Hi guys, once again we are here with the Big 5 Daily, join us as we quickly run through the hottest and latest in African Tech News.
We start with a push forward in Fintech as Nigeria’s Flutterwave, in partnership with Visa launched GetBarter, a platform that will help facilitate smooth and seamless transactions within Africa — both in the country and across borders. The platform affords Visa Card Holder the ability to send and receive money locally and internationally. What we also find very interesting is that GetBarter will allow people who do not own Visa Cards to create a virtual equivalent to process their transactions. This is great news for Flutterwave and Africa at large.
Speaking about transactions, WorldRemit also launched its services in South Africa. The platform, which is globally known for its low-cost money transfer services will allow transactions to up to 145 countries including Zimbabwe, Mozambique, the United Kingdom, India and Pakistan. This is a huge step forward as South Africa is considered the most expensive G20 Country from which to send money.
On the Telecommunications side of things, Telco Systems; a company that serves internet and network solutions recently completed an extensive upgrade of the Kenya Education Network(KENET) – from 10GE to 100GE. This network is responsible for internet speed, access and data services within the university campuses and research facilities across the country. The upgrade will see an improved performance in KENET’s internet all round and is considered a step forward in their Education Sector
Still on Kenya and Telecommunications— Telkom plans to invest up to KSh.1Bn in their services for massive improvement. With this fund, they will not only roll out 3G and 4G services all over the country… but will also bring over 300,000 people into Kenya’s Communication grid. They also plan to invest in fibre networks to overall increase network reliability and accessibility.
And finally, yesterday, the London Stock Exchange group released the ‘Companies to inspire Africa 2019’ Report. The report uses hard data to identify and celebrate some of Africa’s most dynamic growth businesses, selecting both small entrepreneurial businesses and well-established corporations. It picked out 360 companies from 32 countries, 97 of which were Nigerian and Kenya following up with 66. It also noted that 23% of the Companies are led by women, almost a hundred percent increase on the figures recorded in 2017.
There you have it, the Big 5 Daily. Join us tomorrow for more.