Nigeria’s Digital Currency, Kenya’s Afluence & Somalia’s First Visa Card | The Round-up

10 Aug

Hello people, it’s August. Can you believe, we are already halfway through 2021? We can’t either. As usual, we have another monthly roundup for you, inclusive of the most exciting news out of Africa. This month we explore Nigeria’s launch of its digital currency, as well as news from AppsFlyer, Visa and Voltron Capital, amongst others. Here’s the roundup.

Nigeria to launch its own digital currency
Earlier this year in June, Nigeria announced plans to launch its own digital currency. Finally, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has confirmed it will launch the pilot scheme of its digital currency by October 1, 2021, to include macro-management and growth, cross border trade facilitation, financial inclusion, monetary policy effectiveness, improved payment efficiency, revenue tax collection, remittance improvement, and targeted social intervention. This is following extensive research that has been undertaken by the apex bank since 2017.

In a statement by CBN’s Director of Information Technology, Rakiya Mohammed, the CBN said about 80% of central banks globally are currently exploring the possibility of issuing their central bank digital currency (CBDC) and Nigeria could not be left behind. The project name is tagged ‘GIANT’ and it will use the Hyperledger Fabric blockchain, an open-source project that acts as a foundation for developing blockchain-based products, solutions, and applications using plug-and-play components that are aimed for use within private enterprises.

It is no wonder that the CBN, in February 2021, banned the trading of cryptocurrencies in the country, claiming that cryptocurrencies pose the risk of loss of investments, money laundering, terrorism financing, illicit fund flows and other criminal activities. It’s quite clear they wanted to have some sort of monopoly.

Here is a roundup of other news stories from the African startup scene in June:

In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Facebook has partnered with pan-African technology group, Liquid Intelligent Technologies, to build a long haul and metro fibre network, to improve internet quality for 30 million people and provide regional connectivity for Central Africa. The build will be funded by Facebook but owned and operated by Liquid Intelligent Technologies.
In Mauritius, investors have unveiled plans of setting up a global multimedia hub, which will be Africa’s first integrated, international hub for the media and creative industries. The MediaCity project was conceived as a hub of creativity, innovation, and learning on the continent with both the infrastructure and technology to support this. MediaCity will be a gateway for Africa to fulfil its long-awaited creative and commercial potential, attracting world-class media and creative companies.
In Kenya, the cost of internet and calls could go higher if a proposed amendment in the Finance Bill 2021 to increase excise duty on the services is passed by July 1. The increase in the cost of the services will come as an increased burden to Kenyans who are still reeling from the economic effects of Covid-19.
Nigeria’s apex bank has moved to improve the public’s access to mobile money services in Nigeria. Released on the 9th of July, the Central Bank of Nigeria uploaded its Framework and Guidelines for Mobile Money Services to its website. The 40-page regulatory framework aims to help Nigerians access financial services and products through mobile money. Going forward, services like First Bank’s Firstmonie, Kudi Mobile, and MTN’s MoMo will be bound by the objectives of the framework which include promoting the safety of mobile money services, reduction of cash dominance in the economy, and providing an enabling environment for the adoption of mobile money services in the country.
A new report from AppsFlyer in partnership with Google tracked mobile app activities across three of Africa’s largest app markets (Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa) between Q1 2020 and Q1 2021. From the first half of 2020 to the first half of 2021, the African mobile app industry (which is predominantly Android) increased by 41% in overall installs. This was analyzed from 6,000 apps and 2 billion installs in the three markets. Nigeria registered the highest growth, with a 43% rise; South Africa’s market increased by 37% and Kenya increased 29%.
In partnership with the International Bank of Somalia (IBS Bank), Visa has launched Somalia’s first Visa card payment service, opening up Somalia to cashless payment services for international and local transactions. This is expected to boost confidence in the country’s financial and banking sector.
Nigeria expects to start auctioning spectrum for next-generation 5G network in the fourth quarter of this year. The country has undertaken 5G trials in selected locations in Nigeria with one undisclosed mobile operator. 5G networks will rely on denser arrays of small antennas and the cloud to offer data speeds that are much faster than current 4G networks and serve as critical infrastructure for a range of industries.
Kenya’s Afluence, a two-year-old startup with an AI-driven influencer marketing approach to measuring campaigns, announced that it has raised $1 million in seed investment led by Dubai-based EQ2 Ventures. Other investors include Antler East Africa, Oui Capital, ArabyAds and an unnamed European family office. Placing AI at the core of the product, the founders started AIfluence to accurately match influencers to brands, run end-to-end influencer marketing campaigns and bring transparency to the measurement of impact (ROI).
Nigeria’s Olumide Soyombo, one of the country’s high-profile angel investors is has launched a fund for African startups, Voltron Capital, seven years after investing on his own. The company will invest in pan-African pre-seed and seed firms for elite tech founders tackling critical problems in the continent’s largest markets.
In West Africa, PayQin, a cross-border payment startup that operates a comprehensive e-wallet service for the underbanked in West Africa, announced a new €300K seed investment round that takes the company’s funding up to $1 million. The company aims to reach one million daily transactions in a year and envisions a single payment area for the West African countries.