Plus: Hackers want ShopRite to pay for its customers’data.
Editor’s Notes
Week 26, 2022
Read time: 5 minutes
Big employee moves this week at TLcom and Flutterwave. Missed them? We’ve cycled the news back up. The healthy workplace culture at startups is (still) on our minds at TechCabal, and we have a story about that here.
Have a fun weekend,
Kelechi Njoku,
Senior Editor, TechCabal.
Editor’s Picks
MTN alleges $53 million mobile money fraud
MTN hasn’t courted fintech that long, yet it’s already dragging 18 Nigerian banks to court over a ₦22.3 billion ($53.7 million) mobile money fraud. Allegedly, the fraud was committed over a 1-month period.
Read the story on TechCabal
Paystack transfers launches in South Africa
Paystack has gone south for its customers. The fintech company has launched its Paystack Transfers services in South Africa to facilitate money transfers on the platform which could only collect payments before now.
Learn more on TechCabal
Former Goldman Sachs MD appointed as Flutterwave CTO
Waving goodbye to Goldman Sachs, former managing director Gurbhej Dhillon joins Africa’s biggest fintech startup Flutterwave as chief technical officer (CTO). He’ll use his experience in leadership, engineering, and application architecture to bring about internal infrastructural developments at Flutterwave.
More about this hire on TechCabal
Abeg pockets MOMO license
New name, new service. Abeg has been renamed PocketApp by its parent company PiggyTech. It has also pocketed a mobile money (MOMO) license to transition from a payment app to a social commerce app that supports online merchants in Nigeria.
Read it on TechCabal
FirstCheck Africa is $2 million heavier
FirstCheck Africa is checking Africa’s gender funding gap. The women-focused angel fund received a $2 million commitment from venture capital firm TLcom Capital. Summed to their $10 million debut fund, they’ll have $12 million to write more cheques for African female-led startups.
Read it on TechCabal
Binance partners with Khaby Lame
Most followed TikTok Influencer Khaby Lame rose to fame by making complicated things look simple. Binance is tapping into the Khaby magic to drive mass adoption of crypto, NFT, and all things web3.
Read more on TechCabal
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A ransom for ShopRite’s customer data
Cyber-terrorist group RansomHouse is demanding a ransom from Africa’s largest retailer, Shoprite, for data of some of its customers in Eswatini, Namibia, and Zambia. Their threat is simple: Pay us, or we sell the 600GB of data.
Read the full story on TechCrunch
Sudan shuts off its internet…again
Following the military coup in Sudan, the country’s internet has been shut down to discourage online press and protests about the political violence occurring in the country.
Quartz Africa has the full details
COVID vaccines go mobile in Kenya
COVID-19 vaccines are on wheels in Kenya. The country’s ministry of health is collaborating with Amref Health Africa and AstraZeneca to send solar-powered mobile clinics to vaccinate people in hard-to-reach areas in the East African country.
The news is on The Guardian
AFDB grants ECOWAS $2 million
Many of West Africa’s problems are tied to power and the African Development Fund (ADF) wants to change that. It has approved a technical assistance grant of $2 million for electricity reforms in countries of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
Read more on IT News Africa
South African charged with $1.7 million bitcoin scam
In this week’s episode of pyramid schemes, Johann Steynberg reached new heights. Johann ran a $1.7 million bitcoin-based network marketing scam that began in South Africa and drew in 160,000 members worldwide.
Read about it on MyBroadband
Who brought the money this week?
Puzzle: Guess The App
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