has already grown an impressive portfolio of networks at its Nairobi data centre, so it makes absolute sense for LINX to work with ADC. LINX Nairobi will enable connections for all networks collocated at ADC and we welcome them into the new LINX Nairobi ecosystem.”
Tesh Durvasula, CEO of Africa Data Centres adds that “By adding the LINX PoP in our NBO1 facility, we are able to better support our customers with an even greater variety of interconnection options than we have today.”
He says Africa Data Centres partnership with LINX highlights the company’s strong growth and momentum. “We are very pleased to be working together to further enhance our ecosystem to create more interconnection and peering options to strengthen our ecosystem.”
According to Durvasula, most modern businesses have adopted a hybrid model of private and public clouds for their workloads. “As a result, there is a substantial amount of network traffic flowing between data centres, cloud providers, customers making use of cloud services, and ultimately, end-users.”
This could present a significant challenge for entities that operate these hybrid environments, as often the available connectivity fails to provide the necessary speed and reliability to handle such high volumes of traffic.
“Having an effective interconnection strategy in place is critical for businesses across the globe as it ensures the efficient distribution of workloads throughout the entire infrastructure, fueling an integrated and resilient network. This PoP is just one more way in which Africa Data Centres is helping businesses across Africa connect to the rest of the world while keeping their data within their own borders,” Durvasula ends.
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
MultiChoice Group has announced that it will launch an overhauled version of its streaming platform, Showmax, before the end of the year. This was made known by the CEO Calvo Mawela. Mawela, said “version 2” of Showmax will include strategic and technical input from new partner and co-investor NBCUniversal.
MultiChoice announced in March that NBCUniversal would acquire a 30% stake in Showmax as part of a plan to build the leading internet video streaming platform in Africa.
Showmax version 2 will launch in the fourth quarter with a broader line-up of content…
The agreement, which includes NBCUniversal sister company Sky – both firms are owned by Nasdaq-listed media giant Comcast — includes the supply of technology as well as new content to Showmax subscribers. MultiChoice has retained a 70% stake in the business.
Calvo Mawela, MultiChoice Group chief executive officer
“Powered by Peacock’s leading, globally scaled technology, Showmax subscribers will have access to an extensive premium content portfolio, bringing African audiences the best of local and international programming,” MultiChoice said in March. Peacock is NBCUniversal’s streaming platform.
“The service will combine MultiChoice’s accelerating investment in local content with a pipeline of award-winning and critically acclaimed international content licensed from NBCUniversal and Sky, third-party content from HBO, Warner Brothers International, Sony and others, as well as live English Premier League football.”
‘Secure pipeline’
Mawela has now told TechCentral that the deal with NBCUniversal means Showmax has a “secure pipeline” of international content “over a long period”. Showmax can also “source the best in technology because they have more engineers than we can ever hire”.
“Showmax version 2 will launch in the fourth quarter with a broader line-up of content, a better product offering, better user interface and more streams on live sport, and will be underpinned by the English Premier League,” he added.
Showmax will remain a separate offering, distinct from DStv and “appealing to a streaming population that continues to grow” and who “might want sport as part of that offering”.
Meanwhile, a television hardware solution being developed in partnership with Sky called DStv Glass will launch within the next 18 months in South Africa, Mawela said. DStv Glass, which will offer a flat-screen TV and integrated soundbar, along with a slick new user interface, had been expected to be available for sale this year, but was delayed to tweak the offering further for local audience needs.
“As we got deeper into discussions … we began to realise that our markets (the UK and South Africa) are totally different. The kind of streaming they are used to is not the same as here. We have lower bitrates. We realised we needed a bespoke offering that can address the conditions that DStv Glass will operate under in our market. Was the hardware going to be too expensive? No, it’s more about the features that come through. It has to do with broadband penetration,” he said. Mawela committed to the launch of DStv Glass in 2024.
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 African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) (www.Afreximbank.com) today in Accra launched its wholly owned insurance management services subsidiary, AFREXInsure, with a commitment to provide a single-entry point for all specialty insurance needs to assist in optimally managing related risks for the trade and commerce sector in Africa.
Established in 2021, AFREXInsure is set up to offer specialty insurance solutions for trade and trade-related investments across Africa with access to quality, best-in-breed specialty insurance that are tailor-made for Africa.
Professor Benedict Oramah, president, Afriexim Bank
With credible knowledge of Africa, AFREXInsure will leverage on its risk expertise by using its continent-wide presence and deep understanding of the African market to provide solutions around cargo handling, construction, operations and energy – sectors critical for the growth and establishment of trade and investment intercontinentally.
Speaking during the launch, which took place on the sidelines of Afreximbank’s 30th Anniversary Annual Meetings, Kanayo Awani, Executive Vice President, Intra-African Trade Bank, speaking on behalf of Prof. Benedict Oramah, President and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Afreximbank, said that AFREXInsure was established to facilitate the insurance of specialty risks in order to support businesses in Afreximbank member countries to mitigate the problem of Africa having to rely on external partners to architect the continent’s economic resilience and development.
“By reducing the risk of transactions or investments, insurance can help drive forward business strategy for those engaged in intra-African trade and enable global partners to further their commercial interests and ambitions in Africa,” said Ms. Awani.
Insurance penetration is relatively low in Africa compared to other regions, she noted. AFREXInsure will, therefore, strengthen efforts to address this need in Africa and in partner states in the Caribbean. It will also help retain insurance premiums in Africa and assist in ploughing back Africa’s investments into the continent for the enhancement of trade and economic development for the prosperity of the continent.
The launch also witnessed the unveiling of AFREXInsure’s logo and brand identity under the slogan “Insurance Optimised”.
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
