Good morning 
If you could own a part of any network provider in Nigeria, which one would it be? While you ponder, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has decided that it’d be watching a little more closely when stakes in these companies swap hands.
—Zia
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companies
Revolut wants to launch in South Africa by 2028
Revolut, the London-based neobank with75 million users worldwide and a$75 billion valuation, has confirmed it is targeting a South Africa launch by 2028. Itapplied for a banking licence from the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) in September 2025 and is waiting for regulatory approval before launching products including a zero-fee account, multi-currency wallets, and crypto trading.
South Africa is Revolut’s entry point into Africa, with broader continental expansion planned once it establishes a local foothold. The company plans to introduce its “signature ecosystem” with offerings specifically tailored for the local market.
But here’s the kicker: South Africa’s banking market is not short of competition. Revolut’s arrival will pit it against entrenched lenders and a growing field of digital challengers, including GoTyme Bank, Discovery Bank and Old Mutual Bank, and neobanks already offering no-fee accounts. Retailers Pepkor and Shoprite are alsoleveraging loyalty data to push into banking. South Africa’s incumbents, among the most profitable banks in the Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) region, are responding by moving upmarket toward wealth management. Revolut is going in the opposite direction with mass-market, zero-fee, multi-product.
Zoom out: The 100,000-person waitlist—two years before launch—is the most interesting data point in this story. The demand is driven by South Africans who already know the product from living or travelling abroad and want it at home. That’s a different kind of entry than any domestic challenger has had. Whether the SARB licence comes through on schedule will determine whether 2028 is a launch date or a moving target.
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companies
Spiro raises another $55 million
If it feels like you’ve been hearing Spiro’s name a lot recently, you’re not imagining it.
What happened? Just three weeks after announcing a $215 million equity raise, the electric mobility company has secured another $55 million from Chinese investor NewTrails Capital. That brings the latest funding round to $270 million, and Spiro’s total disclosed funding to more than half a billion dollars.
What does the company need all that money for? While Spiro is known for selling electric motorcycles, the company’s long-term vision revolves around battery swapping, a system where riders exchange depleted batteries for charged ones. To make that work, however, Spiro needs enough batteries, battery-swapping stations, manufacturing facilities, logistics networks, and energy infrastructure. And that infrastructure does not come cheap.
There’s been a lot of Spiro in the news lately: The company has spent the past few months moving like it’s preparing for something bigger. First came the acquisition of Coexlion, a specialist engineering consultancy focused exclusively on two-wheelers and electric vehicles (EVs), in May. Then, the $215 million funding round earlier this month, one of the largest ever announced in Africa’s electric mobility sector. Then came the appointment of Anant Badjatya as group CEO, who, before Spiro, ran a battery-swapping network with more than 1,800 stations. Now comes another $55 million investment.
The bigger picture: Spiro said it had deployed more than 100,000 electric vehicles and built over 2,500 battery-swapping stations across seven countries. The new capital will help it expand that network across markets, including Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, and Rwanda. This matters because if companies like Spiro can make electric motorcycles cheaper to operate than petrol-powered alternatives, it could reduce operating costs, delivery fees, and generate more income for riders.
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regulation
NCC moves to tighten oversight of telecom ownership changes
From now on, if a company licenced by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), the country’s telecoms regulator, wants to sell a significant stake to a new investor, it may need the regulator’s blessing before the deal can move ahead.
Here’s the context: NCC and the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), the body responsible for managing and registering businesses and companies, have introduced a new compliance requirement for communications companies. Under the new rule, any ownership change involving 10% or more of a telecom company’s shares must first receive a Letter of No Objection from the NCC before the transaction can be registered with the CAC.
In English: if someone wants to buy a significant stake in a telecom company, the regulator wants to know about it and approve it first, not after the deal is done.
Could they be any more obvious? While the NCC’s new rule doesn’t mention any specific company or transaction, it comes after major ownership deals in Nigeria’s telecom sector. In February, MTN Group, Africa’s largest telecom operator, announced its interest in the acquisition of IHS towers, the continent’s biggest independent owner and operator of shared communications infrastructure, in a $2.2 billion deal.
Under the deal, MTN will control nearly 29,000 telecom towers across Africa. Transactions of that scale naturally attract regulatory attention because they can affect competition and infrastructure ownership.
It’s not an unusual rule: Across Africa, mergers and ownership changes typically require regulatory approval. In Kenya, large transactions face review by the Competition Authority of Kenya, and sometimes, the Competition Tribunal, similar to South Africa. The NCC and CAC’s new rule formalises a similar approach for Nigeria’s telecom sector.
So, if you find yourself wanting to buy or sell over a 10% stake in a telecom company, call your lawyers and stakeholders, but don’t forget the regulator.
policy
Mozambique is building a new cybersecurity strategy
In April 2026, Mozambique’s parliamentunanimously passed a new Cybersecurity Law, establishing the National Institute of Information and Communication Technology (INTIC) as the country’s National Cyber Security Authority and creating a new National Cyber Security Council to coordinate policy across government.
Now, INTIC is working with Finland to build the next layer: aNational Cyber Security Strategy for 2026-2030 that specifically addresses AI-enabled threats and increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks.
The strategy is being fast-tracked. Mozambique presented its progress at the C-Days 2026 conference in Portugal, where INTIC Chairman Prof. Lourino Chemane outlined what the country has built in the past year: a functioning national Computer Security Incident Response Team (CSIRT), sectoral CSIRTs covering health, energy, agriculture, and education, andtraining partnerships with Portugal’s National Cybersecurity Centre and the European Union’s TAIEX programme.
How did we get here: Mozambique’sfirst national cybersecurity policy was only published in 2021. In February 2022, hackers attackedmore than 30 government websites in the country’s first major coordinated cyberattack. The episode exposed exactly how exposed critical infrastructure was, and accelerated the governance reforms now bearing fruit.
Three years later, Mozambique has a cybersecurity law, a regulatory authority, incident response teams across multiple sectors, and a strategy under development. That’s a meaningful arc for a country that had almost none of this infrastructure four years ago.
Zoom out: Mozambique is also developing aseparate National AI Strategy covering education, health, agriculture, energy, and finance, with technical completion targeted for June 2026 and support from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the European Union, the African Union, and the World Bank.
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CRYPTO TRACKER
The World Wide Web3
Source:
|
Coin Name |
Current Value |
Day |
Month |
|---|---|---|---|
 Bitcoin |
$63,800 |
– 0.21% |
– 16.78% |
| Ether |
$1,722 |
– 0.49% |
– 18.71% |
| XRP |
$1.12 |
– 0.68% |
– 17.31% |
| Solana |
$71.82 |
– 2.30% |
– 16.38% |
* Data as of 05.36 AM WAT, June 23, 2026.
Events
-
Stablecon Salon : Africa Series, hosted by Paschal Okeke, gathers Africa’s operators, builders, and policymakers across eight cities to shape the future of cross-border payments. Johannesburg is next. Register here and keep up as the journey unfolds on Substack.
Written by: Opeyemi Kareem and Zia Yusuf
Edited by: Ganiu Oloruntade
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