Good morning. 
If you work in African tech, you probably know Kola Aina, the founding partner of Ventures Platform. If you don’t, then you probably know some of the 90 startups he has invested in: Paystack, Moniepoint, LemFi, Piggyvest, and OmniRetail.
For this week’s Ask an Investor, Muktar Oladunmade chats with Kola Aina about how founders should build companies, the future of his firm and exits, the rise of local investors in Africa, the companies he wishes he had invested in, and why art offers lessons for founders. Read it here.
Staying with big shifts in African tech, another edition of The New Wave: Francophone Africa goes up today, and this time, we’re breaking down everything on the region’s interoperability play in payments, and the opportunities and challenges it creates for innovation.
Keep an eye out today and ensure you don’t miss it.
Titan Trust Bank reaches completionPolicy
Kenyan bank staff lose cheap loan perks under new CBK rules
The Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) has ended preferential borrowing for bank employees, rejecting industry requests to exempt staff loans from its new risk-based pricing model. Starting March 2026, bank staff will pay the same rates as ordinary customers, ending the “employee discount” loans that once made the sector attractive to talent.
Essentially, the CBK is saying “no more special deals.” Every customer now gets loans priced based on market rates and risk, whether they work for the bank or not. The cheap loans—covering personal, car, and mortgage facilities—were a hidden salary perk for bank staff, now scrapped in the name of fair pricing across the system.
What’s happening now: Only foreign currency and fixed-rate loans are exempt. Despite lobbying from banks, manufacturers, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for exemptions covering staff loans and other employee lending benefits, the CBK insisted on ‘creating a level playing field.’ Banks and other stakeholders have until March 2026 to comply.
Bigger picture: While the policy aims to promote fairness, it erases a key perk banks used to attract talent. With discounted staff loans gone, lenders may need to rethink compensation packages as all borrowers face uniform, risk-based pricing.
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Banking
Union Bank completes merger with Titan Trust Bank after four years
Union Bank of Nigeria, one of the country’s oldest financial institutions, has completed its merger with Titan Trust Bank Limited after securing Central Bank approval.
The deal, which began in 2021 with the signing of an initial agreement, dragged on for four years as both banks worked through regulatory approvals and compliance hurdles.
State of play: Union Bank absorbs Titan Trust’s operations and assets while maintaining its own brand identity. Customer accounts remain unchanged, and services at Union Bank will continue as usual.
Bigger picture: The merger comes as Nigerian banks scramble to meet CBN’s recapitalisation requirements ahead of the March 2026 deadline. While GTBank has successfully raised fresh capital through rights issues and listing on the London Stock Exchange (LSE), others are choosing the merger route to avoid the threat of losing their licences. For Union Bank, the Titan Trust merger brings added scale and resources to stay competitive in Nigeria’s evolving banking landscape.
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Companies
South Africa’s Nedbank plugs into telecoms
Nedbank, one of South Africa’s largest banks, has quietly launched its own mobile network, Nedbank Connect, exclusive to its customers. This service offers month-to-month plans starting from $9.59 for unlimited calls, SMS, and 3GB of data.
This comes days after the bank acquired iKhokha, a local fintech startup, for over $93 million. This deal was finalised to strengthen Nedbank’s digital offering and SME banking edge. Now, in partnership with MTN South Africa, Nedbank has joined the ranks of banks that have crossed into the telecoms territory.
This is not just a side hustle. Nedbank is tightening its digital ecosystem. In an era where users are on the lookout for seamless digital services, Nedbank is betting that mobile connectivity can keep customers closer, while opening a new stream of revenue.
MVNOs are a trend in the banking sector. Nedbank is not the first bank to add connectivity to its offerings. Nedbank follows FNB Connect, FirstRand Bank’s mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), Standard Bank Connect, another MTN-powered MVNO, and Capitec Connect, South Africa’s biggest MVNO.
Why do banks go this route? The South African telecoms market size is valued at $10.43 billion. Although it’s not as valuable as the South African banking industry, it’s a promising sector. The South African MVNO market saw a jump in subscribers from 2.5 million in 2022 to just under 5 million in January 2025.
MVNOs may not fully rival traditional telecoms operators, since they depend on their network infrastructure. But they do compete in consumer ownership, bundling, and loyalty. Nedbank bets that with its 7.6 million users, it can tie airtime, rewards, and banking system into one ecosystem, making it harder for them to look elsewhere.
Paystack and FAAN are making airport access faster, safer, and cashless.
Paystack has partnered with the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) to make airport access payments faster and easier. Learn more here →
Telecoms
Djibouti Telecom announces extension of subsea cable system
The Djibouti Africa Regional Express 1 (DARE1) cable will be extended by 3,200–3,500 km from 2026, running from Mombasa, Kenya, to Mtunzini, South Africa, with additional landings in Madagascar, Mozambique, and Tanzania.
Why now? Internet traffic has been growing in Africa. By adding a new landing, this link reduces reliance on the handful of chokepoints, improving resilience in case of outages.
DARE1 was first built to connect Djibouti, Somalia, and Kenya, offering 36 terabits per second of capacity. In 2021, this 5000km subsea cable system received an upgrade to increase digitisation in East Africa.
Djibouti Telecom has been busy: In February, the state-owned telecom firm partnered with Ethio Telecom and Sudatel Telecom Group to launch a Multi-Terabit terrestrial fibre optic link to enhance digital connectivity across Africa. These efforts came years after the government planned to sell a significant minority stake in the company, following the Ethiopian government’s sale of a 40% stake in Ethio Telecom.
Individually, these projects look like incremental steps. Together with its 10 submarine cables, they point to Djibouti’s strategy of becoming a digital transit hub for the continent.
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CRYPTO TRACKER
The World Wide Web3
Source:
|
Coin Name |
Current Value |
Day |
Month |
|---|---|---|---|
 Bitcoin |
$110,347 |
+ 2.57% |
– 2.93% |
| Ether |
$4,345 |
– 0.49% |
+ 26.86% |
| World Liberty Financial |
$0.2274 |
– 0.52% |
– 0.52% |
| Solana |
$202.02 |
+ 1.83% |
+ 25.54% |
* Data as of 05.00 AM WAT, September 2, 2025.
Job Openings
- Palmpay — Lead, User Growth — Lagos, Nigeria
- Norebase — Applied AI Engineer, Cloud Engineer, Senior Backend Engineer — Remote (Lagos, Nigeria)
- Tuteria — Performance Marketing Specialist — Lagos, Nigeria
- GiveDirectly — Senior Software Engineer — Lagos, Nigeria
- Fairmoney — Growth Marketing Manager — Hybrid (Lagos, Nigeria)
- Busha — Senior Technical Product Manager — Hybrid (Lagos, Nigeria)
- Promasidor — Digital Marketing Specialist — Lagos, Nigeria
- Parcelhero — Senior Performance Marketing Manager — Remote (Lagos, Nigeria)
- Moniepoint — CRM Manager — Lagos, Nigeria
- Reliance Health — Product Manager (Clinical Services) — Remote (Lagos, Nigeria)
- Pharmarun — Growth Associate (B2B Sales – HMO Focus) — Lagos, Nigeria
- Mainstack — Sales Development Representative, Executive Assistant to the CEO — Hybrid (Lagos, Nigeria)
There are more jobs on TechCabal’s job board. If you have job opportunities to share, please submit them at bit.ly/tcxjobs.
Written by: Opeyemi Kareem and Ifeoluwa Aigbiniode
Edited by: Ganiu Oloruntade
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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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