featured - itbusinessdirect

Amazon to launch an Amazon CloudFront Edge Location in Kenya

November 12, 2019

Kenya will be the latest country in Africa after South Africa to have the Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), Amazon CloudFront Edge location launched locally. The launch promises customers a fast and secure Content Delivery Network (CDN) that accelerates the delivery of applications, data, and videos to users worldwide, with high transfer speeds. Amazon Web Services says the Amazon CloudFront is expected to be operational in early 2020 promising up to 50 percent reduction in latency for delivery of content with the new Edge location. The AWS’s global infrastructure network,…

Miss.Africa Digital program announces the fourth round winners of its prestigious Africa focused seed fund

November 5, 2019November 6, 2019 Editor

Miss.Africa Digital, a DCA Digital Academy, pioneering Pan-African program of DotConnectAfrica (DCA) Trust, has published the winners of the fourth prestigious Africa-focused seed fund award. Since its inaugural round, the organization has now covered a total of 12 African nations KampaBits of Uganda a youth based organization that exists to positively change the lives of vulnerable youth in Uganda was the 2019 Grand Prize Winner while BasaliTech, Lesotho and Ace Commmunications, from The Gambia both took the second category prize. The Women-In-Tech seed fund award is now in its fourth…

Windows 7 end-of-life: Study Shows 59% of IT Professionals Have Not Migrated All Their Users to Windows 10

November 1, 2019

Ivanti, the company that unifies IT to better manage and secure the digital workplace, today announced survey results that capture the pain points and priorities of IT professionals when faced with migrating user devices to Windows 10. Surprisingly, 59% of IT professionals report that they still haven’t migrated all their users to Windows 10, despite the imminent end of regular support for Windows 7 on January 14, 2020. As many as 39% will not be completed with their Windows 10 migration projects in time for the January deadline. The study…

West African Market on the radar after Kenya’s Twiga Foods bags $30M Goldman Sachs boost

October 28, 2019 olivia Craig

Kenya’s Twiga Foods has raised a total of $30 million from lenders and investors led by Goldman Sachs. Top American investment bank Goldman Sachs is the latest to acquire a stake in Kenyan start-up Twiga Foods following a Sh2.44 billion ( $23.75 million) deal that will help the agro-based firm spread across the country and Africa. The B2B food distribution company financed $6.25 million of the funding in convertible debt and $23.75 million in equity, classified as a Series B round. IFC, TLcom Capital, and Creadev joined Goldman on the…

Global social media Ad spend to surpass print for the 1st time – Zenith Study

October 24, 2019 Editor

Social media will overtake print ad spend for the first time this year, becoming the third largest channel for advertising, according to the latest forecasts from Zenith. By offering sophisticated targeting capabilities and unparalleled reach for businesses of all sizes, social and search platforms have chipped away at traditional advertising sources. It’s predicted that growth will slow to 17 per cent in 2020 and then 13 per cent in 2021, at which point it will account for 16 per cent of the market. “Social media advertising gives brands the opportunity…

PayPal to enter China Market after a 70% stake acquisition in GoPay

October 23, 2019 olivia Craig

PayPal Becomes The First Foreign Payment Platform In China

PayPal will become one of the first international companies to gain a payments license in China, after news emerged that the state-owned People’s Bank of China (PBOC) has greenlighted PayPal’s acquisition of a majority stake in local company GoPay. PayPal, through one of its local China-based subsidiaries called Yinbaobao, will acquire a 70% stake in GoPay, according to a statement on GoPay’s website [in Chinese]. The deal is expected to close in Q4 2019. The company’s full statement on the acquisition is below: The People’s Bank of China has approved…

Jumia’s stock has reportedly lost more than half of its value since its NYSE public IPO

October 18, 2019 Staff Writer

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…

Singapore based Credit scoring fintech company, CredoLab, launches in Kenya

October 16, 2019

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…

Cellulant’s super payments app Tingg unveiled in 8 African countries

October 8, 2019

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…

The New Ethiopian Government to address the grievances raised over the issue of diaspora shares confiscated by NBE

September 24, 2019September 26, 2019 olivia Craig

Ethiopia’s 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…