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In partnership with Lire en Français اقرأ هذا باللغة العربية Happy pre-TGIF. If someone told you in 2024 that South Africans would soon be paying for coffee with a ring that never needs charging, you would probably have assumed they had spent too much time watching fantasy fiction. Two years later, South Africans might start to do exactly that. VezoPay, the wearable payments startup behind the battery-free tap-to-pay ring, has gone live with Investec and Absa, taking its banking partnerships to four and putting it on track to add a fifth major retail bank before the end of 2026, as it tries to build network effects. Interesting times ahead for contactless payments in South Africa. Let’s dive in. Become smarter about tech and commerce in Francophone Africa, and the policies shaping them. Read our newsletter here first or subscribe below. Subscribe Virtual asset firms to join CBN’s sandbox Jumia secures $50 million equity funding Shoprite’s Sixty60 is having a moment Vodacom taps ex-Airtel CEO to join board World Wide Web 3 Opportunities Cryptocurrency Nigeria’s Central Bank expands sandbox to virtual asset companies Image Source: Tenor Nigeria has decided to bring virtual asset companies into the group chat. If the intention to regulate virtual assets was ever in doubt, the central bank’s decision to expand its regulatory sandbox to operators in the sector has now put any confusion to bed. What happened? The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has opened a dedicated Virtual Asset Service Provider (VASP) track inside its regulatory sandbox for companies building stablecoins, wallets, custody platforms, payment processors, and settlement infrastructure. Applications are open from August 12 to August 31, and the programme now sits alongside the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) own digital asset incubation framework. Explain like I’m new here: A regulatory sandbox is a supervised test environment where startups can try new financial products with real users under close regulatory oversight before receiving a full licence. It is a controlled proving ground for financial innovation. Between the lines: Nigeria launched a fintech sandbox in 2022, but the first cohort disappeared into a fog of silence with very little public information about admissions, testing results, or outcomes. However, the new version is launching with a broader institutional reset. President Bola Tinubu’s Virtual Asset Council now brings together the CBN, the SEC, the country’s tax authority, intelligence, and national security agencies, suggesting that coordination is replacing the old agency-by-agency approach. Stablecoins are the real signal here. Nigeria is no longer focusing only on crypto exchanges; it is preparing to supervise the infrastructure that moves digital currencies, settles cross-border payments, and could eventually compete with traditional banking rails. Zoom out: If this sandbox produces clear rules and predictable supervision, Nigeria could become one of Africa’s most important testing grounds for regulated stablecoin payments. The bigger question is whether the CBN can do what many regulators struggle to do: move from publishing frameworks to publishing results. Getting paid in cedis just got easier for African businesses operating in Ghana. Fincra now issues dedicated GHS virtual accounts to enable businesses to collect payments. See how Fincra GHS virtual accounts work. Ecommerce E-commerce giant Jumia raises $50 million from IFC, AXIAN Telecom Image Source: Tenor In Q2 2026, Jumia, the e-commerce company, narrowed its quarterly loss from $16.6 million to $11.7 million year-on-year. After years of bleeding cash, its profitability push is beginning to look more convincing. Chief executive officer Francis Dufay has suggested it could come sooner than many expected. What happened? Jumia, the New York-listed African e-commerce company operating in Nigeria, Egypt, Kenya, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, and other markets, has secured $50 million in fresh equity funding. The International Finance Corporation (IFC), the World Bank’s private-sector investment arm, led the round with participation from Axian Telecom, one of Jumia’s largest shareholders—which acquired an 8% stake in the e-commerce company in May 2025—and other investors. Dufay told Bloomberg that the company received more investor interest than it anticipated. Raising $50 million from one of its largest shareholders is a vote of confidence that the company may finally be on the right track after years of losses and leadership shake-ups.. Explain like I’m new here: Jumia spent years trying to grow as fast as possible across the continent. The new strategy is almost the opposite: fewer distractions, tighter spending, and a much stronger focus on markets that can actually make money, especially Nigeria. Between the lines: The numbers in Jumia’s Q2 2026 report tell a more important story than the fundraising headline. The company’s orders rose 28% year-on-year, active customers increased 24%, and gross profit jumped 28%, while the adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) loss narrowed by 36% to $8.7 million. Nigeria was Jumia’s standout market, with gross merchandise value (GMV) up 36% and orders up 34%. One fascinating detail: sales from Chinese and Turkish international sellers grew 96%, suggesting Jumia has fully embraced its identity as a marketplace for affordable imported goods rather than a traditional online retailer with large inventory. Zoom out: The IFC’s involvement matters because development finance institutions rarely write equity cheques into businesses they think are spiralling toward irrelevance. Jumia’s cash position was only $48.3 million at the end of June, so this raise buys time. More importantly, it buys credibility for a company now claiming it can reach breakeven in Q4 2026 and profitability in 2027—or even profitability by Q4 2026, as Dufay told Bloomberg. If Jumia pulls that off, it would mark one of the most significant turnaround stories in African tech in years. Download PalmPay. Bank smarter. With PalmPay, you can bank with confidence. Enjoy seamless everyday banking with security features designed to help protect your money. Send money, pay bills, and manage your finances all in one app. Learn more. Ecommerce Shoprite’s Sixty60 quietly becomes a $1.6 billion digital behemoth Image Source: Zikoko Memes While many traditional retailers struggle to make online delivery profitable, Shoprite, the South African retail giant, has turned its grocery app into a
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Shoprite’s Sixty60 generated R25.5 billion ($1.6 billion) in sales in the year ended June 2026, as the retailer’s on-demand digital platform grew 34.5% during the 12 months. Sixty60 is growing nearly five times faster than Shoprite’s core South African supermarket business, which grew 7.1% over the same period, the Group noted in its operational update on Wednesday. The numbers show how the retailer is turning its vast physical store network into infrastructure for a rapidly expanding digital commerce business. The broader Shoprite Group has almost 3,000 stores across South Africa, giving Sixty60 a vast physical network from which to fulfil online orders. Shoprite reported R270.8 billion ($16.8 billion) in sales from continuing operations, up from R252.7 billion ($15.7 billion) in 2025, adding R18.1 billion ($1.1 billion) in sales. But the standout growth came from its digital commerce platform, which the group said is included in the reported sales of the supermarket’s brands, including Shoprite, Usave and Checkers, during the year. The R25.5 billion ($1.6 billion) generated by Sixty60 represents sales flowing through the digital platform and already captured within the results of the retail brands. “Sales from the segment’s on-demand digital commerce platform Sixty60, included within the reported sales of the underlying retail brands, increased by 34.5%, measuring R25.5 billion ($1.6 billion,” Shoprite said in its operational update. The growth gives Sixty60 a key role in Shoprite’s retail ecosystem. Its R25.5 billion ($1.6 billion) in sales is equivalent to almost 9.4% of the group’s total reported sales, although the company does not report Sixty60 as a separate revenue segment. According to the update, the platform’s rapid growth is happening alongside an aggressive expansion of Shoprite’s physical footprint. Its Supermarkets South Africa (Supermarkets RSA) business, which contributes 84.5% of group sales, opened a net 262 stores during the year, taking its corporate-owned and operated store base to 2,839. That physical network gives Shoprite an advantage in a digital grocery market where delivery speed and proximity to customers are critical. Rather than replacing its stores with an online operation, the retailer is using its existing infrastructure to support digital orders. The contrast in growth rates is stark. Supermarkets South Africa sales grew 7.1%, while Sixty60 sales rose 34.5%. Shoprite’s broader group sales increased 7.2%. Shoprite’s digital growth comes as it keeps prices competitive. In South Africa, the company said its internal selling price inflation was just 0.8% for the year, below the 3.9% inflation recorded for food and non-alcoholic beverages by Statistics South Africa. “Like-for-like sales increased by 2.0%, reflecting the Group’s continued efforts to support customer affordability,” the company stated. At the same time, the supermarket chains’ other brands, Checkers and Checkers Hyper and Checkers LiquorShop, grew sales by 10%, compared with 4.3% for Shoprite and Usave, including Shoprite LiquorShop. The results suggest Shoprite is not replacing physical retail with digital commerce. Instead, it is connecting its store network to digital demand, giving Sixty60 a ready-made fulfillment footprint for its R25.5 billion ($1.6 billion) in sales. Shoprite expects its headline earnings per share from continuing operations to rise between 9.7% and 14.7% for the year. The company will release its full 2026 results on September 1, 2026. True scale demands moving beyond surface-level integrations to robust execution. We’ve filtered the noise out of Moonshot 2026, optimising the conference strictly for high-calibre connections between startup founders, global financial operators, enterprise leaders and individuals rewiring Africa’s technical frameworks. Get 20% off Early Bird tickets for a limited time.
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Vodacom is bringing the former chief executive of one of its biggest rivals onto its board, as the telecom group prepares to execute the next phase of its Vision 2030 strategy. Segun Ogunsanya, who led Airtel Africa until his retirement in July 2024, will join Vodacom as an independent non-executive director from October 9, 2026. His appointment gives the South African telecom group an executive who spent more than a decade running a major pan-African telecoms business across 14 countries, as Vodacom expands beyond connectivity into financial services and digital businesses. Vodacom announced the appointment on Wednesday alongside a wider reshuffle of its board, including the departure of two prominent directors and a planned change in its chairmanship. The company said Ogunsanya has more than 35 years of leadership experience across finance, banking, telecommunications and corporate governance. Before joining Airtel Africa in 2012, he held senior roles at Coca-Cola operations in Africa and Ecobank Transnational. “Until his retirement in June 2024, Segun served as the Group Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Airtel Africa PLC, a FTSE 100-listed multinational providing mobile telecommunications and financial services in 14 African countries,” Vodacom said in its statement. The appointment comes as Vodacom positions itself as an African technology company rather than simply a mobile network operator. The group’s latest financial results show the scale of its operations beyond South Africa, with international markets, Safaricom and financial services forming significant parts of the business. The board changes also mark the beginning of the end of Saki Macozoma’s tenure as Vodacom chairman. Macozoma, who joined the board in July 2017, will retire at the company’s annual general meeting on July 20, 2027, after reaching the company’s self-imposed 10-year tenure for board members. Khumo Shuenyane, currently the lead independent director, will succeed him as chairman from July 21, 2027. Vodacom credited Macozoma with overseeing the implementation of its Vision 2025 strategy and the beginning of its Vision 2030 strategy. “Both have heralded a transformational era for the business,” the company said. The board is also losing Phuthi Mahanyele-Dabengwa, the Naspers CEO, who will retire on October 8, 2026, after joining the board in January 2019. She served as chairperson of the Remuneration Committee and as a member of the Nomination Committee. Vodacom said it would announce further changes to its board committees in due course. Clive Thomson, a former Barloworld CEO, will take over as chairman of the Remuneration Committee while retaining his role as chairman of the Audit, Risk and Compliance Committee. True scale demands moving beyond surface-level integrations to robust execution. We’ve filtered the noise out of Moonshot 2026, optimising the conference strictly for high-calibre connections between startup founders, global financial operators, enterprise leaders and individuals rewiring Africa’s technical frameworks. Get 20% off Early Bird tickets for a limited time.
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