Good morning!
Meta platforms—Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp—were down yesterday, with over 40,000 people reporting that they were unable to access the platforms globally.
Meta has experienced at least two outages this year, with the most recent occurring in March. While Meta has not specified the cause of yesterday’s downtime, the last one was due to a technical glitch.
We decided to do a little comparison. TC Daily downtime in 2024: zero.
Fintech
Why are Nigerian regulators after fintechs?
The saying, “Please hug any Nigerian founder you see outside,” rings especially true for fintech executives in 2024. Besides navigating inflation and a volatile dollar, they operate under regulators that have banned customer onboarding for six weeks and are constantly imposing heavy fines.
The regulators have also ramped up the surprise inspections of fintech offices and increased KYC requirements to include address verification, doubling the cost of KYC processes.
This increase in compliance pressures across the board comes as Nigeria is desperate to get off the FATF Greylist (a list of countries which could be blacklisted in international finance) by reducing fraud and improving anti-money laundering practices.
Fintechs have faced heightened scrutiny after a 2023 report by Nigeria’s financial crime intelligence agency revealed that over 90% failed to report suspicious transactions. With most bank fraud occurring through digital channels, banks also blame the fintechs for fraud.
The fintechs have responded by hiring more compliance staff (some have 20), placing internal controls for suspicious transactions and reporting them, and physically verifying the addresses of customers and POS agents.
While the fintechs should have been doing this initially, they preferred operating in the regulatory grey zone due to a combination of lax KYC measures and weak oversight. But the events of 2024 ended that era, and now fintechs have to wear big pants.
Read About Moniepoint’s Impact on Pharmacies
Do you remember what you bought the last time you visited a pharmacy? Data from Moniepoint’s pharmacy case study reveals it was likely a painkiller. Click here to discover how Moniepoint is enabling access to healthcare through payments and funding for community pharmacies.
Fintech
Apple Pay launches in Egypt
Contactless payments are not yet ubiquitous in Africa. The reasons are threefold: in some countries, consumer education is lacking; others lack the necessary technology infrastructure; and some have no regulatory frameworks to support it.
Egypt falls into the first category. The country has the tech infrastructure—NFC-enabled cards and POS systems—but adoption remains slow.
Apple Pay, Apple’s contactless payment solution, has now launched in Egypt, marking its first expansion into Africa. Apple partnered with Egypt’s three largest banks by asset base: National Bank of Egypt, Banque Misr, and Commercial International Bank. These banks dominate Egypt’s banking sector and can potentially give Apple Pay access to nearly 40 million customers.
These banks will issue cards that can integrate with Apple Pay to provide contactless payment solutions.
The timing is right. Egypt has been working to encourage contactless payments, introducing tokenisation regulations in 2023 to allow smartphone-based card registrations. This framework creates a ready environment for Apple Pay’s entry.
However, Apple Pay’s reach is limited—it’s exclusive to iPhone users. While smartphone penetration is high in Egypt, iOS devices make up just 14% of the market. This significantly narrows Apple Pay’s adoption potential.
Still, this could also be a subtle Apple move to strengthen its presence in Egypt after the country announced new taxes on imported smartphones in November. Egypt, alongside South Africa and Nigeria, is a key market for imported smartphones in Africa, like Apple devices.
The difficult task here for Apple is to encourage people to buy more iOS devices in Egypt, despite the phone taxes—which is no easy task given the high cost of iPhones, strong competition from cheaper Android alternatives, and limited purchasing power in a price-sensitive market.
Despite its small market share, Apple is showing that it is keen on staying and participating in Africa. Apple Pay will enjoy a first-mover advantage in Egypt as other contactless payment solutions and competitors, Samsung Pay and Google Pay, are not yet available in the country.
Get Fincra’s Embedded Finance and BaaS Report 2024 for FREE
Fincra in collaboration with The Paypers have released the Embedded Finance and Banking-as-a-Service Report 2024. This report examines the key challenges and innovative solutions defining the future of seamless cross-border payments and remittances across the continent, among other topics, with key experts.
Internet
Starlink enters Cape Verde
On Tuesday, Cape Verde became the 17th African country to access Starlink services.
Earlier in October, Cape Verde’s regulatory authority, AgĂŞncia Reguladora Multissectorial da Economia (ARME), authorised Starlink to provide electronic communications services in the country.
Since 2023, Starlink has been on a rapid expansion across Africa. However, it has had to battle regulatory roadblocks in its entry into some parts of Africa.
Take Botswana for instance, where the satellite internet service provider (ISP) was first denied an operating licence, or Senegal where sellers of the products were arrested.
Although the ISP has seen significant adoption in some countries—through hardware rentals and cheap subscription pricing—it has also had to fend off competition from local telecommunications companies and internet service providers.
Safaricom, Kenya’s largest telco, called for stricter regulations on Starlink, arguing that the ISP should be required to pair up with local mobile operators and not be granted independent licences. Telcos in Nigeria, Zimbabwe and Cameroon, have also had similar complaints about lax regulatory requirements for the ISP and an inability to compete on pricing.
While Starlink has introduced rental options for its users in Kenya and cheap subscription plans, It remains to be seen how the satellite ISP will fare in Cape Verde and what unique pricing policies it will employ to lure users from local competition.
Introducing Paystack transfers in Kenya 
Paystack merchants in Kenya can now send single and bulk transfers to any Kenyan bank or MPESA account (including customer wallets, Paybills, and Tills) Learn more →
CRYPTO TRACKER
The World Wide Web3
Source:
|
Coin Name |
Current Value |
Day |
Month |
|---|---|---|---|
 Bitcoin |
$101,820 |
+ 4.69% |
+ 16.02% |
| Ether |
$3,871 |
+ 5.96% |
+ 17.22% |
| Pepe Unchained |
$0.0426 |
+ 82.26% |
+ 352.45% |
| Solana |
$229.08 |
+ 6.00% |
+ 5.21% |
* Data as of 04:00 AM WAT, December 12, 2024.
Events
- If you’re looking for an event to close out your year, our friends at Founder Institute Lagos are hosting Unwind 2.0, a Founder Institute hosted ecosystem event, on the 13th of December! The theme of the event is “How We Built It” and will feature firsthand insights from founders who’ve turned challenges into opportunities, and network with investors and other ecosystem players. So if you’re a founder, an investor, or a startup ecosystem enthusiast in Lagos, register for Unwind 2.0.
Entering Tech #80: How Joshua Udonne switched from engineering to growth- How East Africa’s regulatory environment is suffocating startups
- When disaster strikes, the world opens WhatsApp
- How are African startups using data to improve? Share your insights here.
Written by: Muktar Oladunmade, Emmanuel Nwosu, and Faith Omoniyi
Edited by:Timi Odueso
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I am the CEO of 9JAGISTLAND.My name is Adedeji Timothy and my co-owner is Oyekola Damilare.This blog is born out of our passion to educating to people in all aspect of internet life.We are enthusiastic about writing posts and articles online.
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