July, 2020 - itbusinessdirect

Venture Vaya Africa, launches an electric taxi service

July 13, 2020May 22, 2023 Dianne Jacobs

Vaya Africa, a ride-hail mobility venture founded by Zimbabwean mogul Strive Masiyiwa, has launched an electric taxi service and charging network in Zimbabwe with plans to expand across the continent.

Venture Vaya Africa, launches an electric taxi service Vaya Africa, a ride-hail mobility venture founded by Zimbabwean mogul Strive Masiyiwa, has launched an electric taxi service and charging network in Zimbabwe with plans to expand across the continent. Vaya Africa, a company registered in Mauritius, responsible for the transport of people and goods in Africa and the generation of adjacent revenues in this sector, launched a new product on the Zimbabwean market. It is the electric vehicle called “Vaya Electric”. The South African headquarters of Vaya Africa has acquired a…

Tiktok experiences brief outage, launches new Ad Platform amidst calls for ban

July 10, 2020June 6, 2023 Editor

TikTok has had a difficult week, to say the least and rival Instagram just made it much harder. For a few hours on Thursday afternoon, videos that appeared on TikTok user pages, following feeds, and the For You Page all displayed broken Like totals for some users across the globe. TikTok showed that these videos had zero likes. “Earlier today, some of our users experienced app issues around notifications, the display of likes and view counts, and trouble loading videos on some pages of the app,” TikTok said in a…

Opinion: Factors that will likely shape ecommerce in the second half of 2020

July 8, 2020June 8, 2023 Editor

As we enter the second half of 2020, Dan Barker examines the key trends that are set to shape ecommerce, and how retailers can respond to them. The first half of 2020 has been eventful for ecommerce. Of course technical innovation has progressed: Shopify launched a marketplace, Google relaunched organic product listings, Facebook introduced ‘shops’, and thousands of other changes. But much of the first half of 2020 was shaped by a disease named after 2019. The effects of ‘SARS2’ on ecommerce are tough to overstate. Tens of thousands of…

Central Bank of Kenya Declines to cap the free M-Pesa transactions to five

July 7, 2020March 6, 2023 olivia Craig

Kenya’s leading telco Safaricom has lost the bid to cap free M-Pesa transactions to five. This comes after subscribers split high-value transfers to avoid paying transfer fees, costing it billions of shillings in revenues. The company had petitioned the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) to cap the number of multiple transactions between two numbers, according to a recent disclosure of conference call transcripts between Safaricom and investors seen by the Business Daily. Safaricom reported that customers were splitting high-value money transfers of as high as Sh60,000 to deals of below…

Opera’s Opay Pulls Plug on ORide, OCar, Shifts focus to eCommerce & payments

July 6, 2020June 8, 2023 Dianne Jacobs

News earlier in the week broke that Opera-backed Nigerian fintech startup, OPay has reportedly shut down all its business operations in Nigeria following a letter issued by its foreign investors amidst the poor economic climate caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.. A report claims that all verticals of the startup, including ride hailing, ORide and OTrike — which were still active in other states aside Lagos; the recently launched B2B and B2C eCommerce platforms, OMall and OTrade; OExpress for logistics; and food delivery feature, OFood will be closed down. Opay launched…

Amazon to manufacture self-driving cars after acquiring start-up Zoox for $1bn

July 3, 2020May 23, 2023 Dianne Jacobs

Amazon is making strides into developing its own self-driving vehicles, agreeing to buy Californian start-up Zoox in a deal said to be worth more than $1bn (£810m). The takeover was first reported by tech website The Information and was later confirmed by Amazon. Talks were said to have started between the two companies last month. Zoox’s chief executive Aicha Evans and chief technology officer Jesse Levinson will continue to lead the team as a standalone business after the deal has completed, Amazon said. The takeover is believed to be part of Amazon’s plans to begin…

Power Panel at DCA WebForum voice their thoughts on impact of COVID-19 SME Financing in Africa

July 3, 2020May 23, 2023 Dianne Jacobs

DCA WebForum Series 3 Executive Roundtable The Impact of COVID-19 on SME Financing in Africa

The DCA Group hosted an engaging and insightful Executive Roundtable conversation, with Top Industry and Business Leaders and Representatives of SMEs operating in African countries, as businesses and individuals globally seek solutions for the COVID 19 crisis to innovative ways to achieve their goals. The panel of distinguished speakers exchanged expert insights, practical approaches and good practices on the topic: The real effects on the ground for SME’s; the plans that are being implemented to curb further negative effects on the market; future strategies that organizations can rely on to…