Absa Kenya to spend $23.2 million a year in digital banking push
Absa Bank Kenya will spend up to KES 3 billion ($23.2 million) a year on technology to deepen its digital strategy, according to a Business Daily report, as the lender seeks to move more customer activity to mobile and other self-service channels. The bank said the recurring investment will make transactions easier and support its push into digital banking, even as competition intensifies and customer expectations shift away from branches. The change reflects a broader migration across Kenya’s banking sector towards mobile and self-service channels, a trend accelerated by the country’s entrenched mobile money ecosystem and rising expectations for instant, always-on financial services. “Typically, we now do KES 2 billion ($15.4 million) to KES 3 billion ($23.2 million) of investments per year [in technology], and 2025 was no different in ensuring we are migrating transactions to digital platforms. We are making it easier for our customers to transact with us,” Absa Kenya chief executive Abdi Mohamed told Business Daily. The bank spent KES 2.16 billion ($16.7 million) on technology in 2025, underscoring how quickly digital investment has become a fixed cost in its operations. About 94% of all transactions in 2025 took place outside branches, compared with roughly 40–50% a decade ago, according to the lender. The technology push comes as Absa continues to reshape parts of its consumer banking leadership around digital banking. In February, the bank appointed former M-Pesa Africa chief executive Sitoyo Lopokoiyit to head its personal and private banking division, a move widely read as a signal of where it expects retail growth to come from. Lopokoiyit, who built his reputation overseeing the expansion of M-Pesa, is expected to bring mobile banking experience to retail and affluent banking at a time when the boundaries between banks and fintechs are becoming blurred. Efficiency gains The efficiency gains are already visible in the bank’s cost base. Other operating expenses fell 21% to KES 7.35 billion ($56.9 million) in the year to December 2025, with management attributing much of the decline to digitisation and automation. The impact of the technology push has also been reflected in performance metrics. Absa’s cost-to-income ratio—a measure of banking efficiency—improved to 36.5% in 2025 from 46% a year earlier, helped by lower costs and improved revenue generation. Net profit rose 10% to KES 22.9 billion ($177.3 million) over the period, suggesting that efficiency gains from digitisation are beginning to support bottom-line growth, even as investment spending remains elevated.
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Kenya’s M-TIBA refunds users after shutting health savings wallet
M-TIBA, a mobile health platform run by Kenya-based healthtech startup CarePay, is shutting down its My Health Funds (MHF) wallet that lets customers set aside money specifically for healthcare. On April 8, users began receiving refunds directly into their M-PESA wallets without initiating withdrawals, indicating payouts are already underway. Five M-TIBA users confirmed to TechCabal that they had received the funds. The decision marks a shift in M-TIBA’s model, from a consumer health savings wallet to an insurance management platform. The move, however, leaves users who depended on the service to set aside small amounts for care without a clear alternative for planning or paying for treatment. CarePay declined to comment for this story. M-TIBA first informed users on March 3 via SMS and its website that the MHF wallet would be discontinued, stating that access to insurance benefits on the platform would remain unchanged. An SMS from M-TIBA notifying users about the discontinuation of the MHF wallet. Source: Screenshot from an M-TIBA user Users were asked via SMS to withdraw their balances via USSD or receive M-PESA refunds by March 8, 2026. M-TIBA also said it would process refunds using verified details, with any unresolved balances sent to the Unclaimed Financial Assets Authority, the government agency that holds unclaimed funds until owners come forward. Refunds began on April 8, and users who had not withdrawn their balances by the March 8 deadline received their wallet savings automatically. On its website, CarePay said withdrawals would be free, and funds would remain safe, but did not fully explain why the savings product is being retired. “M-TIBA has some exciting updates on how we’re evolving to better serve you and millions of others,” the company said on its website, without providing further detail. Launched in 2015, M-TIBA built its early momentum on the idea of ringfencing healthcare funds so they cannot be spent elsewhere. The MHF wallet allowed individuals, employers, and donors to allocate money strictly for medical use across a network of providers. It provided an option for users who could not afford insurance but wanted a structured way to save for care. CarePay said on its website it will focus on “improving health insurance management,” pointing to a model where insurers and partners drive usage rather than individual savings. “Since we launched the M-TIBA wallet, we’ve helped many people save and access healthcare, and thanks to your trust, we’re growing into something even bigger and better,” CarePay said on its website. “That’s why we aim to focus on improving health insurance management to ensure more people get access to more affordable healthcare and a better experience.” CarePay has not disclosed how many users are affected, the total value of refunds, or how many accounts may be transferred to the Unclaimed Financial Assets Authority due to failed verification. It has not outlined clear alternatives for users who cannot transition to insurance products. The shutdown follows scrutiny in 2025 after a cyber attack exposed user data, as reported by TechCabal. M-TIBA said it will delete personal data once MHF accounts are closed, in line with its privacy policy. It has yet to disclose whether the decision is linked to security, compliance, or cost pressures.
Read MoreNigerian Web3 startups raised $43 million in 2025, but growth remains early
Nigeria’s Web3 startups, including crypto, blockchain, and stablecoin-based fintechs, raised $43 million in 2025, doubling the previous year’s figure, according to a report by Hashed Emergent, an India-based venture capital firm that backs early-stage African startups. The report, Nigeria Web3 Landscape Report 2025, shows that while capital is returning, it is heavily concentrated: 89% of funding—about $38 million—went to finance products tied to stablecoin use cases, such as payments and fiat-crypto exchanges. Early-stage deals accounted for $13 million, with most activity clustered around pre-seed and seed rounds, underscoring the limited depth of growth capital. Series A funding returned modestly in 2025 after a slowdown the previous year, with its first deal in two years, according to the report. The rebound masks an ecosystem still dominated by early-stage bets and a narrow focus on stablecoin-driven payments. That imbalance points to a market still in its formative phase, where startup formation is accelerating faster than scale capital. “A wave of stablecoin-focused startups is driving increased investment activity across the ecosystem,” said Tak Lee, chief executive officer and managing partner at Hashed Emergent. “This momentum led finance to dominate. Consumer adoption has also surged, further cementing Nigeria’s position as a global stablecoin hub.” The funding concentration mirrors a wider shift in Nigeria’s crypto market away from speculation toward utility. Stablecoin adoption is driving much of the activity, with deposits growing more than 9,000% between 2018 and 2025, while on-chain transaction value rose 56% year-on-year to $92 billion, according to the report. Despite the rebound, the deal volume still tilts to traditional funding avenues, signalling that global venture capital attention has yet to fully return to Nigeria’s Web3 sector. Nigerian Web3 startups recorded 82 deals in 2025, up from 72 in 2024, according to the report. Yet, 73 of those deals were grants, with just one Series A round recorded in 2025. The remaining deals were spread across seed, pre-seed, and token sales, highlighting the early-stage skew and reliance on crypto-based funding rounds. Sector performance also fell short in 2025. While the finance sector dominated, infrastructure-first startups, including those building stablecoin rails, developer, and payment interoperability tools, raised only $4 million in 2025, down from $11 million recorded in 2024, their peak in the last five years, the report noted. Nigeria’s Web3 entertainment sector, including gaming and social apps, declined to $1 million, down by 50% from 2024. Investor interest remained concentrated around stablecoin infrastructure, cross-border payments, and crypto-fiat withdrawal services, with limited appetite for emerging categories like gaming, creator platforms, or AI-driven infrastructure. The shift to utility as trading cools Crypto usage patterns are also changing. Withdrawal and deposit volumes for both fiat and crypto declined in 2025, signalling a cooling in speculative trading activity, according to the report. More Nigerians are using digital currencies, especially stablecoins, for remittance payments. According to the report, remittance flows between Nigeria and other countries expanded rapidly across intra-African and global corridors, recording transfers to and from Ghana, Kenya, the UK, Canada, China, and parts of Europe. Stablecoins are functioning as a payment rail rather than a store of value. The report shows that Nigerians recorded an 83% withdrawal-to-deposit ratio on exchanges; out of every $100 received in wallets, about $83 is quickly withdrawn, signalling that stablecoins are becoming money in transit, as users treat them as payment and transactional means, rather than savings. 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 Regulation advances, but clarity lags Across Africa, regulators in countries like Kenya, Ghana, and Rwanda are moving toward formal oversight of digital assets. Nigeria has also shifted toward regulation after years of sidelining crypto firms from accessing the formal financial system. Yet, clarity remains uneven. Nigeria’s Investment and Securities Act, passed in March 2025, formally recognised digital assets as securities under the oversight of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). However, a February Virtual Asset Regulatory Authority (VARA) white paper introduced a broader approach for crypto oversight. Nigeria created the Virtual Asset Regulatory Council (VARC), a multi-agency coordinating body for non-security virtual assets not under the SEC’s purview, including payment tokens, exchange tokens, stablecoins, utility tokens, and other digital representations of value. The country designated the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor and the Executive Chairman of the Nigeria Revenue Service (NRS), the country’s tax authority, as co-chairs of the agency, overseeing payment-linked activities in the digital asset sector. On March 31, the CBN launched a supervisory pilot programme to monitor activities of stablecoin issuers, exchanges, and stablecoin-based payment processors—including Flutterwave and Paystack—for compliance with anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorism financing standards. According to both the Investments and Securities Act (2025) and the VARA white paper, the SEC retains authority over tokenised securities. Yet, the capital markets regulator has also raised minimum capital requirements for Digital Asset exchanges (DAXs), which operate businesses tied to fiat-crypto withdrawals and payments, and now have to meet a ₦2 billion ($1.4 million) capital threshold. Digital Asset Custodians responsible for safeguarding users’ crypto assets are also subject to the same ₦2 billion ($1.4 million) capital requirement, raising entry barriers and deepening uncertainty around fragmented policies and the scope of regulatory oversight. “While progress on regulation has been slower than expected, the foundation of the ecosystem remains strong, driven by resilient founders and builders who continue to create, adapt, and push the space forward,” said Lee. “There are clear signs of progress, with increased engagement between stakeholders and regulators. One thing is clear: Nigeria remains an anchor for Web3 and
Read MoreKenya wants lenders to prove borrowers can repay before approving loans
Kenyan regulators will now require lenders to prove borrowers can repay before issuing loans, a major shift in a market defined by instant loan approvals through mobile apps and automated scoring systems. The new rules are contained in a March 2026 Financial Consumer Protection Framework draft backed by the Central Bank of Kenya, the Capital Markets Authority (CMA) and the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA), and would apply across banks, fintechs and mobile money providers. The proposed rules would fundamentally change how credit works in one of Africa’s most active digital lending markets. Kenya has more than 227 licenced digital credit providers, but default rates have drawn sustained regulatory concern. The framework is the regulators’ attempt to address a market that expanded faster than the rules governing it. It would require lenders to check income, expenses and existing debt and document whether a borrower can afford a loan before issuing it, applying the same requirement across banks, fintechs and mobile money providers. Presently, lenders increase borrowing limits based on a customer’s repayment history, without fully assessing their ability to take on additional debt. “A Financial Services Provider (FSP) shall not provide a credit product… unless they have first undertaken a reasonable assessment to confirm the retail consumer’s ability to repay the credit without financial hardship,” the draft noted. Lenders must base that assessment on “appropriately reliable information” about a borrower’s financial position, including income, expenses and existing obligations. The requirement sets a baseline for how credit is issued, limiting the use of models that rely primarily on behavioural data or predictive scoring. Kenya’s credit market spans a wide range of providers. Banks such as KCB Bank Kenya, Equity Bank Kenya and Co-operative Bank of Kenya offer digital loans through mobile channels while operating under prudential regulation and established credit assessment processes. Alongside them are telecom-led products like Safaricom’s M-Shwari and Fuliza, which extend credit directly through mobile money platforms. Standalone digital lenders such as Tala and Branch MFB rely on app-based onboarding and automated decision-making. The lending market has expanded rapidly, but regulatory oversight has not kept pace. The Central Bank has so far licenced 227 digital credit providers following a clean-up of previously unregulated apps. As of February 2026, licenced lenders had disbursed 7.5 million loans worth KES 133.5 billion ($1.03 billion), reflecting the scale of mobile-based credit uptake. Default rates, particularly on small loans, have drawn regulatory concern. Data from the Central Bank shows that loans below KES 1,000 recorded default rates of more than 80%, while loans between KES 1,000 and KES 5,000 recorded default rates of about 69%. Larger digital loans perform better, but overall default rates for digital lenders have been reported as high as 40%, more than double those in the banking sector. The draft framework moves to standardise expectations across these providers by introducing a common requirement for affordability and suitability. Digital lenders typically approve loans using alternative data such as mobile money transactions, airtime usage and device metadata, with decisions made in seconds and little verification of income or expenses. Under the proposed rules, lenders would need to document how each loan aligns with a borrower’s financial capacity and assess whether the product is appropriate for that borrower. The framework also highlighted concerns around over-indebtedness, hidden fees, misuse of data and uneven consumer safeguards. It seeks to limit the build-up of unsustainable debt rather than manage defaults after the fact by requiring affordability checks at origination. The proposal also links loan origination to lenders’ handling of repayment difficulties. Firms would be expected to engage borrowers who show signs of distress and consider options such as restructuring or deferred payments before taking enforcement action. The framework applies across the financial sector, covering banks, mobile money operators and digital lenders. It sets common standards on disclosure, complaint handling, product design and digital platforms. If adopted, the rules would require lenders to not only justify loan issuance, but also the decision driving it.
Read MoreAXIAN’s Benjamin Toulouze says CVCs can move faster than VCs
Benjamin Toulouze, the head of corporate venture capital (CVC) at Axian Group, a multinational conglomerate, spent most of his career as a banker at Société Générale, France’s third-largest bank by total assets, working across France and several African markets. These days, he runs the CVC arm at AXIAN Investment, the investment arm of the Madagascar-headquartered AXIAN Group. Based in Dubai, his team of four is split between the UAE and Antananarivo. Toulouze got the green light to launch the corporate VC unit in late 2021, making it one of the first CVC vehicles from an African group. Four years in, AXIAN Investment has invested in 33 startups directly and holds stakes in 38 funds. Its direct portfolio includes MaxAB in Egypt, LipaLater in East Africa, Djamo in Côte d’Ivoire, Curacel, Anda in Angola, WideBot AI, and Nucleon Security in Morocco. Cheque sizes range from $50,000 for very early ideas up to $1.5 million in total exposure per company. AXIAN Group might not be a household name in African tech, but its footprint is significant. The pan-African conglomerate, founded half a century ago by the Hiridjee family, operates in 32 countries across Africa and the Indian Ocean, with interests in telecoms, financial services, energy, real estate, and innovation. Its telecoms arm was ranked 74th on the Financial Times’ 2025 list of Africa’s fastest-growing companies. The firm takes minority stakes of 1% to 5%, deliberately small, Toulouze says, to avoid conflicts with AXIAN’s operating businesses and to keep trust with founders and co-investors. It has not yet had an exit, but as the parent group builds out data centre infrastructure through its STELLAR-IX brand across four markets, the CVC is leaning heavily into AI, cybersecurity, digital assets, and what Toulouze calls the “sovereignty issue”; African countries controlling their own data. In our conversation, Toulouze explains why his team chose Dubai and Madagascar over Lagos or Nairobi, how he pitches against the “CVCs move slowly” objection, why he thinks 1–5% stakes are an important feature, how he sources in North Africa after living there, and what he looks for in founders. This interview has been edited lightly for clarity and length. You started your career as a banker in France before moving into venture capital. How did that transition happen? I actually wanted to be an investor before being a banker. I started my career in France, in Paris, at a big audit firm doing acquisition due diligence, standard CPA work at the time for big French groups listed on the CAC 40. I worked for a fund that wanted to acquire a startup in France. That was in 2004. From then on, I wanted to be an investor. But for different reasons, I got very good opportunities as a banker, first in France and then in different countries. But the dream of being close to the entrepreneur was already there. I came to AXIAN in 2019 with this idea, but it was a bit early. At the end of 2021, we got a green light internally to launch one of the very first corporate VCs from an African group. I enjoy it a lot. You’re based in Dubai, AXIAN is in Madagascar. Those aren’t typical tech markets. Why not operate from Lagos, Nairobi, Cairo, or Johannesburg? We are four at the corporate VC. Two of my teammates are still based in Madagascar, and we are two in Dubai. The point is, we are close to all the markets, including the big operational tech ecosystems in Africa. But the goal is to be everywhere, to be in touch with the entire ecosystem. That’s entrepreneurs, but also venture capitalists locally and internationally. The big tech companies and we have good examples like Flutterwave in Lagos, Moniepoint, FairMoney, or in Egypt, MNT-Halan, are based in their own countries, but they go beyond. That’s what we do. We’re ready to go and be as close as possible to different companies. All these big countries are our major zones of investment: Egypt, Nigeria, Kenya, West Africa, and South Africa. We stay close to all these ecosystems, and we go on-site as soon as possible. We don’t see any issue with not being there permanently. We have a big network in different countries now, so it’s fine. A lot of corporate VC professionals I’ve spoken to say CVCs don’t move as fast as typical VCs or that there can be strings attached. How do you convince a founder that AXIAN is the best partner? We’ve already got these kinds of objections. The first part of my answer is that at AXIAN, we have a very strong entrepreneurship mindset. We are ready to decide quite quickly. Sometimes we move faster than the regular VCs. I don’t have any internal barriers to moving forward. If I need to get all my investment committee members for a decision, I can get one very quickly. Most of the time, when we take time, it’s because we are still questioning the business model and want to go deeper. In terms of governance and decision-making, we don’t have any issues. On convincing the entrepreneur, interestingly, entrepreneurs are really keen to add corporate VCs to their cap tables. Because we have a complementary value proposition to regular VCs. We know the operations, and most of the time we come from the operations themselves. We know the challenges of launching a company, of keeping it striving, of day-to-day operations, HR, accounting, organisation, and strategic vision. One of the values we bring is our experience as intrapreneurs or entrepreneurs who have led either divisions or departments within a very large group. The second thing is, as a corporate VC, we can bring potential new markets for the startup. It’s not a commitment, but when we invest in a company, we try to push for a solid partnership between the startup and the AXIAN Group—synergies, working together, going in the same direction. That’s why entrepreneurs are interested in working with us. We have a complementary value proposition,
Read MoreThe money engines that built Fawry’s $1 billion business
This is Follow the Money, our weekly series that unpacks the earnings, business, and scaling strategies of African fintechs, financial institutions, companies, and governments. A new edition drops every Monday. When Fawry launched in 2008 as an e-payment switch connecting utility providers and telecom operators to consumers through retail agents, its pitch was simple: Egypt was a cash-heavy economy, and it wanted to digitise it. That limited scope has since expanded into a sprawling financial ecosystem that now serves nearly half of Egypt’s population, powering daily utility payments, loans, insurance, and other financial services. Fawry is now Egypt’s largest mobile money platform, and its revenue has equally grown. In 2017, the company earned EGP 432 million (*$24.2 million) in revenue and netted EGP 53.7 million (*$3 million) in profit. By 2025, its revenue has climbed to EGP 8.65 billion ($166.7 million), while net revenue reached EGP 3.1 billion ($59.7 million). After accounting for minority shareholders, Fawry’s take-home profit stood at EGP 2.89 billion ($55.7 million). Fawry now earns more than 20 times what it did in 2017. Fawry: The $1.3B Money Engines The $1.3B Money Loop Mapping Fawry’s Financial Evolution Select Reporting Period 2017: Start 2025: Scale Total Operating Revenue EGP 8.65B 1,900% increase since 2017 Annual Net Profit EGP 3.1B The Five Money Engines Data Note: 2025 figures represent total year projections and reported segment earnings from Fawry’s latest financial disclosures. Marketplace capitalization as of April 20, 2026. Source: Fawry Filings TechCabal Tools
Read More“I didn’t quite understand the extent of what I was working on”: Day 1-1000 of Citizens’ Gavel
If you ask Nelson Olanipekun how he built Citizens’ Gavel, the non-profit platform that uses AI to help people navigate Nigeria’s justice system, he would start with the story of an elderly woman whose case mirrored something much closer to home. In 2017, he was working as a lawyer in a private firm, whose major clients were banks, when the case landed on his desk. The retired woman had taken an unnamed bank to court after it refused to pay out her savings, plus interest. Nelson’s job was to defend the bank. As the case proceeded, it began to look familiar. Years earlier, Olanipekun’s father was caught in a similar ordeal in which the same procedural tactics nearly cost his family their home. He left the law firm after a few months. He had no plan in mind, but with only the conviction to change the system he was working within, a system, he believed, wasn’t built to protect the people it claimed to serve. Day 1: An idea that didn’t hold The gap in Nigeria’s justice system is significant. According to the World Justice Project, an international civil society organisation aiming to advance the rule of law globally, the country ranks 104th of 143 on civil justice and 90th of 143 on criminal justice, with cost, delay, effectiveness, corruption and discrimination among the biggest barriers. Within that context, Olanipekun began to think about how technology could be used to address some of these gaps. His first idea for an access-to-justice platform powered by technology was not Citizens’ Gavel. He called it Open Judiciary, and it was designed to fight corruption within the judicial system. The idea was built on stare decisis, a legal doctrine that requires lower courts to follow established precedents, especially from superior courts. According to Olanipekun, Open Judiciary was intended to track and monitor whether judgments from lower courts aligned with a precedent from higher courts. In 2017, he joined the accelerator programme at CivicHive, an initiative focused on startups using technology to drive civic engagement. It was during one of the pitch sessions that he was asked to refine his idea. Instead of trying to analyse the system from the outside, he began to think about how to intervene directly and connect people to lawyers to enable them to understand the justice system. That became Citizens’ Gavel, an access-to-justice platform launched the same year. Gavel’s early activities were mainly carried out on social media. On those platforms, people would reach out to organisations to report incidents. Olanipekun said he would pick up cases, follow up on them, and in many instances, travel to locations himself to intervene. By 2018, lawyers who saw the work based on people’s reactions on social media joined Citizens’ Gavel as volunteers. Funding at this stage was little. The CivicHive accelerator provided a fellowship stipend that he used for rent and volunteer support, and there was still no full clarity on what Gavel would become. “I didn’t quite understand the full extent of what I was working on, the full extent of the problem,” he said. “Nothing was clear initially, but I felt that it was unique because I was using technology.” Day 500: Working the #EndSARS movement Olanipekun noted that by early 2019, Citizens’ Gavel’s activities began unfolding in waves. Across Nigeria, there were repeated reports of police brutality, particularly involving the now-disbanded Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), a unit of the police that had long been accused of extortion, unlawful arrests, and violence. Each time there was an incident of police brutality, people would go online to make a post and tag organisations to get help. In October 2020, these scattered incidents became a nationwide youth-led protest, tagged #EndSARS, demanding accountability, reform, and an end to systemic abuse. Protesters who needed legal support, and families who were trying to get their loved ones released, were among the people Olanipekun said reached out to the organisation. According to him, the cases Citizen’s Gavel handled at that time multiplied. Citizen’s Gavel was not alone in that moment. A loose network of organisations, including the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) Nigeria, a human rights advocacy organisation; Feminist Coalition, a women’s rights advocacy group that led emergency response, fundraising, and logistic support for protesters; and Mentally Aware NG, a mental health nonprofit that offered free therapy for illegally detained and harassed protesters, were among the organisations that assisted during that period. To respond to the influx of cases, Citizens’ Gavel had to operate like an emergency system. Olanipekun said that Gavel’s network of volunteer lawyers expanded to 250 across the country, with rapid response legal teams, who could get to police stations and engage authorities quickly, positioned in Lagos and Abuja. According to him, Gavel secured the release of detainees and worked on cases that led to compensation for victims. “That year alone, we were involved in over 400 intervention cases specifically tailored to people who were arrested and detained during the EndSARS protest,” he said. As the cases increased for Gavel’s team, so did the risks. Olanipekun recalled that they received threats and intimidation calls to stop litigation. He also described that witness protection became a part of their job. “#EndSARS was the hardest. It was emotionally draining,” he said. “I had to run away from the country because of the blowback.” By the time the protests slowed, Citizens’ Gavel had operationally gone through a pressure and scale different from what it started as. That experience shaped what it built next. Day 1000: Building structure around scale Post 2020, Olanipekun described activities at Citizens’ Gavel as revolving around putting more structures following the deluge of cases the team handled during the protests. The organisation built products that could handle parts of the process without needing a lawyer at every step. There was Justice Clock in 2021, designed for tracking case files and managing cases launched by the Lagos State Government. There was also Filer, which Olanipekun described as a platform that
Read MoreWhy MTN and Airtel temporarily suspended airtime lending in Nigeria
Nigeria’s largest telecom operators are temporarily suspending airtime and data loan services, a once-sticky feature for prepaid users, as new consumer lending rules force them into full regulatory compliance. On Thursday, MTN Nigeria, the country’s largest telco, temporarily suspended its airtime and data lending product, Xtratime, and Airtel Nigeria, the second-largest provider, followed suit on Friday, citing the need to align with “evolving requirements.” Both companies say customers can still purchase airtime and bundles through standard channels. “MTN Nigeria Communications PLC (MTN Nigeria or the Company) hereby notifies the Nigerian Exchange Limited and the investing public that the Company has temporarily suspended its airtime and data credit advance service (“Xtratime”),” the telco said in its filing. “This relates to the implementation of processes under the Digital, Electronic, Online or Non-Traditional Consumer Lending Regulations, 2025, which introduced a new compliance and licencing framework for entities providing digital or non-traditional consumer credit services.” Nigerian telecom providers are reviewing their digital lending services to consumers following new rules by the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC), passed in July 2025. Those guidelines apply to any entity involved in the provision, facilitation, or administration of digital or non-traditional consumer lending, bringing airtime and data advances into scope and requiring operators to obtain licences and meet the compliance requirements before continuing the services. “Airtel Nigeria remains committed to the highest standards of compliance, transparency, and consumer protection, while continuing to innovate responsibly within Nigeria’s digital ecosystem,” said Ismail Adeshina, the company’s director of marketing, in the statement released Friday. However, in a statement issued on Friday, the FCCPC pushed back against claims that it ordered the suspension of airtime lending services, stating that it “has not prohibited airtime borrowing or data advance services, and no directive was issued preventing consumers from accessing lawful telecom value-added services.” The regulator framed the disruptions as a consequence of operators’ failure to comply with existing rules within the stipulated timelines. The FCCPC’s Digital, Electronic, Online, or Non-Traditional Consumer Lending (DEONCL) Regulations and Guidelines apply to entities involved in digital consumer lending, including services tied to repayable monetary value. Products, such as MTN’s Xtratime, fall within the scope of the framework. The FCCPC said the rules were introduced following “a deluge of consumer complaints” involving opaque charges, unexplained deductions, aggressive recovery practices, and poor disclosure standards across digital lending services. According to the consumer protection watchdog, affected digital lending operators, including telcos, were initially given a 90-day compliance window in 2025, later extended to January 5, 2026, yet relevant operators failed to meet the necessary compliance steps. “In the telecom sector, our findings indicated that some operators engaged in exclusionary third-party technical arrangements in clear disobedience to the provisions of the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Act, 2018. The Regulations sought to unlock the market to allow local participants alongside foreign partners, in line with free market principles. These measures benefit Nigerians by reducing abusive practices, improving transparency, strengthening consumer choice, and encouraging responsible innovation by legitimate operators,” the regulator said on Friday. Any temporary suspension, restriction, or operational change introduced by service providers, including telcos, should therefore be understood as a business or compliance decision by those operators, not a ban imposed by the FCCPC, the statement read. Securing approval under the framework requires service providers to apply to the FCCPC, submit corporate and ownership documents, and disclose their lending models, including interest rates, charges, and default fees. Applicants must also declare all digital lending applications and interfaces used to issue credit, and provide evidence that these systems meet data protection and security standards under Nigerian law. The rules further require formal consumer lending or service-level agreements (SLAs) for any partnerships with banks or fintechs. The FCCPC charges approval and renewal fees under the regulations, including an additional ₦500,000 ($372) for each lending application beyond the initial five permitted under a single approval. While it is usually not reported separately, airtime lending contributes a sizable amount to telcos’ revenue. In 2025, MTN Nigeria’s fintech revenue reached ₦191.3 billion ($142.5 million), growing by 80% from the previous year. About ₦10.9 billion ($8.1 million) accounted for its core fintech revenue, while the rest significantly came from airtime lending and other value-added services. In Airtel’s case, the telco reports airtime credit service under its mobile services revenue segment, and according to how it defined this product in its 2025 financial year, it treats airtime credit as a value‑added service (VAS) classified as a mobile services product rather than a mobile money product. In the nine months to December 2025, Airtel Nigeria’s mobile services revenue grew by 50% to $1.12 billion from $738 million year‑on‑year in constant‑currency terms. Data brought in $576 million; voice contributed $432 million, and “other” revenue—the bucket where airtime and data credit earnings sit—reported $113 million, up by about 44% from the previous year. By comparison, Airtel Nigeria’s mobile money product, SmartCash, earned only $6 million over the same period, underscoring how small its fintech line still is relative to core mobile services income. Airtime and data lending are high-margin businesses for telcos, since they keep the interest on advances, while incurring little to no procurement costs. Airtime credit is also critical for Nigeria’s credit-starved market, where increased telecom tariffs have pushed up the cost of staying online. Other telecom operators operating in Nigeria, including Globacom and T2, are yet to announce similar moves. Both MTN Nigeria and Airtel Nigeria said the suspension is temporary and that the services will resume once they meet the requirements.
Read MoreAfrica runs on digital payments. Now it must build for reliability
Africa’s financial infrastructure did not evolve like Europe’s or North America’s. In many respects, it leapfrogged legacy models altogether. Across much of the continent, mobile money, not cards, is the primary payments infrastructure. Instant payment volumes across the continent have grown at an average rate of 35% annually since 2020, and mobile money volumes now exceed 80 billion transactions per year. Financial inclusion has expanded rapidly over the past decade, bringing millions into formal commerce for the first time. Consumers who were previously cash-bound can now pay for pretty much everything directly from their phones. As Africa’s digital economy accelerates toward a projected $1.5 trillion by 2030, the question is no longer whether African consumers can participate in the digital economy. They already do. The real question is whether this infrastructure can support enterprise-scale trade without creating new systemic risks. When transactions increase from thousands to millions, payments stop being a growth feature and start becoming critical infrastructure. At that point, clarity becomes essential: knowing whether a payment has succeeded, when funds will settle, and who is responsible when something goes wrong. At low volumes, ambiguity is manageable. At scale, it becomes costly. Consider a customer who authorises a payment and is debited, but the business never receives confirmation. Goods cannot be released, and trust is instantly damaged. The stakes are higher in time-sensitive contexts such as transport, food delivery, or credit repayment, where delayed confirmation creates immediate friction. At scale, these failures translate directly into lost revenue and reputational damage. Across the continent, unresolved or failed transactions cost businesses billions annually. These frictions are not edge cases. They are structural symptoms of a system still moving from consumer-scale adoption to enterprise-grade infrastructure. As payment flows become more interconnected across banks, mobile money operators, and fintech platforms, small breaks also stop being isolated issues. A delayed confirmation or a missing status update doesn’t just affect a single transaction or one single customer; it creates uncertainty across reconciliation, customer experience, and cash flow. At scale, that uncertainty compounds. Across multiple payment channels, it becomes harder to determine where a payment failed, who holds the funds, and how quickly it can be recovered. That complexity is greater still in a cross-border context, where siloed regulatory frameworks add further uncertainty to how the individual payment channels interact with one another across different markets. The result is a hidden tax on growth, one that increases with volume. Not because payments are failing more often, but because the cost of not knowing increases. Building for resilience is not about eliminating failure; it’s about making failure visible, attributable, and recoverable within defined timelines. That is what separates infrastructure that can support enterprise-scale trade from systems that simply process transactions at scale. The first phase of African fintech prioritised speed and access, connecting consumers and businesses to digital rails at scale. That mission has largely been accomplished. Now those same businesses are moving into higher-value, cross-border trade. Africa and the Middle East’s B2B payments markets alone are projected to reach $162 billion by 2033. The next phase demands operational certainty: systems that deliver finality, liquidity, and resilience robust enough for enterprise growth. Access to financial systems has unlocked participation. But it is reliability that will determine who can scale. This is particularly true in today’s environment, where regulatory scrutiny is tightening, and enforcement is catching up with transaction volume. Businesses built on opaque or heavily intermediated structures may find it harder to sustain enterprise growth. Over time, I’ve seen that three attributes increasingly define infrastructure built for this scale. First, transaction certainty. Businesses need visibility over every payment, from initiation to final settlement. Not every transaction will succeed; that is a reality of any payment system. But uncertainty about what happened to a customer’s money erodes trust faster than failure itself. Volume does not break payment systems. Ambiguity does. When providers cannot give real-time status, clear settlement timelines, and proper exception handling, merchants carry the risk and the cost as they grow. Second, compliance depth. Licencing should be treated as an infrastructure, not administration. Direct regulatory engagement and meaningful local authorisation reduce reliance on intermediaries, lower structural risk, and demonstrate long-term commitment to safeguarding funds. Third, platform resilience. Uptime should be a technical metric that reflects architectural discipline. In fragmented markets, downstream failures are inevitable. Systems built to anticipate those failures and reconcile them in near real time are the ones capable of supporting enterprise-grade volume. The next phase will be quieter but more demanding, managing complexity to ensure every transaction resolves with certainty. When payments disappear from everyday conversation, that is when they are working. Good payments are invisible; not because they are simple, but because someone else is managing the complexity. ____ Jamie Steell is the Chief Operating Officer at pawaPay, where he has helped build and scale one of Africa’s leading mobile money payment platforms. His background spans high-growth fintech and multinational regulated environments, including senior roles at betPawa, Sportech PLC, and KPMG.
Read MoreNigeria’s Enugu State plans AI insitute in bold bet on digital talent exports
Enugu State in southeastern Nigeria says it is planning an artificial intelligence institute intended to prepare graduates for roles in global digital markets. Arinze Chilo-Offiah, the governor’s special adviser on digital economy and Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises, who leads the project, frames it within a broader economic argument. “If you look at (diaspora) remittances, they rival what we earn from crude,” he told TechCabal on Tuesday during a visit to his Enugu office. “So the question becomes, what is our real competitive advantage?” He argues that talents, particularly in specialised fields such as artificial intelligence, cloud computing, cybersecurity, and software engineering, offer a clearer path for the digital economy of the state. The plan signals a shift in how subnational governments in Nigeria are thinking about economic development, moving from reliance on physical industries toward exporting digital talent into global markets. The Nigerian federal government, through the Federal Ministry of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy, plans to train 3 million technical talents by 2027. Building a talent pipeline The AI institute is part of the Enugu government’s broader “talent city” framework that integrates training, outsourcing, and infrastructure into a single pipeline, according to Chilo-Offiah. The idea, he shared, is to align education directly with employer demand, so graduates can move into jobs rather than wait for opportunities to emerge. He said the proposed institution would operate as a specialised AI institute with degree-awarding status under the National Universities Commission (NUC), rather than a conventional university. In the interim, it could function as a satellite campus under the Enugu State University of Technology with a provisional licence, before eventually becoming an independent institution. Under this structure, students—including undergraduates from institutions such as the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN)—could transition into approved academic pathways, subject to admission requirements. He said the model would combine the credibility of a degree-awarding institution with the flexibility and practical focus of a specialised training centre. The wider ecosystem begins with a 750-seat business process outsourcing (BPO) centre already under construction, alongside a larger 2,000-seat knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) facility. These centres are expected to handle global contracts spanning software engineering, AI services, and data operations. The proposed AI institute would sit above this layer as an elite training hub modelled loosely on India’s Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), Chilo-Offiah. Entry would not follow Nigeria’s traditional university admission system. Instead, candidates will be selected through competitive assessments, with preference given to applicants who already possess foundational technical training. Enugu is also working with the NUC to formalise programme recognition, he said. “This is not another mass university,” Chilo-Offiah said. “It’s for the best of the best.” The goal is a direct pathway between education and employment. Graduates would transition into outsourcing roles tied to international clients, earning global incomes while in Nigeria. The government says it is already engaging foreign companies to secure opportunities for future graduates. A bet on infrastructure and partnerships Physically, the project is based on both refurbished facilities and new infrastructure. A key component is an abandoned digital industrial park located in Nike, Enugu, originally built by the Nigerian Communications Commission but left incomplete due to funding shortfalls. The facility will be handed over to the state government under a long-term agreement in June 2026, according to Chilo-Offiah. Nearby, an existing commercial building is being converted into the BPO hub, while a new 21,000-square-metre “tech hall” is planned to house the AI institute and other advanced facilities, including labs, prototyping spaces, and even residential quarters for founders and researchers. The early phases of the broader ecosystem are estimated to cost about $15 million, covering both capital investment and initial operations, according to a document shown by Chilo-Offiah. However, Enugu is not positioning itself as the sole funder. Instead, the state is leaning heavily on private-sector partnerships. Chilo-Offiah disclosed that Special-purpose vehicles (SPVs) will be created to attract investors and operators, with the government playing more of an enabling role than a controlling one. “I’m not a believer in the government doing everything,” he said. “We want the private sector to run it and invest.” This approach mirrors the structure of emerging outsourcing hubs. Ekiti State, for instance, is building a similar talent outsourcing model, though without a dedicated AI institute. In the BPO project, for example, the state is funding renovations, while private partners such as Norrsken are providing equipment and managing operations. Africa’s AI learning ecosystem Enugu’s push to build an AI university comes as African countries experiment with different models for AI education. In Nigeria, most efforts are still embedded within existing institutions, with programmes at the University of Lagos and the Federal University of Technology, Akure leading the way. Momentum has been building. In October 2025, OpenAI selected the University of Lagos to host its first AI Academy in Africa, offering specialised research and training resources. Launched in April 2026, the initiative is part of a broader network of “University Innovation Pods” (UniPods), where AI drives research and commercialisation. Meanwhile, FUTA—long known for its School of Computing—has emerged as a key hub for the national AI research scheme, anchoring postgraduate AI training in West Africa. Elsewhere on the continent, countries like Egypt, South Africa, and Kenya are building more specialised institutions for artificial intelligence research and training. These efforts reflect a shift toward dedicated AI faculties and applied research centres rather than embedding AI solely within traditional university departments. In Egypt, Al Alamein International University was established in 2020 in New Alamein City as part of the country’s fourth-generation university programme. It places AI, data science, and advanced engineering disciplines at the centre of its curriculum. South Africa’s African Institute for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (AfriDSAI) is based at the University of Pretoria and was formally launched in August 2025. The institute focuses on AI research that connects academia with public policy and industry, particularly in areas such as governance, development, and applied machine learning. In Kenya, AI-focused innovation hubs have emerged within universities such as Dedan Kimathi
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