Author: Maingi Gichuku

The new three-year benchmark is priced with a spread of SOFR MS+25 basis points, equivalent to +12.5 basis points over the three-year US Treasury note.

The new standard pays a semi-annual coupon of 3.625 per cent. Morgan Stanley, Citi, Wells Fargo Securities, and TD Securities served as the joint lead managers for this transaction.

IFC achieves another outstanding result in the capital markets! Utilising the robust USD SSA primary market following the summer, the new three-year benchmark was oversubscribed by more than 2.4 times, with both a highly diversified and high-quality final order book.

IFC has succeeded in ensuring that its global annual outing encapsulates the broadest possible investor attention through coherent excellence in execution.…

The grant recipients in this year’s cohort, 50% of whom are women-owned enterprises, are from Kenya, Botswana, Ethiopia, Cameroon, Ghana, Rwanda, Nigeria, and South Africa. Senegal, and Uganda.

They specialise in sectors such as fintech, healthcare, e-commerce, logistics, agtech, education, hospitality and smart cities.

Although there are many opportunities in the vast continent of Africa, there is a lack of variety in the flow of venture capital funding.

“We expect that Black Founders Fund Program would be capable of bridging the gap of disproportionate funding between ex-pat businesses over local and black-led enterprises”, Folarin Aiyegbusi, Head of Startup Ecosystem Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), stated.…

Since he was appointed CEO of Absa in February 2013, he has led the lender’s seamless transition from Barclays Bank Kenya.

“I am delighted to have led Absa Kenya to great commercial milestones while making a contribution to our society over the last decade. I am optimistic that Absa will reach greater heights in the future,” Awori remarked upon leaving Absa.

Awori also served as the Kenya Bankers Association’s chairman for a year, from June 2013 to July 2014.

Before being appointed as Absa’s Chief Executive Officer, he was the CEO of Standard Chartered Tanzania from 2008 to 2013, rising from the bank’s sales director of Middle East, South Asia and Africa.…

While the hospitality sector was one of the most hit during the pandemic, it has also been among the fastest to rebound on the African continent.

According to a recent W Hospitality survey, hotel chains signed 447 transactions in 2021, and the number of rooms (80,291 rooms) added to their development pipeline is nearly the same to 2019

Marriott Hotel & Resorts, Hilton, and Radisson Blu are the most active hotel brands in terms of on-site construction.

According to the report, the on-site construction period is often beneficial to hotel chains and many others involved – a new hotel implies more jobs, tax money for the government, increased economic activity in the value chain, more advertising spending for the location, and so on.…

The new tariff policy, which took effect on September 1, is applicable to mineral and agricultural imports from Chad, Central African Republic (CAR), Eritrea, Djibouti, Mozambique, Guinea, Rwanda, Togo, and Sudan.

It comes on the heels of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s declaration at the China-Africa summit held in 2021 that measures would be taken to increase agricultural imports from Africa.

Xi stated at the time that the goal was to increase continental imports to US$300 billion (€302 billion) in the next three years, ultimately reaching US$300 billion per year by 2035.

Africa, which continues to export raw materials to China, accounts for a small portion of China’s imports.…

• The chosen Creators of Tomorrow are making waves in their online communities and demonstrating a best-in-class approach to video formats, technology, and interactive entertainment.
• Over the next year, Meta will work closely with these creators to help them increase their audiences and turn their interests into careers using Meta technologies.
• Meta will organise unique events across the region to honour the Creators of Tomorrow, presenting the most recent news, insights, tools, and resources from Meta technologies

Meta has announced the start of ‘Creators of Tomorrow,’ a new initiative that recognises young talents from across the world who are driving a new wave of creative material on the internet.

The campaign highlights Sub-Saharan African innovators from East Africa, Southern Africa, and Francophone Africa.

The chosen Creators of Tomorrow are making waves in their online communities and demonstrating a best-in-class approach to video formats, technology, and interactive entertainment.

The global campaign …

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has accorded a Switching and Processing License to Flutterwave, an African payments technology business. This is widely regarded as the CBN’s most significant payment processing licence.

Flutterwave can provide customers with transaction switching and card processing services with this licence. Other benefits include non-bank acquisition, agency banking, and payment gateways.

• The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has accorded a Switching and Processing License to Flutterwave, an African payments technology business.
• Flutterwave can provide customers with transaction switching and card processing services with this licence.
• Flutterwave is permitted to facilitate transactions between banks, fintechs, and other financial institutions thanks to the Switching and Processing licence
• Additionally, the company can handle card transactions, participate in agency banking, and provide payment services directly to customers

Flutterwave is permitted to facilitate transactions between banks, fintechs, and other financial institutions thanks to the Switching and Processing licence.

Additionally, …

Since he won the election last year, Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema has worked to repair relations with the IMF following tense times under his predecessor Edgar Lungu.

Under Lungu, who came to office in 2015, Zambia’s economy borrowed significantly to fund infrastructure projects. His unfriendly regulatory environment in the mining sector and a default on its Eurobonds in December 2020 shook investor confidence.

President Hichilema expressed his support for the agreement in a series of tweets, claiming that it helps to handle the nation’s debt load.…

Africa’s nascent digital sector is expanding thanks in large part to innovation. In reality, at least 1031 innovation centres were active throughout Africa as of October 2021, according to research by Briter Bridges and AfriLabs, and there is a strong desire to establish more.

These hubs include coworking spaces, incubators, and accelerators that promote the region’s transformational economic growth and development through entrepreneurship and innovation.

According to the Briter Bridges and AfriLabs study, Nigeria has the most densely populated ecosystem, with 164 operating hubs, 149 of which are domestic and 15 of which are foreign; Kenya and South Africa follow suit with 100 and 90 hubs each.

According to the survey, North Africa has rapidly expanded over the past five years, with over 200 hubs in Egypt, Tunisia, and Morocco.…

e-GUIDE, which has effectively utilised AI to forecast the amount of electricity used in Africa and evaluate the amount of energy put to productive use in the continent’s agricultural sector, will now be able to collaborate with Atlas AI on this endeavour.

Atlas AI, Founded in 2018 by The Rockefeller Foundation and a team of professors from Stanford University. Collects data from various planetary sensors and combines that information with deep learning AI technologies to track changes in the economic and societal well-being of the entire world.

Atlas AI possesses a wealth of experience in constructing hyperlocal socioeconomic datasets, predictive analytics models, and software platforms to assist in making complex policy and investment decisions.…