Browsing: Nigeria

The visit by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to three African countries of Senegal, Angola, and Ethiopia is significant for the Trump administration not only as of the first trip the senior official has made to the continent, but a first for a senior official since the launch of the new strategy for Africa. The last time a senior official to visit sub-Sahara Africa was Pompeo’s predecessor, Rex Tillerson who lost his job while on a trip to Kenya.

Trump’s Africa Strategy was aimed at promoting prosperity, security, and stability in relations, and the business-friendly Prosper Africa which aims to substantially increase two-way trade and investment between the United States and Africa.

The leading issue will mainly be on security and counter-terrorism efforts mainly in the Sahel as well as the horn of Africa. Though Somalia has remained a point of discussion in terms of security, there is a …

Nigerian fintech start-up, Aella has raised a $10m debt financing round, from HQ Financial Group (HQF), Singapore-based private company specializing in new material science, semiconductor and blockchain financial investments.

This debt financing round is Aella’s second raise and will bolster the company’s commitment to serve the underbanked population in West Africa and other emerging markets. The FinTech is focused on improving financial inclusion for West Africa’s low-income segment.

Aella was founded in late 2015 by Akin Jones, CEO and Akanbi Wale, CTO in Lagos, Nigeria and has remained committed to building trustworthy credit for emerging markets with an initial focus on Nigeria and the Philippines, where the company is licensed to operate. Aella has made a visible impact on the lives of more than 300k borrowers across its Employer Backed and Direct to Consumer Verticals, who now have access to simple financial products.

For millions of poor and low-income households, …

In mid-January, US based financial whistleblower and research organization Hindenburg Research released a report titled’ The Phantom of the turn-around’ in which it questioned the operations of Opera, the Chinese owned browser whose popularity in Africa has remained high. What has followed is a series of class-action lawsuits by a dozen law firms in US and UK against the browser.

The research firm accused Opera of “developing predatory short-term loans in Africa and India, deploying deceptive ‘bait and switch’ tactics to lure in borrowers and charging egregious interest rates ranging from 365-876%.” This, the company says is going against Google policies of charging fair rates on short term loans.

According to financial firm Hindenburg Research, Opera has launched at least four payment apps under various developer accounts. There’s Okash and OPesa in Kenya, CashBean in India, and OPay in Nigeria.

It noted that Opera has scaled its “Fintech” segment from …

Cellulant Corporation – the pan-African technology company based in Kenya is known for developing revolutionary technologies to empower African commerce. Such a technology include blockchain-based Agrikore and Tingg, which are now being used across Africa as well as being imported to countries like Afghanistan.

These technologies have empowered Africa’s agriculture sector in the assurance to leverage on technology to help block inefficiency and wastages in Africa’s agricultural value chain courtesy of its improved payment and marketplace solutions, Tingg and Agrikore.

The Agriculture market in Africa, despite its $330billion size in 2015 and projected to grow to $1Trillion by 2030 is not organized. Agrikore provides this on its block-chain core. It makes this wealth addressable & accessible to all through a comprehensive system consisting of the technology, business processes, and operating models that deliver a systematic organization of the actors in Agriculture in a manner that is extremely de-risked and investable …

MTN, the South African telecoms group has said it will invest $1.6 billion in Nigeria days after Nigeria backed down on a $2 billion tax demand.

In a meeting with the president of Nigeria Muhammadu Buhari, a team of four top executives from MTN group and MTN Nigeria said they will invest the money over the next three years.

“MTN announced a capital investment programme of $1.6 billion over the next three years to strengthen and expand its network and operations in the country,” said the company in a statement after the meeting.
Nigeria’s President said, “that the Federal Government of Nigeria is committed to providing an enabling environment for businesses to succeed”.

Also Read: MTN Cameroon gets mobile money accreditation

MTN hopes that the peace pact will mark the end of four years of disputes with Nigeria, which at one time was threatening a fine of $5.2 billion, cut …

Nigeria exempts food from Value Added Tax (VAT) as it increases the tax to 7.5 per cent as it seeks to alleviate the cost burden from consumers.

The Value-added tax will be effective from February 1, 2020, the exception of bread, cereals, cooking oils, culinary herbs, fish, flour and starch, fruits, meat and poultry. Others are milk, nuts, pulses, vegetables, natural water, roots, salt, table water and sanitary towels.

On January 13, 2020, Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari signed into law the 2019 Finance Bill, increasing VAT and also exempted companies with less than $82,000 capital from paying tax.

Also Read:Nigeria takes on revenue boost and small business support for the economy

According to PWC (a global network of tax consulting form), 48 per cent of national GDP is contributed by SME’s in Nigeria, account for 96 per cent of businesses and 84 per cent of employment.

The Senior Special …

OPay, one of the fastest scaling growth companies in Africa, has announced that it raised $120 million of series B funding, less than 6 months after it announced its last funding round of $50 million in June.

The company, which was incubated by Norwegian based, global consumer Internet company Opera, is already Nigeria’s leading mobile wallet and motorbike ridesharing provider, and is rapidly expanding.

Series B investors included Meituan-Dianping, DragonBall Capital (The Investment fund backed by Meituan-Dianping), GaoRong Capital, Source Code Capital, SoftBank Ventures Asia, Bertelsmann Asia Investments (BAI), Redpoint China, IDG Capital, Sequoia Capital China and GSR Ventures.

OPay is one of the fastest growing companies in Nigeria, providing consumers with a wide range of services including mobile payments and transfers, ridesharing and food delivery. The company plans to use the new capital to further accelerate its expansion across its multiple verticals, as well as entering new African markets.…

Nigeria’s high food prices pushed annual inflation last month after borders with neighbouring countries were closed in a crackdown on smuggling.

In August, Nigeria closed parts of its borders to fight smuggling of rice and other goods.

The head of customs confirmed last month that all trade in goods through land borders had been halted indefinitely.

On Monday the National Bureau of Statistics said, Nigeria’s annual inflation was 11.61% in October a rise from 11.24% in September, noting that it is the highest rate since May 2018.

A separate food price index showed inflation at 14.09% in October, compared with 13.51% September.

“This rise in the food index was caused by increases in prices of meat, oils and fats, bread and cereals, potatoes, ham and other tubers, fish and vegetables,”  said the statistics office in its report.

The chief economist for Africa and the Middle East at Standard Chartered, Razia …

Nigeria’s largest retail lender Access Bank acquired Kenya’s Transnational Bank starting its plans to open shop in all major Eastern Africa markets.

The bank is in the process of acquiring 93.57 per cent shareholding in Kenya’s private owned Transnational Bank at an undisclosed fee as its further eyes Tanzania and Uganda.

The Kenyan acquisition is expected to be concluded in the next 30 to 60 days as it awaits regulatory approvals.
The bank said it was seeking to expand in the region through acquisitions and setting up greenfield operations so as to deepen competition for customers with local rivals.

The lender said it had drawn a five-year plan from 2018-2022 which seeks to raise its retail and wholesale banking business and position itself as the world’s most respected African bank.

Access Bank controls over $13 billion worth of assets and over 27 million customers. In its plan to track record …

Nigeria’s technology Co-creation Hub (CcHUB), has taken total ownership of Kenya’s iHub for an undisclosed fee. The deal will see iHub’s team become part of CcHUB’s wider central support and strategy network, whilst retaining its name and senior management structure.

This is the second change of ownership for iHub which was in 2017 acquired by venture capital firm BSP Fund LLC.

An industry first for the African tech hub community, the acquisition of East Africa’s most prolific and reputable technology centre is the next step for CcHUB as it continues its mission to connect entrepreneurs, technologists and public bodies across the continent.

The move comes just seven months after CcHUB expanded into Kigali, Rwanda, with the launch of its Design Lab – the first creative space in Africa to focus solely on product design and technology innovation.

iHub, launched in 2010, is home to internationally-recognized companies such as BRCK and …