Author: Staff Writer

Etisalat Egypt customers can now purchase digital goods and services using their mobile phone number as a payment method. This is made possible by the launch of Direct Carrier Billing with Google through the partnership between Bango, TPAY, and Etisalat Egypt Direct Carrier Billing (DCB) is a payment method that…

The International Finance Corporation (IFC) is providing a €64 million ($70 million) loan to Morocco-based Equatorial Coca-Cola Bottling Company (ECCBC) to reduce its water and energy consumption across its operations in 13 countries in North and West Africa. ECCBC operates seven bottling plants and 44 production lines in Africa, producing, commercializing, and distributing…

Twitter’s Chief Twit, Elon Musk, announced that you would be able to do a video or voice chat from your Twitter handle to anyone on the platform. This ushers in the social messaging platform into the voice and chat messaging business like Instagram. He also mentioned that you can now react…

During its meeting on May 3rd, 2023, the Federal Executive Council of Nigeria approved the National Blockchain Policy for Nigeria. The Honourable Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Professor Isa Ali Ibrahim (Pantami), presented the memo that led to the approval of the policy. To develop the policy, stakeholders from…

Elon Musk announced that Twitter is purging the platform to remove accounts that have experienced no activity at all for several years. He followed up, saying that many accounts might experience in follower count. He also added in response to a question about username availability that “yes,” a lot of…

Traditional wet signatures have been the gold standard for signing documents for decades. They may be done in several forms, including inked signatures, stamps, marks, or seals. However, this traditional method is often time-consuming and limiting. Fortunately, as technology evolves, the way people affix their signatures on important official documents…

Fingo, a YC-backed Kenyan fintech, has partnered with Ecobank in Kenya to launch the first neobank in the country. Founded in 2021 by CEO Kiiru Muhoya,  James da Costa, Ian Njuguna and Gitari Tirima, Fingo is digital bank built for young Africans whose mission is to empower youths to create a wealthier Africa with…

Access Bank announced that it has gotten regulatory approval from the the Central Bank of Angola, Banco Nacional de Angola to acquire a majority stake in Finibanco Angola. This was contained in the group’s notice to the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) and obtained by Innovation Village. Finibanco Angola S.A. is…

Shopify announced that it is letting of 20% of its workforce and selling the logistics arm of its business in line with its decision to focus on its primary line of business. This was made known by Shopify CEO Tobias “Tobi” Lütke in a message titled “Important team and business…

Tech giant, Google, has commenced the roll-out of passkeys signalling a major step toward a “passwordless future.” According to Google in a post yesterday, it has “started rolling out support for passkeys across Google Accounts on all major platforms. They’ll be an additional option that people can use to sign…

Google has just tweeted about its first foldable smartphone, the Pixel Fold which is targeted to compete against Samsung’s Z Fold series It is expected that the full specs of the Pixel Fold will be unveiled on the 10th of May, 2023 when the tech giant is having its annual…

Airtel Nigeria has announced Carl Cruz as the new Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Airtel Networks Limited (Nigeria), taking over from C Surendran. His effective commencement date is Friday, 5th of May 2023. Before joining Airtel Nigeria, Carl Cruz was the CEO and Managing Director of Unilever in…

Ajay Banga has been selected as the 14th President of the World Bank for a five-year term beginning June 2, 2023. Nominated to the role by President Joe Biden in February, he will succeed David Malpass who resigned recently. This was confirmed in a press release by the World Bank on…

Treepz, the leading African mobility company, has re-launched its consumer facing app as a new innovation in Africa. It is the first car-sharing marketplace in Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, and Uganda created to serve more than 26 million vehicle owners in Africa today. The marketplace allows car owners to rent out…

NOMBA, formerly known as Kudi, announced that it has raised $30 million at a valuation of over $150 million. The Series-B funding round was led by San Francisco-based Base 10 Partners. Other participants include existing investors Partech and Khosla Ventures and new investors including including Helios Digital Ventures and Shopify (this is Its first investment…

Nigerian Securities and Exchange Commission has started accepting applications for its Regulatory Incubation (RI) program for FinTech firms operating or seeking to operate in the Nigerian Capital Market. The Regulatory Incubation was first discussed in a circular from Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in June 2021. Hitherto some fintech companies…

Nigeria’s Raw Materials Research and Development Council (RMRDC) announced that it has developed a cardiovascular drug from oyster mushrooms. The innovation is through patents created by the agency’s researchers and developed at the Professor Hussaini Ibrahim Technology and Innovation Center. According to Engr. Florence Madueguna, the Project officer at the centre,…

The Nigerian Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is reviewing applications for digital exchanges on a trial basis to expand market participation in the country. According to Abdulkadir Abbas, head of securities and investment services at the Abuja-based commission in an interview, the SEC is considering permitting tokenized coin offerings on…

ChatGPT’s service is now available in Italy, a couple of days after OpenAI announced a set of privacy controls for the generative AI chatbot. CEO Sam Altman tweeted about this stating that the company was excited that ChatGPT is available in again. In March, Italy’s data protection authority, Garante, imposed a…

OpenAI, the company behind the conversational AI model ChatGPT, has raised $300 million from venture capital firms at between $27 million and $29 billion valuation. According to a report from Techcrunch, , the firms include Tiger Global, Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Thrive, K2 Global and Founders Fund. This investment is different from…