Barclays Africa’s Blockchain Transaction A World First

It’s been a busy week for the continent’s fintech scene.

The past week saw MTN South Africa announce that it would be discontinuing its mobile money service due to “a lack of commercial viability”. This revelation comes just months after Vodacom South Africa ended its catastrophic attempt at copying and pasting Kenya’s M-Pesa magic.

Meanwhile, Madagascar became only the second African country after Tanzania to to roll out mobile money interoperability across the country’s mobile networks.

But easily one of the catchiest headline stories of the past week was about Barclays Africa’s involvement in what’s being celebrated as the very first blockchain verified financial transaction in the world by a major banking institution. The pilot deal between The Seychelles Trading Company Ltd. and Ornua saw the two companies harness a blockchain platform developed by Wave to trade a letter of credit. This transaction has to be Barclays’ most overt show of confidence in the potential of blockchain technology to deliver improved efficiencies in international trade.

Also in this week’s African Tech Round-up is a discussion I had with the Kenyan journalist, Eric Mugendi. Eric is Editor-at-large at iAfrikan.com, and also writes for his Tumbler called Kenyan Longreads. Eric joined me on the show to discuss the controversy that unfolded on Twitter around the African Tech Summit happening in London on September 29th. The event’s conspicuously mostly male, non-black/non-African speaker list included folks many people in the Twitterverse did not feel were representative of Africa’s tech ecosystem, and also managed to leave out many worthy participants. Eric and I went about unpacking the issues at play.

First published in AfricanTechRoundup.com.

Econet Wireless Set To Roll Out Shine’s Ad Blocking Service

Econet Wireless has recently announced that all ±40 million of their subscribers in Africa will benefit from Shine’s ad blocking software— starting with those in Zimbabwe.

This deal represents Shine’s first deployment on the continent, following partnerships they’ve struck with the likes of the Caribbean mobile operator, Digicel, and Three Group in the UK and Italy.

There’s no doubt about it, life is about to get a little tougher for online media platforms that rely on ad revenue to survive, as well as for web marketers that peddle online real estate. However, Econet’s subscribers are likely to relish the prospect of enjoying quicker loading times and cleaner web pages free from unsolicited advertisements.

In the discussion segment on this week’s African Tech Round-up, I chat to Scott Lyons of the Ford Motor Company. Scott leads Ford’s SYNC AppLink European Business and the Partner Development initiative within the Ford Connected Vehicle and Services Organisation. Our conversation touched on Ford’s plans to produce a fully autonomous vehicle by 2021, as per their announcement last week.

I also asked Scott to share what he makes of the disruptive influence of tech firms like Google and Uber on the traditional car manufacturing business, and asked him to let me in on the strategic thinking that went into choosing Morocco as the place to sponsor Ford’s latest Mobility Challenge aimed at promoting innovation in the country’s ride sharing scene.

First published on AfricanTechRoundup.com.

The Konga Conundrum: Is Nigeria’s E-Commerce Industry Stalling?

Who knew that a little quarterly update by a publicly-traded Swedish investment firm could get Nigeria’s e-commerce fraternity all worked up? Not me.

So, as Kinnevik was going about its business last week, the firm released its Second Quarter Report which detailed the performance of its subsidiaries around the world. That simple act of due diligence on Kinnevik’s part (which admittedly is something that happens every quarter without fail, but only garnered media attention in Nigeria this time round) allowed us all to get a sense of just how well Nigeria’s biggest e-commerce platform, Konga, is doing— which in turn fuelled speculation around the health of Nigeria’s e-commerce sector in general.

Perhaps the most shocking revelation contained in the report was that Konga only has 184,000 active customers— which translates to approximately 1.1% of the Nigerian population. In a word, that number is disappointing. It has lead to vigorous debate both on social media and in the blogosphere about why Nigeria’s e-commerce industry appears to be stalling, and what interventions may be required to turn the situation around.

This week’s African Tech Round-up features a chat I had with Nigerian angel investor and economics commentator, Eloho Omame, whose eloquent blog post on Medium entitled Thoughts around Kinnevik’s half year report and the e-commerce industry in Nigeria has to be one of the more balanced and constructive reviews of the current state of play in Nigeria’s e-commerce scene.

Listen in to hear Eloho unpack the insights laid out in her blog post, and explain why she believes that capital, capital and more capital might be just the thing to help Nigeria’s e-commerce industry live up to the great expectations currently placed upon it.

First published in AfricanTechRoundup.com.

Will Consolidated Media Plays Disrupt Telcos?

One of the more surprising things that came out of a recent conversation I had with BT’s Managing Director for Sub-Saharan Africa, Oliver Fortuin is his answer when I asked him (somewhat unfairly) what disruptive trend could potentially render BT redundant in the next decade. His answer? The trend towards consolidated media ownership. Listen in to this week’s African Tech Round-up to hear Oliver unpack that answer.

Meanwhile, the French Urban television network Trace TV’s acquisition of Kenyan, pan-African VOD service Buni.tv made headlines last week. Buni.tv is believed to be one of the largest African VOD services offering home-grown content. Trace TV has revealed that this acquisition is part of their plans to gear up for the launch of a VOD platform called Trace Play later in 2016.

Now, I reckon that aside from keeping an eye out for competitors like iROKOtv, DSTV and Netflix, aspiring VOD service providers like Trace TV would do well to anticipate the moves being made by the likes of South Africa’s Telkom, Zimbabwe’s Econet and offshore players like BT— because by Oliver’s own admission, incumbents like BT don’t plan to quietly “stay in their lane” and watch the world pass them by.

Uber Domination

Despite the considerable push-back Uber has experienced in certain African markets, the firm’s march towards utter and complete world domination continued last week as they launched in Tanzania’s capital city, Dar es Salaam.

Dar es Salaam is the 3rd African city Uber has taken to in as many weeks (following Luanda, Uganda and Accra, Ghana) and their 475th location worldwide. Since launching in Johannesburg in 2012, Uber has quietly gone about silencing many of the doubts that sceptics have had about the viability of their business model in African markets that typically show little regard to hype-driven startups that roll in from the West expecting an easy ride. (No pun intended.)

Basically, what might have appeared to some as being a casual African safari is gradually developing into a case study on lean, mean execution. Only time will tell if a home-grown platform like Little Cabs— the ride-hailing service Safaricom is set to launch, will be able to rain on Uber’s parade.

Be sure to listen into this week’s episode of the African Tech Round-up to hear my chat with Matthew Lee— a plumber turned corporate executive who now heads up African operations at the German open source software firm, Suse.

Matthew shares insights on how well Africa is keeping up with the rest of the world in terms of producing world-class software applications, and points out key growth areas that could benefit from the increased roll-out of OSS solutions.

First published on AfricanTechRoundup.com.

Is MTN Nigeria’s Nightmare Truly Over? feat. Charles Murray

I celebrated my birthday last Friday, on the same day MTN’s stock price on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange jumped by 20%. This happened in the wake of the news that the firm’s nine-month Nigerian nightmare might finally be coming to an end.

MTN has reportedly struck a deal with the Nigerian government, and is set to pay the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) $1.7 billion over three years— significantly less than the $5.2 billion they were initially fined for flouting SIM card registration regulations months ago.

While MTN’s shareholders are no doubt breathing a sigh of relief, the company is not out of the woods yet, as according to the NCC, one of the conditions linked to the monetary settlement is the requirement that MTN list its Nigerian subsidiary on the Nigerian Stock Exchange “as soon as is commercially and legally possible”.

The jury’s still out on whether this is the last we’ll hear of this story, given Nigeria’s National Assembly coming out strongly against the NCC’s reduction of MTN’s penalty. One thing is certain though, this case sets one heck of a precedent, and that can only bode well for corporate Africa.

Also in this week’s African Tech Round-up, we feature part of a conversation I had with Charles Murray— who is a director of the messaging and internet calling app, ttrumpet.

Listen in to hear Charles talking about why he reckons ttrumpet isn’t just another mobile app, and sharing some of the pressures and perks of growing a startup that is a subsidiary of relatively successful tech group (Fastcomm) backed by one of the continent’s wealthiest entrepreneurs, Patrice Motsepe.

First published in African Tech Round-up.

Uber Driver Partners Attacked In Johannesburg (feat. Brian Anderson)

Late last week a violent attack on two Uber partner vehicles in the Sandton Central Business District led to the injury of three police officers who attended the scene to calm things down, and also resulted in the damage of two law enforcement vehicles.

The assault on the Uber partners’ cars is said to have been carried out by a group of meter taxi drivers unhappy with Uber’s disruption of their livelihood. One man has reportedly been arrested in connection with the incident.

Meanwhile, the quiet chat I had with Brian Anderson, which is featured in this week’s African Tech Round-up in place of our regular debate segment, takes on a decidedly more civil tone. Brian is the Head of Sales and Business Development for Africa at NYSE-listed banking and payments technology firm, Fidelity National Information Services (FIS)— the company that acquired financial software company SunGuard late last year.

Listen in to hear Brian talk to me about an ambitious new platform that FIS is poised to launch to help promote financial inclusion on the continent.

And of course, Happy Africa Day to you all! Let’s keep it moving!

First published on AfricanTechRoundup.com

A Year Of Great African Tech Conversations

And so the African Tech Round-up’s First Birthday Celebration continues…

Over the past year, our sister podcast, African Tech Conversations, has featured relaxed in-depth chats with leading entrepreneurs, innovators and thought-leaders from Africa’s tech scene. In place of this week’s discussion on the African Tech Round-up, we’re sharing memorable moments from the series.

In this episode, you can look forward to hearing candid bits and insights courtesy of Mteto Nyathi, Alan Knott-Craig Jr, Matsi Modise, Ashley Veasey, Justin Spratt and Trevor Wolfe. We obviously couldn’t share snippets from every conversation we had, but you’re welcome to listen to every single one of them in their entirety at conversations.africantechroundup.com

By the way, Happy Birthday to my homeland— Zimbabwe!

First published on AfricanTechRoundup.com

Celebrating The African Tech Round-Up’s First Birthday!

The African Tech Round-up turns one today, and it’s difficult not be sentimental.

It’s been an incredibly rewarding year! We set out to provide some much-needed coverage of the biggest digital, tech and innovation news stories from the African continent— minus all the PR-soaked click-bait and consumer-driven tech chatter one tends to find all over the web. We’ve certainly done our best to deliver on that mandate.

In producing the show over the last 52 weeks, we hope that like us, you’ve come to better understand the intricacies of Africa’s emerging tech and innovation scene, and that you’ve found the discussions and debates we’ve engaged in as interesting and enlightening as we did.

To celebrate our anniversary, on this week’s episode, Tefo Mohapi and I will be sharing audio highlights from the past year. Do join us in revisiting great chats we’ve had with some of the more memorable guests we’ve had on the show– folks like Rebecca Enonchong, Emeka Okoye, Dominique Collett-Antolik, Mbwana Alliy, and others.

We’d like to thank you for supporting this podcast by listening in every week, sharing it with other people, and engaging with us on social media, via email and by sending us audio voice notes that we shared on past episodes of the show. We’re excited to witness the community that is forming around this platform. Let’s keep talking!

Finally, we dedicate everything we’ve so far achieved, and everything we purpose to do going forward to you, and all the other incredible people of the Motherland who continue to work tirelessly in trenches of leading firms and emerging startups alike, to make Africa great.

First published on AfricanTechRoundup.com.

Nigerian House of Representatives Calls For MTN Nigeria To Pay Over $10bn

MTN’s West African headache is now officially a chronic migraine.

Just as the MTN Group thought the worst was over, lawmakers in Nigeria’s House of Representatives decided to shake things up. Some members have declared any concession (promised or granted by the Nigerian Communications Commission) in terms of the $5.2 billion fine that MTN Nigeria was charged some months ago, “unlawful”. Others have gone as far as saying that if Nigerian law is correctly applied, the fine ought to be doubled. We’ll definitely be keeping a close eye on this situation for you, so keep it locked.

In place of this week’s discussion on the African Tech Round-up, we’ve published a clip from my recent chat with two well-regarded poster boys from South Africa’s tech startup scene: Lungisa Matshoba, of Cape Town-based fintech startup, Yoco, and Shafin Anwarsha, of the Johannesburg-based mobile recruitment startup, Giraffe.

Listen in to hear Lungisa and Shafin share key growth metrics for their respective businesses, and explain why African startups are so secretive with their numbers.

First published in African Tech Round-up.