Jumia, the ‘African’ ecommerce company that has its corporate headquarters in Dubai and operations in 14 African countries including Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria, continues to struggle after an initial good run at the New York Stock Exchange. It’s stock closed at $6.68, an all-time low, on Friday, with the market cap going down to ~$520 million. For the sake of context, the Rocket Internet-founded Jumia had become a unicorn (with a valuation of $1.08 billion) in 2016 (when it was known as Africa Internet Group or AIG) after raising…
Read MoreYear: 2019
CredoLab fintech company, new launch in Kenya
Alternative credit scoring fintech company, CredoLab, launched in Kenya recently is lined to drive financial inclusion by credit scoring more people, especially those who are new to bank and credit. CredoLab announced that it is in negotiations with the large financial institutions, digital banks, credit bureaus, consumer lenders and retail operations in Kenya. Michel Massain, Sales for Europe and Africa at CredoLab says, “With the trend in Kenya of banks shifting from traditional banking halls to digital platforms, our alternative credit scoring technology is perfectly timed to help lenders provide…
Read MoreCellulant’s super payments app Tingg unveiled in 8 African countries
Cellulant the African fintech company has Tuesday announced the launch of Tingg, an all-in-one, multi-functional consumer super app that will include a wide array of payment, commerce and financial services into a single platform that will revolutionize the way customers interact with digital payment services in the continent. The pan-African payments firm has been quietly building a payments super app to bring bill payments, remittances, lending, group investments, food and gas orders in one app in its eight markets across Africa. The firm has now announced a major rebrand of…
Read MoreGoogle’s Android Go, a New lightweight alternative for low-end phones.
Google is redesigning its Android Go — a lightweight alternative of its mobile platform design to run faster and smoothly on low-end phones. In a new blog post, the company says apps on Android 10 Go will now launch about 10 percent faster than they did on the older version. This improvement in speed has also made it possible for Google to include a new form of encryption for Go users without compromising overall performance. The Big G also boasts a series of new features for its lineup of Go…
Read MoreNew Ethiopian Government to address diaspora shares confiscated by NBE
Ethiopian parliament recently passed a bill to open up the country’s financial sector to an estimated five million citizens living abroad or with dual nationality, including allowing them to buy shares in local banks and start lending businesses. Reports Reuters The changes are part of a raft of economic reforms initiated by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed when he came to power last year, partly aimed at boosting the country’s foreign exchange reserves, which had dropped precariously low. “The law will enable the Ethiopian born diaspora to take part in the…
Read MoreCybercrime Report Tracks New Growing Threat of Networked Cybercrime
LexisNexis® Risk Solutions today released at the Digital Identity Summit its Cybercrime Report providing a comprehensive view into the shifting global fraud landscape from January 2019 through June 2019. During this period, the LexisNexis® Digital Identity Network® recorded 16.4 billion transactions, of which 277 million were human-initiated attacks, a 13% increase over the second half of 2018. The report highlights a shift toward networked, cross-organizational and cross-industry fraud, and gives insight into the evolution of bot attacks targeting new accounts in media and e-commerce. Key Findings from the LexisNexis Risk…
Read MoreNew Tesla Entry App Malfunction Locks Out Car Owners
Some Tesla owners reported being locked out of their vehicles on Monday evening because the electric car’s app was down. The problem is, app connectivity shouldn’t have any effect on unlocking a Tesla. Downdetector, a tracker for users to report technical difficulties with web-based services, also showed that many users were having trouble with Tesla’s app. @Tesla your server is down for maintenance and we’re locked out of the car. What’s your ETA? — Melissa Chan (@melissachanhk) September 2, 2019 On Monday, numerous drivers found their apps were down “for maintenance”…
Read MoreTala Microloan New Startup gains $110 Million In latest Funding
Tala, a Los Angeles startup that makes microloans to consumers and small business owners in emerging markets, is announcing today that it has raised $110 million in funding. The new Silicon Valley venture capital firm RPS Ventures, cofounded by Kabir Misra, former managing partner at Softbank’s $100 billion Vision Fund, is leading the round. Tala’s backers include PayPal, billionaire Steve Case’s VC firm Revolution, Chris Sacca’s Lowercase Capital and Data Collective, among others. The new funding values Tala at nearly $800 million, according to an investor. Tala has raised more…
Read MoreIntel unveils Nervana its first ever New AI-driven neural network chip
San Francisco: Intel has unveiled its first high-performance Artificial Intelligence (AI)-driven neural network chip “Nervana neural network” to meet the growing high-speed computing and robotics demand. The chip-maker showcased the Nervana neural network processors, with the NNP-T for training and the NNP-I for inference at the “Hot Chips 2019” conference at Stanford University in California on Tuesday. “To get to a future state of ‘AI everywhere,’ we’ll need to address the crush of data being generated and ensure enterprises are empowered to make efficient use of their data, processing it…
Read MoreApple Card just quietly launched, takes a new approach to credit cards use
Last week, Apple Card was launched, a new product that just might make the tech firm a lot of money. However there wasn’t much elation and ululation. This is because, anyone who put their name down to get Apple notifications likely got a highly personalized invitation about the product. To celebrate the launch, Apple didn’t release an expensive ad featuring exited customers, rather, Apple’s YouTube page was filled with explanatory videos. The Card is Apple’s different approach to credit cards use, statements are handled, and rewards are redeemed, without any…
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