Author: Staff Writer

The Central Bank of Kenya has ordered all financial institutions in Kenya to stop dealing with Flutterwave and Chipper Cash because “they are operating without licensing and authorisation by CBK.” According to Matu Mugo, CBK’s deputy director of bank supervision in the circular, “It has come to the attention of…

The Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) announced that Umba has bought 66.6% stake in Daraja, a Kenyan deposit-taking microfinance bank effective July 1, 2022. The acquisition follows requisite approvals by CBK and the National Treasury in May and June respectively. This acquisition comes after it raised $15 million in a…

Qwili, a South Africa based startup, announced that it has raised $1.2 million in a pre-seed funding round led by a South African venture capital firm named E4E Africa. Other participants in the funding round include Strat-Tech, Next Chymia, Untapped Global and Codec Ventures and angels like Ashwin Ravichandran and…

The Nigeria Startup Bill passed its third reading at the lower house of the country’s parliament, the House of Representatives yesterday 27th of July 2022. This follows the passage of the same bill by the Senate on Wednesday, July 20, 2022. This was announced via the Twitter page of the…

Spacefinish, a Nigerian innovative workspace solutions company, announced that it has been selected to design and build Twitter’s head office in Ghana. Though Twitter did not build its head office in Nigeria, a Nigerian company was called upon to design and build the office. As you might remember this raised…

Dropshipping is a method of selling products without ever owning the inventory. This is a retail fulfillment method in which eCommerce merchants have the products they sell pass through a third-party’s warehouse. This means they do not have to keep physical inventory but instead can rely on shipments from manufacturers…

Namibia now has an operational bitcoin Automated Teller Machine (ATM) at Maerua Mall in Windhoek via the Crypto Kiosk. With the Crypto kiosk, this will afford the Namibian residents the ability to convert the two world’s largest cryptocurrencies – Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) to the Namibian Dollar. A bitcoin…

Standard Chartered Bank in Nigeria has issued a statement notifying its customers that International transactions on the Naira Debit card will be suspended as from August 1, 2022. According to the bank in its statement, “Kindly be informed that effective August 1, 2022, International spend on our Naira Visa Debit…

The city of Dubai has unveiled its Dubai metaverse strategy which seeks to turn the city into one the world’s top 10 metaverse economies as well as a global hub for the metaverse community. According to an announcement published on the UAE official news agency WAM, the Dubai metaverse strategy aims…

Samsung has sent out invites for the next Galaxy UNPACKED 2022 which is taking place on the 10th of August. As can be seen from the invite, we should be expecting Samsung’s latest foldables. As we await the event, Samsung mobile president TM Roh has put out a blog post…

Amazon announced that it has entered an agreement to acquire One Medical, a human-centered, technology-powered U.S. primary care organization. One Medical, which went public in 2020, says it is on a mission to make quality care more affordable, accessible, and enjoyable through a seamless combination of in-person, digital, and virtual care services that…

Sudanese fintech Bloom announced that it has raised $6.5 million in a seed round involving Visa, Y Combinator, U.S.-based VCs Global Founders Capital (GFC) and Goodwater Capital and UAE-based early-stage firm VentureSouq. Other particpants in the round include angels Arash Ferdowsi, Dropbox co-founder; Nicolas Kopp, former U.S. CEO of N26;…

As you would recall, we reported a couple of days ago some African Fintech startups including Flutterwave, Busha suspended virtual card services due to suspension of services by a card partner. As reported also, we also stated that our preliminary investigation stated that the card partner was Union54 and we…

BFA Global’s Catalyst Fund announced that it has received $3.5 million from FSD Africa to boost the influence in Africa. Catalyst Fund, managed by BFA Global, is a global accelerator that supports inclusive tech innovators in emerging markets offering inclusive solutions for underserved and climate-vulnerable communities, and builds the local…

Strive Masiyiwa’s Cassava Technologies has secured a US$50 million investment from C5 Capital to accelerate Cassava’s growth in digital connectivity and inclusion in Africa. According to a statement from Cassava technologies, “the investment by C5 will contribute to the acceleration of the work that Cassava has undertaken to increase digital…

Some African fintechs including Flutterwave, Chippercash, Eversend, Busha have suspended their Virtual dollar card service indefinitely. The fintechs sent emails to their customers on Friday notifying them of this service unavailability as from the 17th of July, 2020. The fintechs all claim this service disruption is due to an update…

Ping Express CEO, Anslem Oshionebo and COO, Opeyemi Odeyale have been sentenced to 27 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to failure to maintain an effective anti-money laundering program. The IT/Business Development bagged a prison sentence of 42 months for his involvement. The company, Ping Express, faces five years…

Two Nigerian firms, Korapay and Kandon Technologies, have had their accounts frozen over claims that they are being used by fraudsters as conduits of international money laundering. This is coming just days after eight bank accounts including that of Flutterwave were also frozen over money laundering too. However Flutterwave has…

While the healthcare industry has been scrutinized for its slow-moving adaptation to current trends, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced it to quickly stand on its feet and start running to meet the rising demands of patients and consumers. This 2022, we’re already seeing several factors impacting the healthcare industry. In…

How many devices do you currently have on hand? How often have you checked your social media accounts in the last hour? When was the last time you played a video game? The answers to these questions may seem unrelated. Technology addiction is becoming more and more accurate and can…