World Bank bans PwC Africa subsidiaries over electricity project fraud
The World Bank has debarred three African subsidiaries of global advisory firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) for 21 months after being found guilty of manipulating procurement processes for a major cross-border electricity project. In a statement on Wednesday, the Washington-based multilateral lender said PricewaterhouseCoopers Associates Africa Ltd, based in Mauritius, along with its Kenyan and Rwandan affiliates, engaged in “collusive and fraudulent practices” linked to the Eastern Electricity Highway Project, a flagship initiative to transmit hydropower from Ethiopia to Kenya. The decision sidelines PwC from lucrative World Bank-funded projects on the continent, dealing a blow to one of the region’s most influential audit and advisory firms. It could reshape competition for high-value consulting work across emerging markets—potentially disrupting startups and tech firms reliant on World Bank funding—as scrutiny over governance and compliance tightens. The World Bank, through its private sector arm International Finance Corporation (IFC), offers grants and low-interest loans to startups across emerging markets. On Monday, the IFC committed $20 million to invest in high-growth startups in Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa. “The debarment makes PwC Associates, PwC Kenya, PwC Rwanda, and any affiliates they control ineligible to participate in Bank Group-financed projects and operations,” the World Bank said. “It is part of a settlement agreement under which the three companies admit culpability for sanctionable practices.” The determination was based on the company’s conduct between 2019 and the award of contracts for consultancy services and asset valuation work for the Ethiopian state power utilities. According to the World Bank’s Integrity Vice President, the firm obtained confidential procurement documents to improperly influence the award of a contract for the implementation of International Financial Reporting Standards at the Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation. They also attempted to steer a separate contract for a fixed asset inventory and revaluation for the power utility towards PwC Associates. During the bidding and execution of that contract, the bank found that the company misrepresented the availability and qualifications of key experts and failed to disclose the full list of subconsultants involved. According to the World Bank, the debarment is shorter than would otherwise apply because PwC admitted misconduct. The advisory firm also agreed to a series of remedial measures, including internal investigations, disciplinary action against responsible staff, terminating relationships with all subconsultants involved, and additional staff training.
Read MoreNdovu targets Kenya’s high-income investors with new multi-asset fund
Ndovu Wealth, a Kenyan fund manager licenced by the Capital Markets Authority (CMA), has launched a multi-asset fund with a $2,500 minimum ticket, targeting higher-income investors as wealthtech startups push beyond entry-level products. The move shows how local fintechs are pushing into territory long held by private wealth managers and offshore brokers, staking their growth on the idea that a growing base of affluent, digitally native users will pay for guided access to global markets. The Kibaba Multi-Asset Special Fund, announced in Nairobi on Tuesday, offers exposure to global equities, fixed income, Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs ), Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs ), and commodities through Ndovu’s app, with minimum investments set at KES 250,000 ($1,930) or $2,500 for dollar accounts. The amount exceeds the thresholds that powered the first wave of Kenyan investing apps like Hisa and Chumz, some of which built scale by allowing users to start with a few thousand shillings. The higher minimum also narrows the addressable market in a country where most investors remain price-sensitive. “We created the Kibaba Multi-Asset Special Fund in response to the evolving investor demands in the region,” said chief executive Radhika Bhachu, pointing to rising interest in offshore exposure. Retail investors who entered markets through money market funds and savings apps are moving into dollar assets to hedge against currency pressure and inflation. Kenya’s collective investment schemes market has grown steadily in recent years, with fund managers reporting increased demand for foreign-denominated products as the shilling weakened through 2023 and 2024. Local fintechs have been strong at onboarding first-time investors but weak at keeping them as balances grow. Many users migrate to global platforms like Interactive Brokers that offer wider asset access or to traditional managers that provide structured portfolios. Ndovu wraps a regulated fund inside a digital interface that handles onboarding, payments, and portfolio tracking, while adjusting allocations using market data. This places the company in more direct competition with international brokerages that offer self-directed investing, as well as financial institutions like Standard Investment Bank and other licenced managers targeting high-net-worth clients.
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Everything you need to know about the new Oppo Find N6 and Watch X3
Table of contents Oppo Find N6 Oppo Watch X3 Oppo Find N6 vs Find N5 comparison On March 17, 2026, Oppo held a global launch event at its Binhai Bay Campus in Shenzhen, China. Two products took centre stage: the Oppo Find N6, a book-style foldable smartphone, and the Watch X3, a high-end smartwatch built from aerospace-grade titanium. The Find N6 goes after two problems that have followed foldable phones since day one: the crease you can see and feel on the screen, and cameras that could not keep up with regular flagship phones. The Watch X3 builds on that with advanced health tracking and materials that match the phone’s quality. Here is everything you need to know about both devices. Oppo Find N6 Image source: Mark Ellis Reviews on YouTube The biggest engineering achievement on the Find N6 is what Oppo calls the Zero-Feel Crease. Since the Find N series launched in 2021, Oppo has been refining its hinge design with each generation. The Find N6 is the result of that five-year process. Two technologies make this possible: the 2nd-Generation Titanium Flexion Hinge and Dome Memory Glass. The hinge uses an industry-first 3D liquid printing process that applies droplets as small as 5 picoliters. This reduces height variance by 75%, from 0.2mm in previous generations down to just 0.05mm. A Clover Balance Pivot increases vertical support force by 20%, keeping the display flat and stable. • The hinge is TUV Rheinland certified for one million fold cycles. Dome Memory Glass is 50% thicker than the standard Ultra-Thin Glass used in competing foldables, yet more flexible thanks to a proprietary layering process. This glass achieves a 338% increase in deformation resistance, restoring up to 99.9% of its flatness each time you open the phone. Compared to the Find N5, crease depth has been reduced by 82%, as certified by TUV Rheinland. Oppo is clear that the crease has not been physically removed. The Zero-Feel name refers to its near-invisibility from most angles and under normal lighting. Hinge and Structure at a Glance Displays Image source: Mark Ellis Reviews on YouTube The Find N6 has two screens, each supplied by a different manufacturer and tuned for its specific role. The internal main display is an 8.12-inch Samsung E7 AMOLED panel with a 2K+ resolution of 2480 x 2480 pixels. It uses LTPO 3.0 to dynamically adjust its refresh rate between 1Hz and 120Hz, depending on what is on screen. Peak brightness hits 2,500 nits, and it supports 10-bit colour depth (1.07 billion colours). The external cover display is a 6.62-inch BOE Q10 panel with a 1.5K+ resolution of 2616 x 1140 pixels. Its peak brightness of 3,600 nits means you can read it clearly in direct sunlight. Both screens support Dolby Vision, HDR10+, and HDR Vivid, plus 2160Hz PWM dimming to reduce eye strain. Build and Protection Oppo built the Find N6 to push back on the idea that foldable phones are fragile. The frame uses 7000-series aerospace-grade aluminium, which is 30% stronger than what was used in the previous generation. The hinge mechanism uses Grade-5 titanium alloy for its casing and wing plates. The back cover is made from aircraft-grade fibre, which is 43% thinner than glass and more resilient in drop tests. The Find N6 carries a triple ingress protection rating: IP56, IP58, and IP59. The IP59 rating is notable because it means the phone can withstand high-pressure, high-temperature water jets, a level of protection you usually only find in industrial equipment. When unfolded, the device measures just 4.21mm thick, making it thinner than the M4 iPad Pro. When closed, it sits at 8.93mm, which is comparable to phones like the iPhone 17 or Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra. Total weight is approximately 225-229 grams. Read more on OPPO phones expected to launch in 2026 and the full release timeline Camera: The Cosmos Ring and Hasselblad 200MP System Foldable phones have always struggled with camera performance because their thin chassis limits sensor size. Oppo tackled this through the Cosmos Ring, a symmetrical camera module built in partnership with Hasselblad. The headline feature is a 200MP Hasselblad Ultra-Clear Camera. 200MP main sensor at f/1.89, with Hasselblad tuning, OIS, and a 7-element lens. 50MP periscope telephoto at f/2.7, with 3x optical zoom, OIS, and a 4-element lens. 50MP ultra-wide at f/2.2, covering a 116-degree field of view with autofocus, doubling as a macro lens. Two 20MP front cameras (one on the cover, one on the main display), both at f/2.4, capable of 4K video at 30 fps. The Snapdragon 8 Elite ISP powers features such as AI Clarity Enhancer and 4K@60 fps Dolby Vision recording. Hasselblad-exclusive shooting modes include XPAN (which simulates the 65:24 panoramic aspect ratio of the classic Hasselblad film camera) and a portrait mode that reproduces Hasselblad lens bokeh. Lightning Snap uses posture detection to cut shutter lag on candid shots. Processor and Performance The Find N6 runs on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, built on a 3nm process. It is a seven-core system with two Oryon Gen 2 Prime cores at 4.3 GHz and five Oryon Gen 2 Performance cores at 3.5 GHz. The Adreno 830 GPU runs at 1100 MHz, delivering a 40% improvement in rendering speed. The Gen 5 NPU brings a 45% improvement in AI efficiency. Oppo’s Trinity Engine manages memory allocation and thermal load to deliver 48 months of consistent system speed. RAM options: 12GB or 16GB LPDDR5X. Storage options: 256GB, 512GB, or 1TB UFS 4.0. The 1TB model is sold as the Satellite Communication Edition, with integrated BeiDou satellite connectivity for emergency messaging in areas without cellular coverage. Battery and charging Fitting a large battery inside an ultra-thin foldable is an engineering challenge. Oppo solved it with a 6,000mAh silicon-carbon battery. Silicon-carbon chemistry offers an energy density of 801 Wh/L, significantly higher than that of traditional graphite lithium-ion cells. By adding 10% silicon to the battery, Oppo increased capacity by 16.7% while keeping the battery physically smaller than the 5,600mAh
Read MoreSpotify payouts show Nigerian artists earned about ₦2 per stream in 2025
Nigerian artists earned roughly ₦1.98 for every stream on Spotify in 2025, according to figures from the global streaming platform’s annual Loud & Clear report. Spotify said Nigerian artists generated over ₦60 billion ($43.92 million) in royalties from the platform in 2025, from 30.3 billion total streams. Dividing the revenue by total streams puts the estimated payout at just under ₦2 per stream. Spotify provides a direct path to monetisation for many artists, but artists in lower-income markets often earn significantly less per stream than their Western counterparts because of how streaming payouts are calculated. According to this 2025 report, one million streams in Nigeria generate just $300, while the same streams in Sweden are worth up to $10,000. The disparity stems from Spotify’s territorial payout model, which adjusts earnings based on regional subscription fees and economic conditions. In Nigeria, Spotify’s premium plan costs about ₦1,600 ($1.17) per month, while in Sweden, where the company is headquartered, monthly subscriptions cost about $13.78. While this model helps keep streaming affordable for listeners, it also reduces per-stream revenue for artists in lower-income regions. Spotify says it pays royalties based on an artist’s share of overall streams across the platform, not based on a fixed per-stream rate. “If an artist accounts for 1% of all streams in a particular country, their selected rightsholder(s) receive 1% of the recording royalties we pay there,” the streaming platform said. Spotify pays out two-thirds of every dollar it generates from music streaming to rights holders, who eventually pay artists. Before this money gets to artists, it flows to labels, distributors, publishers, and collective management organisations. In 2025, the company paid out $11 billion globally, with the ₦60 billion ($43.92 million) earned by Nigerian artists representing 0.39% of the total. Streaming growth and expanding global audience Beyond payouts, Spotify’s data shows that the Nigerian music ecosystem is growing quickly, both locally and internationally. In 2025, Nigerian artists generated 30.3 billion streams and had 1.6 billion listening hours on Spotify. Revenue generated by Nigerian artists on the platform has grown more than 140% in the last two years. In 2024, it paid out ₦58 billion ($42.45 million). In 2025, Nigerian artists were discovered by first-time listeners more than 1.3 billion times on Spotify, representing a 26% increase compared to 2024. At home, Nigerian musicians accounted for over 80% of tracks on Spotify Nigeria’s Daily Top 50 during the year, highlighting strong domestic demand for local music. The report also highlights the growing role of independent artists and labels in Nigeria’s music economy. About 58% of all royalties earned by Nigerian artists on Spotify in 2025 went to independent artists or labels, indicating that a large share of revenue is flowing outside traditional label structures. Nigerian artists were also added to nearly 2,000 editorial playlists in 2025, while Nigerian music appeared in nearly 320 million user playlists globally and over 12 million playlists in Nigeria. More than 60 million playlists featuring Nigerian artists were created on Spotify during the year. “Nigeria’s music story continues to be one of creativity, innovation, and global cultural influence,” said Jocelyne Muhutu-Remy, Managing Director, Spotify in Africa, in a statement. “What we’re seeing is a market where talent is not only reaching new audiences around the world, but also building deeper connections at home.”
Read MoreIHS swaps troubled tenants for cash repayments in pre-MTN takeover cleanup
IHS Towers is restructuring parts of its portfolio by letting tenants who can’t pay vacate tower sites in exchange for structured debt repayments, part of a broader operational cleanup ahead of its planned $2.2 billion acquisition by MTN Group. The company’s business model is built on leasing space on its telecommunications towers to mobile network operators. These operators—known as tenants—install their equipment on the towers and pay recurring fees for access to the infrastructure and related services such as power and maintenance. By replacing uncertain rental income with structured repayment commitments, IHS is reducing revenue risk and improving the reliability of its earnings. The restructuring also streamlines the tower portfolio, potentially allowing MTN to inherit a more stable asset base with fewer exposure risks as demand for mobile data and 5G infrastructure continues to grow across African markets. “The proposed sale of IHS Towers to MTN represents the next step in our long-standing partnership,” Sam Darwish, chairman and chief executive officer of IHS Towers, said in the company’s 2025 financial year report released on Monday. “The transaction brings together Africa’s largest mobile network operator with one of the continent’s leading digital infrastructure platforms.” A key part of the restructuring was an updated agreement with 9mobile, now operating as T2 Mobile, a smaller Nigerian telecom operator that has struggled with liquidity in recent years. Under the deal, IHS allowed the company to vacate 2,576 tower sites across Nigeria in exchange for a contractual commitment to repay portions of its historic overdue balances through July 2027. While the report does not disclose the exact amount owed by T2, IHS Towers has approximately $4.2 billion in gross debt, according to its report. The arrangement contributed to a year-on-year loss of 3,836 tenants due to churn, but it also replaced an uncertain revenue stream with a structured cash repayment schedule. By removing a struggling tenant while securing repayment commitments, IHS can potentially improve the quality of its earnings and present a cleaner financial profile to investors ahead of the planned acquisition. Beyond tenant restructuring, IHS pruned its geographic footprint. The company reported a net decrease of 1,639 towers year-on-year, leaving it with 37,590 towers at the end of the fourth quarter of 2025. However, most of that decline stemmed from the disposal of its Rwanda operations in October 2025, which accounted for 1,467 towers. Excluding the Rwanda exit, the company’s tower base declined by only 172 sites. The divestiture is widely viewed as part of the preparations for the MTN deal, allowing the telecom giant to acquire a more focused portfolio centered on core markets. Despite the decline in headline tower numbers, the underlying business continues to expand. IHS added 580 new sites during the year and reported 4,328 new lease amendments, bringing the total to 43,999. Lease amendments typically involve upgrades such as 5G equipment installations, solar power systems, or backup energy solutions added to existing towers. Because the physical infrastructure is already built, these upgrades generate higher-margin revenue than constructing new towers. The company’s colocation rate, the average number of tenants per tower, declined slightly to 1.46x from 1.48x in the previous quarter. However, that drop largely reflects the Rwanda divestiture and the T2 restructuring. When those two factors are excluded, IHS actually added 1,148 net tenants over the year, indicating continued demand for tower infrastructure and related services. IHS reported revenue from continuing operations of $397.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2025, up 1.2% year-on-year. The growth came despite revenue headwinds from earlier asset disposals and currency movements. Organic revenue declined slightly due to foreign exchange adjustments and changes in power indexation linked to the appreciation of the Nigerian naira. However, revenue growth from new tenants, lease amendments, and contractual escalations helped offset these pressures. “We delivered a strong fourth quarter, completing a year of solid revenue growth and profitability, robust free cash flow generation, and continued consolidated net leverage reduction,” Darwish said. “Our full-year results reflect disciplined execution, sustained commercial momentum, and the resilience of our operations across key markets.”
Read MoreCBN restricts BVN phone number changes to once in a lifetime to curb fraud
The Central Bank of Nigeria has restricted how often Nigerians can update the phone number linked to their Bank Verification Number (BVN), capping it at once in a lifetime. In a circular issued to banks and other financial institutions on Thursday, the apex bank said the new rules will take effect from May 1, 2026. The restriction is part of new safeguards designed to reduce fraud risks tied to Nigeria’s rapidly growing digital payments ecosystem, where mobile numbers are central to authentication and account recovery. Phone numbers linked to BVNs play a critical role in Nigeria’s banking infrastructure. They are used for one-time passwords (OTPs), transaction alerts, and account recovery processes, making them a key point of vulnerability for fraudsters attempting to hijack bank accounts. Introduced in 2014, Nigeria’s BVN system is the foundational identity layer for the country’s financial services sector. As of March 2026, BVN enrolment count stood at 68.59 million. By limiting how often these numbers can be changed, the CBN aims to reduce the risk of identity manipulation and SIM-related fraud that can enable unauthorised access to financial accounts. While there is no isolated estimate of the financial cost of SIM fraud in Nigeria, the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System says SIM-related compromises often play a role in social engineering schemes, the country’s leading cause of fraud, which accounted for 62,901 cases in 2023. Alongside the restriction, the CBN has also directed financial institutions to establish a temporary watchlist for BVNs linked to suspicious activity. Under the new framework, a flagged BVN can remain on the watchlist for up to 24 hours while the bank contacts the customer to verify the transaction. During this period, the watchlist acts as a pause mechanism, giving financial institutions time to investigate potentially fraudulent activity before funds are moved across the banking system. The measure reflects a growing regulatory clampdown on fraud in Nigeria’s payment ecosystem. The circular reiterates that BVN enrolment remains restricted to individuals aged 18 and above, and that access to BVN database information is limited strictly to financial institutions licensed by the CBN. The latest directive forms part of a broader set of measures, including stronger Know Your Customer (KYC) measures, introduced by the regulator in recent months to tighten fraud controls across Nigeria’s banking and fintech ecosystem.
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11 billion transactions and 26% exclusion: The infrastructure gap the CBN wants to close
With 11 billion payments processed and a clear-eyed view of who still sits outside the system, the CBN is laying the groundwork for inclusion at scale and opening up one of Africa’s most significant untapped markets in the process. Nigeria’s payments infrastructure is among the most advanced in the world. But the digital rails powering that system tell only part of the story. According to the Central Bank of Nigeria’s Fintech Policy Insight Report, released in February 2026, nearly 11 billion transactions were processed through the NIBSS Instant Payment (NIP) platform in 2024, more than double the roughly 5 billion transactions recorded in 2022. The scale places Nigeria among the most active real-time payments markets globally and underscores the strength of its financial infrastructure. Yet even as digital payments expand rapidly, financial access remains uneven. The report notes that 26% of Nigerian adults remain financially excluded, with exclusion rising to 37% in rural areas and nearly 47% in northern Nigeria. For policymakers, that contrast reveals the next challenge for Nigeria’s fintech ecosystem: building the infrastructure around payments that allows innovation to reach the people who need it most. Nigeria’s payments rails are already world-class Nigeria was an early mover in real-time payments. In 2011, the country rolled out a nationwide instant payments system years before similar infrastructure appeared in markets like the United States. Today, the NIP platform processes a growing share of Nigeria’s electronic transactions and has become the backbone of everyday financial activity. This infrastructure has helped power the growth of Nigeria’s fintech sector, as fintech startups attracted over $215 million in venture funding in 2025, and the country continues to host one of Africa’s largest fintech ecosystems. But while payments have scaled, structural bottlenecks still limit the reach of digital financial services. The report highlights four major constraints: The cost and accessibility of digital identity verification Gaps in system interoperability Infrastructure stress during peak transaction periods Regulatory constraints affecting inclusive lending Each affects how effectively fintech companies can serve underserved communities. The infrastructure problem behind financial exclusion Digital identity remains one of the biggest barriers to financial inclusion. Fintech firms rely on identity systems such as the Bank Verification Number (BVN) and the National Identification Number (NIN) to verify customers and meet anti-money laundering requirements. While these systems exist, the report notes that integration costs and system reliability can still pose challenges for fintechs trying to scale services. Stakeholders participating in the CBN’s fintech survey cited digital identity integration and limited credit history data as key obstacles when trying to reach excluded populations. Interoperability presents another challenge. While Nigeria’s payments infrastructure is robust, fintechs still face fragmented connections across APIs, data-sharing systems, and credit infrastructure. Without reliable interoperability, services such as credit scoring, account aggregation, and cross-platform payments become harder to deploy at scale. The result is a system where payments work well, but the broader financial ecosystem still faces friction. Survey responses highlight where improvements in public digital infrastructure could have the greatest impact. Open banking APIs and national digital ID authentication were each identified by 37.5% of fintech operators as the most important infrastructure enablers. Unlocking the next phase of fintech growth Another policy debate centres on lending. Payment Service Banks (PSBs), many backed by telecommunications companies, are currently restricted from offering credit. Some ecosystem participants believe easing these restrictions or introducing a dedicated digital banking licence could help fintech firms extend credit to underserved individuals and small businesses. This reflects a broader shift in Nigeria’s fintech ecosystem. As payments infrastructure matures, the next frontier for innovation is moving beyond transactions toward savings, credit, and financial tools that support economic growth. This article was written by the TechCabal Insights team.
Read MoreKenya’s CarePay names Moses Kuria acting CEO in leadership shake-up
CarePay Group, a Kenya-based healthtech connecting insurers, healthcare providers, and members via mobile technology, has appointed Moses G. Kuria as acting CEO of Care International and M-TIBA. Irene Nafula has been named acting managing director of M-TIBA Kenya. The leadership changes follow the departure of Pieter Prickaerts, who stepped down after nearly seven years in the company, serving as Group CEO for two years. The company said Prickaerts played a key role in shaping its growth and expanding its presence across the region. “The Board thanks Pieter for his remarkable leadership and contribution to building the organisation and the foundation for its next phase of growth,” CarePay said in a statement on Wednesday. Kuria, a 10-year CarePay veteran and former Group CFO, previously served as managing director of M-TIBA and holds an MBA from the University of Nairobi. He will oversee the group’s strategy and the regional expansion of its health insurance technology platform, according to the company. Nafula, previously Commercial Director at M-TIBA, brings more than 15 years of experience in healthcare operations, product development, and delivery. She holds an MSc in Organisational Development from the United States International University and will manage Kenya operations, including strategic partnerships, operational performance, and client delivery, CarePay said. CarePay, which started in Kenya in 2015 as M-TIBA, connects individual members to payers and providers in the healthcare ecosystem. It also operates in Nigeria and Tanzania. Last year, TechCabal reported that M-TIBA was hit by a cyberattack that went undetected for 10 days, exposing the personal and medical information of nearly five million Kenyans.
Read MoreAfrican startup funding hits $575M in early 2026 as logistics and energy gain ground
Fintech dominated Africa’s startup funding landscape in 2025. But early data from 2026 suggests investors may be widening their focus. African startups raised $575 million across 58 deals between January and February 2026, according to TechCabal Insights, with logistics, transport, and energy startups capturing a growing share of the capital as investors increasingly back companies building mobility and infrastructure systems. In January, fintech maintained its lead, raising $131.6 million, with major rounds from Egypt’s ValU and NowPay helping drive funding activity during the month. The logistics and transport sector followed with $27.1 million. The turning point, however, came in February 2026. The logistics and transport sector emerged as the top-funded sector for the month, raising $119.6 million. The surge was driven by notable rounds from Spiro, an e-mobility startup that raised $57 million, and GoCab, which secured $45 million. Fintech dropped to the fourth most-funded sector, raising $54.1 million, as energy and water startups overtook it with $94 million in funding, largely driven by SolarAfrica’s $94 million raise. The shift in momentum, highlighting growing investor interest in these sectors, appears to be intensifying in 2026 compared with the same period in 2025, where early signs of this trend were already visible. In January 2025, fintech led funding activity while energy and water came a close second, raising nearly half of fintech’s total for the month. By February 2025, fintech still held the lead, but logistics and transport emerged as a stronger contender, raising more than half of fintech’s funding that month. So far in 2026, Africa’s funding landscape has seen the presence of deep-tech startups in the investment mix. Nigerian defence-tech startup Terra Industries raised over $33 million across two deals so far this year alone to scale its advanced manufacturing operations. The continued fundraising suggests a growing willingness among investors to back startups building technology-driven industrial infrastructure. Meanwhile, the agritech sector, which struggled to hold investor interest in 2025, is beginning to show tentative signs of recovery. Funding in agritech startups across Africa declined to $168.1 million in 2025 from $206.9 million in 2024. The slow pace continued into January 2026, when agritech startups collectively raised $200,000. February brought renewed activity. Egypt’s Breadfast raised $50 million, while Lovegrass Ethiopia secured $5 million, pushing total agritech funding for the month to about $55 million. While still modest compared with sectors such as logistics, fintech, or energy, the rebound suggests investors may be reassessing opportunities in agriculture. The first two months of 2026 paint a picture of a more diversified funding environment where fintechs continue to attract capital, but other sectors tied to mobility, energy, infrastructure, and food are gaining ground. If this momentum continues through the rest of the year, Africa’s venture capital ecosystem could see a gradual rebalancing across sectors. While the fintech sector is unlikely to lose its importance, funding may begin to favour startups operating in other sectors, particularly at this time when investors are concentrating capital across fewer deals. Get The Best African Tech Newsletters In Your Inbox Select your country Nigeria Ghana Kenya South Africa Egypt Morocco Tunisia Algeria Libya Sudan Ethiopia Somalia Djibouti Eritrea Uganda Tanzania Rwanda Burundi Democratic Republic of the Congo Republic of the Congo Central African Republic Chad Cameroon Gabon Equatorial Guinea São Tomé and Príncipe Angola Zambia Zimbabwe Botswana Namibia Lesotho Eswatini Mozambique Madagascar Mauritius Seychelles Comoros Cape Verde Guinea-Bissau Senegal The Gambia Guinea Sierra Leone Liberia Côte d’Ivoire Burkina Faso Mali Niger Benin Togo Other Select your gender Male Female Others TC Daily TC Events Next wave Entering Tech Subscribe
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IFF 2026: Why Africa’s financial future may not belong to banks
It’s been two days of back-to-back panels at the Inclusive Finance Forum (IFF) in Kigali, but Wednesday’s main event, a panel session that featured James Mwangi, the managing director and CEO of Equity Group Holdings, Mary Ellen Iskenderian, the CEO of Women’s World Banking, and Serge Dioum, the CEO of MTN FinTech Group, tried to deliver an answer to one of the most pressing questions in African fintech: Who will own Africa’s financial future and build the rails? While the three executives laid out competing visions for Africa’s next financial era, they all agreed on one thing: that financial inclusion alone is no longer enough. They also agreed that the next phase for African finance is about wealth creation, independence, and infrastructure. The infrastructure argument Mwangi opened with a sweeping thesis. The future of financial services, he argued, will not be defined by apps or products, but by the digital public infrastructure on which everything else sits. Digital IDs will replace physical passports. Remote account opening is already replacing branch visits. Finance is embedded so deeply in daily life that it functions less like a service and more like a utility. “I see digital public infrastructure as a new business airport and port that we will have in the future as the hub of economic development. The modern economy will be built on digital public infrastructure,” said Mwangi. He argued that for this infrastructure to function, two things must follow: interoperability standards that allow systems to trust each other across borders and a citizen-owned digital wallet not tethered to a bank or a telco, but one that belongs to the individual, allowing them to connect to whatever services they choose. The implication of his statement was clear: whoever controls the wallet controls the relationship, and Mwangi was suggesting that neither the banks nor the telcos should. Iskenderian, who leads the world’s largest nonprofit focused on women’s financial inclusion, brought the conversation back to a stubborn reality. Africa has the highest percentage of women entrepreneurs globally, with over 58% of the continent’s self-employed population being women. Despite this, access to credit for these women has barely budged, even as technology has advanced dramatically. The problem, she said, is structural. Banks are still making lending decisions based on 19th-century ideas about collateral, which women have historically never owned. The data that could transform credit decisions—transaction histories flowing through mobile money platforms, repayment patterns, and business activity—is sitting right there, largely unused, she said. “Why isn’t what you know about the way women pay back, the way rural people pay back, and how their businesses are structured being incorporated into credit decisions?” said Iskenderian. She also flagged a regulatory bottleneck that she said was quietly undermining progress. Credit guarantees have expanded across Africa, enabling banks to lend more freely to small businesses, but in many countries, banks still don’t get capital charge relief for loans backed by those guarantees—a technical gap that effectively cancels out the policy’s intent. Image Source: IFF 2026. The small business finance gap in emerging markets and developing economies stands at $5.7 trillion, rising to $8 trillion when informal enterprises are included. This gap grew by over 27% between 2015 and 2019, more than double the rate of GDP growth over the same period. Dioum, who oversees MTN’s fintech operations across 14 African markets, pitched a different model altogether. Where Mwangi spoke about public infrastructure and Iskenderian about policy reform, Thiemele spoke about the language of platforms. MTN FinTech, he said, has connected 70,000 partners to its platform through an Open API system. Anyone with an idea can build on top of MTN’s infrastructure, access its customer base, and launch services without requiring any direct intervention from the company. The result: a partner who connects to MTN’s platform gets access to 70 million customers from day one. “Financial inclusion is not enough,” said Dioum. “We need to create wealth for our people so that they can be independent financially and they can have a good life.” Dioum’s vision follows a familiar arc — loans first, then savings, then insurance — with the telco as the enabling layer throughout. The playbook is not new; it is the logic that built mobile money across Africa. The ambition, though, is a full-stack financial ecosystem. He also addressed cross-border interoperability directly: a customer using mobile money in Zambia should be able to pay for goods in Rwanda in real time while in transit. That kind of seamlessness, he argued, is what the next generation of infrastructure must deliver. Will banks survive? Mobile money and fintech have helped to revolutionise African finance, but one pertinent question has been, will banks be part of the future of finance? Mwangi’s response was notably candid. Financial services will always be needed, he said. But who provides them is a more complicated question. The bulk of mobile money, arguably Africa’s most transformative financial product, was not built by banks. Mwangi said Equity Group has been asking itself the same question. On the IFF stage, he announced that the lender is launching an innovation studio in Rwanda, bringing together a team of about 10 innovators at the intersection of capital, technology, and entrepreneurship. The group, Mwangi said, is backed by Equity’s $16 billion balance sheet and designed to co-create with African innovators and stakeholders. “The future is the intersection of knowledge, creativity, innovation, entrepreneurship, and capital, where they meet opportunity, and that’s what we are seeing Rwanda provide us with,” he said. The panel surfaced a tension that runs through Africa’s financial services landscape right now. Banks, telcos, and development institutions all agree on a financially empowered African population transacting seamlessly across borders, but the route is contested. Mwangi wants citizen-owned infrastructure. Iskenderian wants gender-responsive policy reform. Thiemele wants open platforms anchored by telcos. What they all agreed on, and this may be the most consequential shift, is that the language of inclusion is giving way to the language of wealth creation. The question is no longer whether
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