House of reps oppose CBN’s social media KYC requirement

Lire en français

Read this email in French.

Editor’s Note

Week 29, 2023
Read time: 5 minutes

Hello 👋🏾

This week’s news roundup takes us on a journey across Nigeria, Kenya, Equatorial Guinea, and Egypt. Enjoy! Oh, before we dive in, can you to spare 3 minutes and fill out this survey? Your feedback means the world to us.

Pamela Tetteh Editor, TechCabal.

Editor’s Picks

CBN’s social media KYC rule to take a pause

Nigeria’s House of Representatives has asked the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to press the pause button on their plans to make social media handles a mandatory ID for know-your-customer (KYC) operations.

Lawyers caught using ChaGPT again

South African lawyers, in the midst of arguing a case at the regional court in Johannesburg, got caught red-handed for presenting fake precedents concocted from ChatGPT. This is not the first time such a thing has happened.

Learn more.

A swahili-speaking Bard

After some delays due to data privacy concerns, Google has announced the global debut of its multilibual AI chatbot, Bard. Swahili is the first African language the multilingual chatbot can speak.

Learn more.

Airtel launches 5G in Kenya

Airtel took the baton and became the second telecom company to launch 5G in Kenya. They followed in the footsteps of Safaricom, which launched their 5G back in October 2022. It’s a race to lightning-fast connectivity, and Kenya is zooming ahead at full speed.

Learn more.

NFCCPC and Google to weed out abusive loan apps

In a bid to protect lenders, Nigeria’s Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (NFCCPC)and Google app store are respectively working to weed out pesky loan apps.

Learn more.

Entering Tech

Interested in getting tech career resources and insights?.

Then sign up for Entering Tech to get started!

Egypt to launch satellite this year

Egypt’s space dreams are taking off! The Egyptian Space Agency is setting its sights on launching the NExSat-1 satellite before the year’s end.

Learn more.

Flutterwave to the rescue

Flutterwave has launched Tuition, a payment product enabling African users to pay school fees locally and abroad using local currencies. They’ve also partnered with IATA to enable airlines to receive payments in local currencies.

Learn more.

Safaricom to launch new VC funds

Safaricom is planning to set up two new venture capital subsidiaries which will be tasked with identifying and investing in tech startups in Kenya. Will they replace its $1 million fund, Spark Venture Fund?

Learn more.

Kenya pauses new Finance Act

Kenya’s Finance Act is causing quite a stir! Justice Mugure Thande has ordered a temporary stop to the implementation of the country’s freshly approved Finance Act 2023

Learn more.

Equatorial Guinea’s e-visa

Equatorial Guinea has partnered with VFS Global to launch a new e-visa service that aims to attract more tourists and business travellers to the country.

Learn more.

Who brought the money this week?

Nuru, a solar company in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), raised $40 million in equity funding.
MYDAWA, a Kenyan online pharmacy, received $20 million in an undisclosed round from Alta Semper Capital, a private equity firm.
Zuvy, a fintech company, secured $4.5 million in debt and equity funding from TLG Capital.
Egyptian fintech company Masroofi raised $1.5 million in an undisclosed round from undisclosed investors.
Kenya-based B2B company Revivo raised $ 635 K in pre-seed funding from Raba Partnership, Village Global, Musha Ventures, Satgana, and strategic business angels.