Author: Akin Naphtal

Kenyan fintech startup Kwara has agreed to wholly acquire IRNET Coop Kenya, a software company which is a subsidiary of the Kenya Union of Savings and Credit Cooperatives (KUSCC), in a deal that will see it offer its banking software solutions and mobile banking channels to rapidly increase growth and profitability of SACCOs in Kenya. Founded in 2018 by Cynthia Wandia and David Hwan, Kwara has built a digital banking platform designed to help unbanked and underbanked individuals to build wealth together in a frictionless way. It offers a management platform to drive efficiency and automation at the cooperative staff…

Aligning to RBI’s initiative to drive credit growth on UPI, Innoviti Technologies (formerly, Innoviti Payment Solutions), India’s largest collaborative commerce platform, has enabled credit card transactions on Unified Payments Interface (UPI), making it India’s first SaaS omnichannel platform to power credit transactions for offline and online UPI payments. In an industry first move, bringing benefits to both customers and merchants, Innoviti has enabled this feature to benefit all end users. Credit card on UPI will now aid customers claim all the benefits of buying on credit including ease of pay later to fulfil all their aspirational purchases as well as…

What do you feel is the biggest strength of Huawei Kenya right now? Our biggest strength is the deep local roots we have built in Kenya over a period of 21 years. We have hundreds of local staff, many in senior positions, who have been with us for over a decade. We have tens of local sub-contractors and hundreds of partners for providing training, service and integrated solutions. Our relationships with local customers are also strong, based on our track record of high quality, leading innovation, and exceptional commitment to customer service. These local roots stand us in good stead.…

Ripjar, the trusted provider for tackling financial crime, has announced the appointment of Joe Whitfield-Seed as Chief Technology Officer (CTO). As CTO, Whitfield-Seed will be responsible for the vision, strategy, and delivery of solutions across Ripjar’s technology stack. He will lead the engineering team, implementing new artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) capabilities to drive growth and give customers the upper hand in the fight against terrorism, cyber-crime, money laundering and corruption. Whitfield-Seed has been an integral part of Ripjar since its inception in 2013. He worked in national security for five years before joining Ripjar as a founding…

World’s biggest crypto company, Binance has announced plans to increase its workforce in 2023 by between 15% and 30% amidst a tech industry downturn that has seen rival crypto exchange companies lay off employees, per a report by CNBC. During 2022, Binance increased its headcount from 3,000 to almost 8,000, according to CEO, Changpeng Zhao while speaking at the Crypto Finance Conference in Switzerland recently. READ ALSO:Africa Data Centres enables remote peering through the INX-ZA partnership Cloudflare Announces Expansion of Its Relationship with Microsoft Canada’s Iristel furthers global expansion with service introduction into Kenya Market With the new hiring drive,…

Africa Data Centres, a business of Cassava Technologies, a pan-African technology group, has announced it is now offering remote peering through its partnership with INX-ZA, further advancing the data centre giant’s development in sub-Saharan Africa. In essence, remote peering is peering at an Internet Exchange without the requirement of being physically present. Customers can use  any Network Service Provider’s infrastructure to reach the IXPs, so they do not need to invest in any extra  equipment. INX-ZA is a division of the Internet Service Providers’ Association (ISPA) of South Africa and operates a fully neutral, community-run Internet exchange point in South…

Cloudflare’s comprehensive email security & data protection tools has been announced and will help secure enterprises against phishing attacks On Tuesday Cloudflare announced Digital Experience Monitoring, an all-in-one dashboard that helps CIOs understand how critical applications and Internet services are performing across their entire corporate network. When employees left the office in 2020, IT teams suddenly lost crucial visibility, slowing them down, wasting countless hours in investigation, and clogging up valuable resources with maintenance. According to Gartner, “by 2026, at least 60% of I&O leaders will use Digital Experience Monitoring to measure application, services and endpoint performance from the user’s…

Cloudflare announced an expansion of its partnership with Microsoft to help joint customers easily deploy, automate, and enhance their organisation’s Zero Trust security. The new integrations between Cloudflare One and Microsoft Azure Active Directory aims to help businesses deploy seamless Zero Trust security without making modifications to lines of code Microsoft and Cloudflare operate on a tightly interconnected network, with 7 Private Network Interconnects (PNI) and 110+ public peerings. READ ALSO: Canada’s Iristel furthers global expansion with service introduction into Kenya Market Former ICASA Exec Joins MultiChoice Africa Report Shows Fintech is the Most Vibrant Sector in Kenya As Australian…

Iristel, a global telecommunications service provider, has announced its expansion into Kenya. This expansion provides Iristel a presence in Africa, as it looks to expand its wide range of communications solutions to new emerging markets. Company CEO Samer Bishay @SBishayIRIS states: “It is an exciting day as we are pleased to bring Kenya businesses carrier grade communication solutions. We will begin with our best-in-class wholesale services and expand our product offering in the coming months.” READ ALSO: Former ICASA Exec Joins MultiChoice Africa Report Shows Fintech is the Most Vibrant Sector in Kenya Google Plans to Charge 16% VAT on…

Apple is once again rumored to be introducing solid-state volume and power buttons with the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max, with respected industry analyst Ming-Chi Kuo claiming that the new devices will feature additional Taptic Engines to simulate the feel of physical buttons. Apple first introduced a non-moving solid-state home button with the iPhone 7, which simulated the feel of a physical press by using the Taptic Engines to mimic the feel of a press by providing haptic feedback to offer the illusion of clicking and moving parts. READ ALSO: IBM Australia Reaches Five-Year $725 million Agreement…