Author: Akin Naphtal

About 17 years after the Nigeria Internet Registration Association (NiRA) was formed, birthing the country’s code top-level domain (ccTLD), the .ng share of the nation’s identity on the Internet remains very low. The .ng is Nigeria’s identity on the World Wide Web (www). Checks showed that the .ng is 0.000504353 of the world’s 365.5 million registered and functional ccTLD. This is in spite of the country’s over 200 million estimated population and more than 100 million Internet users. For emphasis, a domain name is an identification string that defines a realm of administrative autonomy, authority or control within the Internet protocol. The right to use a domain…

Countries in sub-Saharan Africa have been worst-affected by Meta’s plan to discontinue its low-cost Express Wi-Fi internet, launched five years ago to drive connectivity in underserved regions. Meta (formerly Facebook) quietly issued this notice saying that it plans to wind down the program later this year. In countries like Kenya, however, the service has been off since mid-December 2020. The switch-off comes barely a year after Meta partnered with Eutelsat Konnect, a satellite operator, to expand the low-cost internet service in parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Kenya, Ivory Coast, Zambia, Cameroon, Ghana, Zimbabwe, Madagascar, Ghana, South Africa and Uganda. Other countries…

The Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) has termed as timely the Government decision to classify telecommunication infrastructure facilities as critical amid rising vandalism cases. Interior and Coordination of National Government Cabinet Secretary (CS) Fred Matiang’i last week gazetted several assets ranging from communication installations (including internet systems) as well as air navigation, petroleum storage and distribution systems as critical infrastructure facilities. Such installations will now be accorded enhanced security in a bid to deter vandalism after recent incidents of vandalism on power lines, telecommunication masts as well as road and railway facilities. Recently, a breakdown on the Kiambere-Embakasi high voltage…

Appoints Dr Olatunji as NDPB Pioneer National Commissioner The federal government of Nigeria has approved the establishment of the Nigeria Data Protection Bureau (NDPB). This followed a request made by the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof Isa Ali Ibrahim (Pantami). The NDPB has been established in line with global best practices and will focus on data protection and privacy for the country, among others, according to the statement signed by Spokesperson to the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Mrs Uwa Suleiman. The successful implementation of the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy (NDEPS) for a Digital Nigeria…

Kenya’s Lami has acquired fellow Nairobi-based insurtech startup Bluewave in order to drive rapid growth and expand its presence to new African markets. Founded by Jihan Abass in 2018, Lami is a digital insurance platform that enables partner businesses – including banks, tech companies, and other entities – to easily and seamlessly offer digital insurance products to their users via its API. The startup, which last year was chosen by Catalyst Fund as part of the eighth cohort of its inclusive fintech accelerator and also secured US$1.8 million in seed funding, can also be used by partner businesses to manage…

Meta Platforms, the company formerly known as Facebook, just had the worst trading day in its history as a public company. The company’s shares closed down more than 26% on Thursday, shaving off nearly $240 billion from its market value, after a rough earnings report released after trading hours on Wednesday. Not only did Meta (FB) report a rare and worse-than-expected profit decline during the final three months of last year, it laid out a series of challenges to its core advertising business and revealed for the first time just how much money it’s losing on its shift to the metaverse.  The company also reported a slight-but-striking decline…

This was revealed during the release of the end-of-year report on venture capital investments in Africa. Further checks in Crunchbase and Tracxn — platforms that track funding rounds in startups and private companies globally — reveal that the company closed the round in August 2021. PalmPay came into Nigeria’s payments scene in June 2019. Five months later, it launched with a $40 million seed round — the largest of its kind on the continent — from Chinese investors such as Chinese phone-maker Transsion via its Tecno subsidiary, NetEase and wireless communications hardware firm Mediatek. The startup also took money from Chinese investors for…

Nigerian mobility fintech startup Moove, Uber’s exclusive vehicle financing and vehicle supply partner in Sub-Saharan Africa, has secured US$10 million in debt financing to enable it to expand across key markets. Founded in 2019 by British-born Nigerians Ladi Delano and Jide Odunsi, who have successfully built three other businesses in Africa over the last eight years through venture studio Grace Lake Partners, Moove is democratising vehicle ownership in Africa by providing revenue-based vehicle financing to mobility entrepreneurs. Moove embeds its alternative credit-scoring technology onto ride-hailing and e-logistics platforms, which allows access to proprietary performance and revenue analytics of mobility entrepreneurs…

Setting up a bank can be a long, expensive process with complex regulatory and compliance hurdles to overcome. However, with the emergence of Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS), an entity can provide banking services without batting an eyelid. With BaaS, non-banks including FinTech, and other entities such as professional bodies or schools can offer their own branded financial products such as debit, credit, or loyalty cards. In other words, BaaS opens up banking to third parties supporting the evolution of new services and enabling greater financial transparency. BaaS is assuming great importance because it offers a great potential to expand banking services, disrupting…

MTN Nigeria has officially announced that its Series One offer for the sale of 575 million shares held by MTN Group in MTN Nigeria to Nigerian investors has been oversubscribed following the successful completion of the public offer on Tuesday. In a statement issued and signed by the company’s secretary, Uto Ukpanah, the offer was oversubscribed with a valid application for a total of 801.97 million units, leading to the activation clause of an additional 86.25 million MTN shares. “In all 661.25 million MTN Nigeria shares were allotted. A total of 126.720 retail investors submitted valid applications and received full…