Beyond financial inclusion, Nigeria’s central bank is chasing regional payments leadership
In the first half of 2007, Nigerians processed ₦946.22 million ($695,469) in point-of-sale (PoS) transactions. In the first quarter of 2025, that figure grew to ₦10.51 trillion ($7.73 billion). The growth was the product of a series of policy decisions by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), which has spent nearly two decades trying to reduce the country’s reliance on cash and build a digital payments ecosystem through successive Payment System Vision (PSV) frameworks. The first of those frameworks, (PSV) 2020, was launched in 2007 and focused on expanding electronic payments and modernising the country’s payment infrastructure. A second iteration, PSV 2025, followed in 2022, with a much stronger emphasis on financial inclusion, agent banking, interoperability, and the rails needed to support a digital economy. PSV 2025 pushed formal financial inclusion to 64% from 56% in 2020. According to the CBN, agent banking networks expanded to more than two million agents nationwide, and electronic payment value has jumped by 203.51% since 2022 to ₦1.2 quadrillion ($880.51 billion) in 2025. The Bank Verification Number (BVN) system has also become a foundational digital identity layer with over 66 million unique IDs, the CBN noted. However, approximately 26% of bankable adults remain financially excluded, and many Nigerians lack the know-how and confidence to use digital payment tools safely and effectively, the CBN said in the new PSV document. Despite the growth in electronic transactions, only 52% of adults actively use digital payments. Those shortcomings partly formed the basis of PSV 2028, launched on June 1. It seeks to push financial inclusion to 95%, and also reveals a regulator increasingly focused on positioning Nigeria as a regional payments infrastructure hub, connecting African markets, supporting cross-border trade, deploying emerging technologies such as stablecoins and artificial intelligence, and strengthening cyber resilience across an increasingly interconnected financial ecosystem. The strategy rests on five pillars: infrastructure, interconnectivity and interoperability; digital financial inclusion, consumer protection and financial literacy; innovation, digital assets and emerging technologies; cross-border payments and central bank digital currency integration; and regulation, risk management and cybersecurity. Together, they offer a clear picture of how the CBN sees the future of payments in Nigeria. TechCabal Tools CBN PSV 2028 Impact Simulator Interact with the data to see how the central bank’s new policy targets shape cash, cross-border flows, and tech access. Remittances Startup TAM Cyber Security Sub-Saharan Africa has some of the world’s highest remittance costs, averaging 8.46%. PSV 2028 aims to deploy stablecoins, eNaira corridors, and PAPSS to bring costs down to ≤ 5%. Transfer Amount (USD): $500 Current Cost (8.46%) $42.30 2028 Target Cost (5.00%) $25.00 System Insight: This policy shift would retain $17.30 per transaction inside the local economy rather than losing it to correspondent banking fees. Currently, 52% of adults actively use digital payments. The CBN wants to push formal financial inclusion to 95% by 2028. Here is how that expands a startup’s Total Addressable Market (TAM). If your app captures this % of the market: 1.0% Your User Base Today (at 52% inclusion) ~676,000 users Your User Base in 2028 (at 95% inclusion) ~1,235,000 users *Calculations based on an estimated bankable adult population of 130 million. As open banking and CBDCs expand the attack surface, fraud becomes a systemic risk. The CBN is aiming for a 70% drop in fraud losses by 2028 through an AI-powered National Payment SOC. 2024 Actual Loss ₦52.27 Billion 2025 Base Year ₦25.85 Billion 2028 Target Cap ??? Simulate AI SOC Impact System Insight: Hitting this target requires banks to adopt common API standards and real-time biometric tracking to catch bad actors across interconnected networks. Data Sources: CBN PSV 2028 Document, Chainalysis TechCabal.com Nigeria’s next payment opportunity is outside Previous payment visions were largely domestic. The priorities were expanding electronic payments, increasing financial inclusion, reducing cash usage, and improving local payment infrastructure. “CBN reforms (National Financial Inclusion Strategy 2022, eNaira, Open Banking, Regulatory Sandbox, and PSV 2025) have modernised domestic payments and interoperability, while Nigerian Fintech firms have expanded digital solutions across Africa,” the CBN said. The regulator noted that the regional integration for payments remains limited. The PSV 2028 repeatedly highlights the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS), the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), regional interoperability, cross-border settlements, CBDC corridors, regional liquidity pools, settlement banks, and digital trade infrastructure. It proposes strengthening Nigeria’s integration with African payment systems while reducing dependence on foreign settlement currencies in regional trade. “Cross-Border Settlements and PSV 2028 set out to close these gaps by harmonising regulatory standards within ECOWAS/AU, advancing bilateral CBDC corridors, upgrading digital infrastructure for secure real-time settlement, and deepening partnerships,” the CBN said. “By aligning NIBSS and the eNaira with PAPSS and AfCFTA and leveraging over $20 billion in annual diaspora remittances, Nigeria can emerge as a core regional hub for trade settlement and remittances.” Nigeria already possesses one of Africa’s most sophisticated payment ecosystems. Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System Instant Payments processes billions of transactions annually, fintech adoption is among the highest on the continent, and digital payments have become deeply embedded in everyday commerce. At the same time, Africa’s cross-border payments market remains fragmented, expensive, and heavily dependent on correspondent banking relationships outside the continent. Businesses trading across African markets often face multiple currency conversions, lengthy settlement times, and high transaction costs. By positioning Nigerian infrastructure alongside PAPSS and AfCFTA initiatives, the CBN appears to be pursuing a role for Nigeria that goes beyond being Africa’s largest payments market. The CBN intends to leverage stablecoins and CBDCs to navigate the currency hurdles. Because dollar-backed stablecoins such as USDT are pegged to the U.S. dollar, they can serve as a common settlement asset between countries with different currencies. Instead of routing payments through multiple correspondent banks and foreign exchange conversions, participants can convert local currency into a stablecoin, transfer the value across borders almost instantly, and convert it into the recipient’s local currency. According to blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis, stablecoins accounted for 43% of all crypto transaction volume in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2024. Many fintech companies,
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All Apple Intelligence features you should expect in iOS 27
Table of contents Siri AI: Apple’s rebuilt assistant Apple Intelligence: All the new features in iOS 27 Other Apple Intelligence features in iOS 27 Which features come to iPadOS 27 and macOS 27 Which iPhones get Apple Intelligence in iOS 27 When iOS 27 arrives Apple used WWDC 2026 to lay out what iOS 27 will look like when it arrives this fall. The update comes with a rebuilt Siri, bigger AI tools across your apps, and a long list of upgrades to Photos, Messages, Wallet, and more. This article covers everything Apple announced, split into two parts: the new Siri AI and the broader Apple Intelligence platform. Siri AI: Apple’s rebuilt assistant Siri AI is Apple’s most significant change to the feature since it launched in 2011. Apple describes it as an entirely new version of Siri, built from the ground up with AI at its core. The company built it in partnership with Google, using the technology behind Google’s Gemini models to power a new generation of Apple Foundation Models. The result is an assistant that can hold natural back-and-forth conversations, take multi-step actions across apps, and answer open-ended questions. Apple says it is designed to compete directly with ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. What Siri AI can do Personal context: Siri AI can read your messages, emails, photos, and notes to give you answers based on your actual life. You can ask it to find the restaurant a friend mentioned last week, pull up a hotel booking from an old email, or surface photos from a specific trip. Personal context also works with some third-party apps when developers build support for it. On-screen awareness: Siri AI can see what is on your screen and respond to it. If you are reading a message about a potluck, you can ask Siri to brainstorm what to bring and then add a recipe directly to Notes, all without switching apps. Conversational follow-ups: You can extend almost any Siri AI response into a longer conversation and ask follow-up questions. You do not have to restart from scratch each time. Writing help: Siri AI can write, edit, and proofread across your apps, including most third-party apps. In Mail and Messages, it matches the tone you normally use with each person. If you usually send your manager short bullet points, Siri will draft in that style. If you write casually to friends, it adjusts accordingly. Siri also proactively checks your spelling and grammar as you type. The new Siri app iOS 27 adds a dedicated Siri app that stores your conversation history and lets you pick up where you left off. Your conversations sync across your iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and Vision Pro via iCloud, so switching devices does not break the flow. On iPhone, you can open Siri using the wake phrase, the side button, or a swipe down from the Dynamic Island. New voices and dictation On iPhones with Apple’s most advanced on-device model, Siri AI offers more expressive voices, with options to adjust pace and tone. Systemwide dictation also gets a significant accuracy boost on these devices. The devices that qualify for these advanced features are: iPhone Air iPhone 17 Pro iPhone 17 Pro Max iPad M4 and newer, and Mac M3 and newer with at least 12GB of unified memory also qualify, along with Apple Vision Pro M5. Which iPhones get Siri AI Siri AI requires Apple Intelligence hardware. Here is how the tiers break down: Baseline Siri AI: iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, and all iPhone 16 and 17 models Advanced Siri AI features (expressive voices, better dictation): iPhone Air, iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max only iOS 27 with no Siri AI or Apple Intelligence: iPhone 11 through iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus The iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus have a different chip from the Pro models, which is why they miss out on Apple Intelligence despite running iOS 27. Privacy Apple processes simple requests on your device. More complex tasks go through its Private Cloud Compute servers, where Apple says your data is not stored or shared with anyone, including Apple. For the heaviest requests, a Gemini-powered cloud model handles the work. Apple says outside experts can verify its privacy promises at any time. Availability Siri AI launches in English first as a waitlisted beta. You can join the waitlist by going to Settings and opening Apple Intelligence. More languages will follow after the initial rollout. Siri AI is blocked on iPhone and iPad in the EU at launch for regulatory reasons and is unavailable in China. EU users on Mac and Vision Pro can access it. watchOS 27 also does not include Siri AI in the EU because it requires a paired iPhone to enable the feature. Apple Intelligence: All the new features in iOS 27 Apple Intelligence is the broader AI platform that powers everything from photo editing to smart shortcuts. Here is what is new in iOS 27. 1. Photos Photos gets four AI-powered editing tools: Spatial Reframing lets you shift the perspective of a photo after you have taken it, as if you moved the camera. You drag to adjust, and the app generates only what is needed to fill the new angle. It works on old photos too, not just new ones. Image source: @theapplehub on X Extend: expands the edges of a photo to give subjects more room, straighten a crooked horizon, or change the aspect ratio. The AI fills in whatever is missing. Reframe: the in-app button name for Spatial Reframing, found under Edit, then Tools. Clean Up (upgraded) removes objects from photos with more realistic results, even in complex scenes. Every photo you edit with Apple Intelligence will automatically carry a hidden SynthID watermark, a technology developed by Google DeepMind. The watermark is invisible to the eye and is designed to identify the image as AI-edited. Apple has not confirmed whether the watermark survives screenshots, social media compression, or exports to other
Read MoreThe eNaira struggled as a wallet. Now the CBN wants it to power payments.
When the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) launched the eNaira in October 2021, it presented the project as a landmark step in Nigeria’s push towards a cashless economy. As Africa’s first central bank digital currency (CBDC) designed for everyday use, it was expected to make payments easier, reduce remittance costs, expand financial inclusion, and support economic growth. Nearly five years later, those ambitions remain largely unrealised. The eNaira struggled to gain widespread adoption because it offered little that existing bank apps, fintech wallets, and mobile money platforms were not already providing more conveniently. In its Payments System Vision (PSV) 2028 strategy, unveiled on June 1, the CBN signals a major rethink of the eNaira’s role. Rather than positioning it as a standalone digital wallet competing with banks, fintechs, and mobile money providers, the central bank wants the eNaira to become part of the infrastructure that underpins Nigeria’s digital payments ecosystem. The strategy places the CBDC alongside initiatives such as open banking, digital identity, cross-border payments, and emerging financial technologies. The shift reflects lessons from the eNaira’s slow adoption since its launch in 2021. As a consumer-facing payment product, it struggled to offer a compelling alternative to existing digital payment options. The eNaira’s early challenges are well documented. Access initially required a Bank Verification Number (BVN) or National Identification Number (NIN), making it difficult for many unbanked Nigerians to participate. Like most central bank digital currencies, the eNaira was designed with strict identity verification requirements to help prevent fraud, money laundering, and other illicit financial activities. However, those requirements also created barriers for many Nigerians who lacked formal identification or did not have bank accounts, limiting the CBDC’s reach among the very populations it was meant to include. For users who could access it, the platform offered few advantages over existing alternatives such as bank apps, USSD services, mobile money platforms, and fintech wallets that were already widely used and trusted. As a result, adoption remained limited. Despite subsequent efforts to introduce USSD access, merchant payment tools, and government-payment pilots, the eNaira accounted for only a small fraction of digital transactions. Its limited role during Nigeria’s 2023 cash shortage also raised questions about its practical value. Over time, the project became one of several examples frequently cited in discussions about CBDCs struggling to achieve mainstream adoption. The CBN acknowledges many of these shortcomings in PSV 2028. According to the document, the eNaira currently has “millions of wallets” and has processed about ₦22 billion ($16.02 million) in transactions. “Adoption has been slow, barriers include limited stakeholder engagement and buy-in in design and implementation, limited adoption and integration drive, limited resources and capacities for retail CBDC implementation, undertook awareness creation, onboarding, use case development, which are not core CBN functions, etc.,” the regulator stated in the document. Moving from product to infrastructure One of the clearest signals in PSV 2028 is that the CBN increasingly views payment systems as interconnected infrastructure rather than standalone products. Throughout the document, there is a strong emphasis on interoperability, digital identity, open banking, real-time payments, and regulatory innovation. The document identifies cross-border payments and CBDC integration as strategic priorities and calls for deeper collaboration with regional and global payment networks. Although the document does not provide a comprehensive roadmap for taking the eNaira beyond Nigeria, it indicates that future development of the digital currency will likely focus on supporting regional payments, remittance flows, and cross-border commerce. PSV 2028 also recognises that technology alone will not determine the eNaira’s success. Consumer trust, security, interoperability, and ease of use remain critical challenges. The strategy proposes stronger consumer-protection mechanisms, improved cybersecurity frameworks, enhanced fraud monitoring, and greater coordination across the payments ecosystem. These initiatives are intended to strengthen confidence in digital payments more broadly, creating an environment in which innovations such as the eNaira can gain greater acceptance. Whether the strategy succeeds remains uncertain. What is clear, however, is that the CBN is no longer treating the eNaira as a standalone experiment. Under PSV 2028, the digital currency is being repositioned as one element of a much larger effort to build a more connected, secure, and interoperable financial system. For a project that many had written off as a missed opportunity, that shift may offer the eNaira a second lifeline.
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Trenderz’s Kim Tran says influencer marketing misses how Africa actually buys
9 juin 2026 Hello , Welcome back to Francophone Weekly by TechCabal, your weekly deep dive into the tech ecosystem across French-speaking Africa. For readers who want to understand Francophone Africa beyond headlines—through markets, startups, and systems. New editions of the newsletter will land directly in your inbox every Tuesday at 12 PM WAT. By default, this newsletter is in French. If you’re reading this in your email inbox, click the “Read in English” button below to switch to the English version. If you’re reading on our website, you can either click the button below or toggle the language selector at the top right-hand side of the page to view the English edition. Read in English Kim Tran, directrice générale et co-fondatrice de Trenderz, une startup abidjanaise spécialisée dans la creator economy, passe près d’une décennie à travailler dans le marketing d’influence en Afrique francophone. Elle connaît les agences, les cycles de pricing, les clients. Quand elle a lancé Trenderz en 2024, elle construisait sur un terrain qu’elle maîtrisait bien. À la mi-2025, elle avait décidé de tout démolir. Aujourd’hui, Trenderz est une plateforme d’infrastructure de réservation et d’attribution qui trace la recommandation d’un créateur du premier clic jusqu’à la réservation confirmée et au versement d’une commission fixe. La couche agence a disparu. Le nouveau modèle est transactionnel, data-driven, et déjà déployé sur cinq marchés africains. Lina Kacyem, investment manager chez Launch Africa Ventures, s’est entretenue avec Kim Tran pour parler du pivot, de ce que trois mois avec le programme Creator Ventures de 500 Global lui ont appris, et pourquoi elle pense que l’économie de la recommandation en Afrique est cent fois plus grande que le seul marché influenceurs. 1. La création et la réorientation de Trenderz Kim Tran (à gauche) lors de l’Africa Creator Summit, Lagos, Nigeria, en janvier 2026. Source de l’image : Kim Tran. Lina Kacyem : Trenderz, c’était autre chose au départ. Peux-tu expliquer le pivot et ce qui t’a convaincue que c’était la bonne direction ? Kim Tran : Trenderz a démarré en 2024 à Abidjan, en Côte d’Ivoire, comme un modèle hybride agence et abonnement-en-tant-que-service (SaaS) pour le secteur du tourisme et des loisirs. Nous orchestrions des collaborations entre établissements et créateurs de contenu, et nous avions construit une plateforme SaaS avec une couche marketplace pour aider les hôtels, restaurants, spas et lieux d’activités à gérer leurs campagnes de marketing d’influence et à se connecter aux bons créateurs. Après un an et demi d’opérations, deux choses sont devenues claires. Premièrement, le business fonctionnait. Les établissements payaient ; la demande était réelle. Mais le modèle ne scalait pas. Chaque nouveau client demandait du temps humain, et nos unit economics étaient plafonnées par le nombre de campagnes que mon équipe pouvait orchestrer manuellement chaque mois. Deuxièmement — et c’est ce qui a tout déclenché — nous nous sommes rendu compte que nous résolvions le mauvais problème. Nos clients ne nous demandaient pas un outil de gestion d’influenceurs. Ils nous demandaient de la conversion : des réservations, des clients. Pas des impressions, pas des vues, pas des taux d’engagement. Des clients réels, attribuables au créateur qui les avait amenés. Chaque conversation avec un directeur d’hôtel finissait de la même façon : « Nous ne voulons pas voir des vues ou des likes. Nous voulons des clients — et savoir quels créateurs remplissent réellement nos chambres. » Ce signal a tout changé. Nous n’étions pas en train de construire un service marketing. Nous étions assis sur un vide beaucoup plus grand : l’infrastructure qui permet de transformer la recommandation sociale en transactions traçables et monétisées. La décision de tuer le modèle hybride agence/SaaS pour évoluer vers une infrastructure pure a été la plus difficile que nous ayons jamais prise. Elle impliquait d’arrêter une activité rentable pour tout reconstruire depuis zéro, sans aucune garantie que la nouvelle version trouverait son marché aussi vite. Mais le signal était constant. À la mi-2025, la conviction était prise. Au premier trimestre (T1) 2026, le système de réservation, la couche d’attribution et l’infrastructure de paiement créateurs sont passés en production. Aujourd’hui, chaque réservation générée par un créateur sur Trenderz est trackée de bout en bout : contenu, clic, acompte et paiement créateur — sur une seule plateforme. Kacyem : Qu’est-ce que vous avez dû abandonner en pivotant ? Et qu’est-ce que ça vous a appris sur la façon de construire dans ce marché ? Tran : Trois choses, chacune douloureuse à sa manière. Premièrement, nous avons abandonné un modèle de revenu qui marchait. La couche agence générait du chiffre d’affaires mensuel avec des marges correctes et des clients qui revenaient. La tuer, c’était accepter zéro revenu pendant toute la durée de la reconstruction, tout en continuant à payer l’équipe et à livrer le nouveau produit. Sans les 250 000 dollars de pré-seed apportés par Digital Africa, GIZ et un pool d’angels stratégiques, ce trou de trésorerie aurait été impossible à combler. Deuxièmement, nous avons renoncé à un terrain que nous connaissions bien. J’ai pratiqué le marketing d’influence en Afrique francophone pendant huit ans avant Trenderz. Je connaissais les agences, les clients, les cycles de pricing, les cycles de vente. Passer à un modèle d’infrastructure, c’était entrer dans un métier différent : développement produit beaucoup plus long, conversations commerciales plus complexes, investissement initial plus lourd. Mais c’est aussi un métier où ce qu’on construit reste — alors qu’en agence, chaque campagne se revend à zéro. Le troisième renoncement a été le plus contre-intuitif. Nous avons accepté de sortir d’une catégorie existante. Quand vous êtes une agence ou un SaaS, les acheteurs vous comprennent en cinq secondes. Quand vous êtes une infrastructure de réservation boostée par la creator economy, vous devez expliquer ce que vous faites à chaque conversation, parce que la catégorie n’existe pas encore. Plus difficile à vendre, plus difficile à pitcher aux investisseurs, plus difficile même à expliquer à votre propre équipe — jusqu’à ce que les premiers chiffres commencent à valider la thèse. Ce marché m’a appris trois choses.
Read MoreKenya’s new tax proposals threaten M-KOPA, Sun King phone assembly plants
Kenya’s Finance Bill 2026 has proposed a series of tax changes that could raise the cost of locally assembled smartphones while making imported handsets cheaper, threatening the viability of local plants built by M-KOPA and Sun King. The Bill removes the zero-rated VAT status enjoyed by locally assembled phones, imposes a 25% excise duty on domestically manufactured devices, and exempts imported finished phones from the Import Declaration Fee and the Railway Development Levy. A Kenya Association of Manufacturers (KAM) position paper, seen by TechCabal, said the measures will erase the competitive advantage that attracted investment into local assembly. The proposals have raised concerns that Kenya could undermine an industry it deliberately nurtured through the Finance Act 2022, which introduced zero-rated VAT on locally assembled phones to attract manufacturers and lower smartphone prices. “The foundational tax structure underpinning the creation, growth, and sustainability of the industry will be eroded,” the position paper said, warning that the proposals could lead to factory closures, job losses, and undermine Kenya’s digital economy ambitions. M-KOPA, one of the largest local assemblers, employs an estimated 500 workers at its assembly plant, which has a monthly production capacity of 300,000 smartphones. Since launching local production in 2023, the company has manufactured more than 3.5 million devices, supplying Kenya and regional markets through its pay-as-you-go financing model. Sun King also invested in local manufacturing; it opened a Nairobi assembly plant in October 2025 as it expanded beyond solar products into smartphone production, betting on Kenya’s ambition to become a regional electronics manufacturing hub. According to the position paper, the proposed VAT changes will prevent local assemblers from recovering tax paid on components, spare parts, electricity, and other production inputs. Those costs could be passed on to consumers, raising device prices. The changes to VAT will also require companies to reverse previously claimed input VAT on inventory already in stock, potentially putting pressure on working capital. The 25% increase in excise duty on locally manufactured phones will likely raise device prices by KES 2,500 ($20). Exempting imported finished phones from the Import Declaration Fee and the Railway Development Levy, without extending similar relief to imported components, will leave local manufacturers facing higher production costs than their foreign competitors, according to industry submissions to Parliament. Since 2023, the local assembly has created hundreds of manufacturing jobs, expanded access to affordable smartphones, and positioned Kenya as an emerging electronics production hub serving East Africa. Companies like M-KOPA are already exporting locally assembled devices to neighbouring markets.
Read MoreARM-Harith is raising $200 million to tap African pension capital for infrastructure
ARM-Harith Infrastructure Investments, a pan-African private equity fund manager focused on sustainable energy and infrastructure, has raised $76 million at the first close of its Climate Transition Fund, a vehicle seeking to attract African pension funds into climate and energy projects. The fund, which is targeting $200 million at final close, combines US dollar and local currency investments within a single structure, an approach the Lagos-based fund manager said could help unlock domestic institutional capital that has remained on the sidelines of infrastructure investing. The first close is backed by $20 million from the African Development Bank’s Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa (SEFA) and FSD Africa Investments, a UK-backed development finance investor, according to ARM-Harith. Such catalytic capital is often used to absorb part of the investment risk and encourage participation from private investors. ARM-Harith’s new fund is part of a broader effort to channel more African capital into financing the continent’s infrastructure that powers energy, telecoms, and logistics networks underpinning its digital economy. In the first quarter of 2026, European development finance institutions (DFIs), including DEG, Proparco, and British International Investment (BII), remained the most active investors in African private capital funds, according to research firm Stears, highlighting how dependent the sector remains on foreign capital. With African governments facing an estimated $400 billion development financing gap, fund managers are searching for ways to unlock domestic pools of capital, particularly pension assets. ARM-Harith is testing a bigger idea: whether African pension funds can become a meaningful source of capital for the infrastructure that powers the continent’s digital economy. For years, startups, telecom operators, and governments have depended heavily on foreign investors and DFIs to fund critical infrastructure. Yet, Africa’s pension industry and other collective investment schemes (CIS) now manage about $600 billion in long-term savings that, in theory, should be well suited to infrastructure investments. The problem has been getting that money into projects. Many infrastructure funds are structured in US dollars, while roads, power plants, fibre networks, and other assets generate revenues in local currencies. For pension funds, that creates a currency mismatch that can erode returns when local currencies weaken against the dollar. ARM-Harith’s new fund wants to address that challenge. By allowing local and hard-currency investments to coexist in the same vehicle, the firm is seeking to make infrastructure equity more attractive to domestic institutional investors while preserving dollar exposure for international backers. “With our first fund, we demonstrated that domestic institutional capital can be mobilised into infrastructure equity,” Rachel Moré-Oshodi, ARM-Harith’s chief executive officer, said. “With this successor fund, we are building on that foundation by bringing local and hard-currency capital together within a single platform.” The strategy reflects a broader shift taking place across African infrastructure finance. DFIs are increasingly positioning themselves as catalytic investors, focused on crowding in domestic and local capital, rather than serving as the dominant source of funding. In 2015, the African Development Bank (AfDB) launched Africa50 as an equity and project development platform that brings in African institutional investors alongside sovereign and development capital. It has supported projects such as Kigali Innovation City in Rwanda and the Benban solar complex in Egypt. In these deals, DFI capital helped de-risk early-stage project risks and enabled participation from pension funds and commercial lenders. By August 2025, it had crossed $1.4 billion in managed assets. In 2025, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) launched its Catalytic First Loss Guarantee (FLG) Facility under its MSME Finance Platform. The facility provides first-loss guarantees to financial institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa, aiming to expand lending into SMEs, agribusiness, and climate-linked sectors by absorbing early credit risk. The Emerging Africa and Asia Infrastructure Fund (EAAIF), managed by Ninety One, has also used AfDB and other development finance commitments as anchor capital to crowd in commercial lenders into African power and transport projects. This includes a $100 million AfDB facility structured to catalyse private investment into sustainable infrastructure. This shift has led DFIs to take minority positions in infrastructure funds and use concessional or anchor capital to de-risk deals for pension funds, insurers, and other long-term institutional investors. “The constraint has never been capital itself, but the absence of investment products structured to meet pension funds’ liability-matching needs, particularly around tenure, risk allocation, and currency alignment,” Anne-Marie Chidzero, chief investment officer at FSD Africa Investments, said. “Investment structure was designed to bridge that gap, enabling pension funds to participate in infrastructure equity.” That challenge matters beyond traditional infrastructure sectors. As Africa’s technology ecosystem matures, the conversation is gradually shifting from startup funding to the physical infrastructure needed to support digital growth. Data centres, telecom towers, fibre networks, embedded power systems, and renewable energy projects require patient capital with investment horizons measured in decades rather than years. Venture capital is rarely structured to finance those assets. Pension funds are. ARM-Harith believes the opportunity exists if investment structures are designed around the realities of local markets. The firm’s first fund, ARM-Harith Infrastructure Fund I, which first closed in 2015 and backed projects like the Lagos-based energy supplier Elecktron Power Infracom, invested in transport and energy assets across West Africa, including power projects in Nigeria and Ghana. According to ARM-Harith, the portfolio financed more than 700 megawatts of installed power capacity, supported roughly 22,500 jobs, and avoided an estimated 2.6 million tonnes of carbon emissions annually. Its more recent investments include distributed renewable energy platforms and embedded energy systems that reflect growing demand for decentralised power solutions, such as AD Power HoldCo’s mini-grid and commercial energy projects serving multiple Nigerian communities, and Prime Meridian, a port infrastructure project in Ghana aiming to strengthen regional maritime trade in West Africa. If ARM-Harith can convince more African pension funds to allocate capital to infrastructure equity, it could help establish a new source of financing for the power, transport, and digital infrastructure that the continent will need to sustain economic and technological growth.
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Sim Shagaya’s Myka wants to do for insurance what agency banking did for fintech
“Why do so few Nigerians buy insurance?” That question naturally follows Nigeria’s insurance penetration numbers. With a population of more than 200 million people, over 70% of Nigerians have no form of insurance as of 2025, according to the Nigerian Council of Registered Insurance Brokers (NCRIB). When Sim Shagaya, the entrepreneur who founded Konga, an e-commerce platform, and uLesson and Miva Open University, began looking for answers, he got the same answer: Nigerians do not believe in insurance. Yet that explanation never fully aligned with his observations. “It’s not that Nigerians don’t understand protection,” he told TechCabal in an interview on May 11. “The desire for protection is there. What has been lacking is the distribution of structured protection products to people who haven’t had it.” After more than a decade of building businesses that solved access and distribution challenges, he launched Myka, a licenced digital broker that enables consumers and businesses to purchase insurance products from multiple providers. Myka is backed by Ventures Platform, TLcom, Shola Akinlade, co-founder of Paystack; Ridwan Olalere, founder of LemFi; and Olumide Soyombo, founder of Voltron Capital, in an undisclosed pre-seed round. It launches with insurance products spanning motor, gadget, property, health, life, and travel insurance. Myka and Ventures Platform. Image source: Myka The billion-dollar industry with a retail problem Nigeria’s insurance industry recorded an aggregate sum of over ₦4 trillion ($2.9 billion) in total assets in Q4 2025, according to data from the Insurance Market Performance report published by the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM), the country’s insurance regulator. Despite its size, the industry’s reach remains limited, with most insurance premiums coming from large corporate customers who typically provide coverage as an employee benefit, Shagaya noted. This leaves retail adoption lagging far behind the market’s scale. Low awareness, cost perception, limited distribution channels, and low trust in the industry have posed a challenge to insurance adoption by Nigerians. “One thing that has caused issues in the industry has been a lack of trust, which has happened because the claims payment process has not been great,” Shagaya said. “Nigerians have felt like they buy insurance, but when it’s time to claim, it’s cumbersome, it’s hectic, it’s difficult, and oftentimes they feel like they are treated unfairly.” According to him, that trust deficit was reinforced by a prevalence of fake insurance policies and fragmented records across the industry. Without reliable verification systems, consumers struggled to confirm that their coverage was genuine. However, over the past year, the industry has undergone reforms through the Nigeria Insurance Industry Reform Act 2025, which placed retail insurance and digitisation at the centre of the sector’s growth strategy. The reform was aimed at expanding access, strengthening consumer protections, improving claims settlement, and creating the infrastructure needed to bring insurance to Nigerians who have been excluded from the market. For Shagaya, the reforms create the conditions needed for Myka to bring retail insurance to more Nigerians. How Myka works Myka’s response to Nigeria’s insurance problem begins with a consumer app that lets users purchase insurance policies across multiple categories and receive their policy documents directly on WhatsApp, according to Shagaya. Myka operates as a digital broker, aggregating products from up to 17 insurance underwriters, including AIICO, emPLE, Cornerstone, Coronation, Leadway, Rex, and Tangerine, to allow customers to compare policies across providers. Insurance companies create and underwrite policies, while Myka distributes those products, handles customer onboarding, and manages customer experience, he noted. It integrates with insurers via Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). Shagaya noted that the platform is designed to reduce documentation errors that pose challenges during insurance claims. For motor insurance, Myka can verify vehicle information and match identities against regulatory databases, according to him. Myka takes a different approach to claims by building repair networks that connect policyholders, people who buy insurance policies, with service providers. He gave the example of a customer with gadget insurance and a damaged phone screen who can report the incident, receive directions to an approved repair centre, and have the device fixed without paying out of pocket. The same model is being extended to vehicle insurance claims to reduce downtime and remove friction. To support that system, Myka uses National Identification Number (NIN) identity verification, biometric checks, and AI-powered tools that compare policy information against claims data. However, Shagaya noted that selling insurance through an app is only one part of Myka’s vision. The Myka and emPLE team. Image source: Myka Agency banking, but for insurance While the insurance tech industry has focused on digital-first distribution, Shagaya argued that insurance adoption in Nigeria could be driven by a distribution strategy that makes insurance policies available where people already make purchasing decisions. “People have talked a lot about embedding insurance in checkout flows and in digital flows, but I think that that is a mistake. I think that doesn’t speak to our reality,” he said. “The truth is that the flows in Nigeria are very manual for a lot of businesses. Nobody has provided a channel for a car dealer to sell comprehensive or third-party insurance as the car is being sold. That is a role that Myka seeks to fill.” According to Shagaya, in May, Myka’s Structured Customer Referral Program was admitted into NAICOM’s regulatory sandbox designed to test innovative insurance products, services, and business models. The referral program, he explained, allows Myka to explore a community-based distribution model in which trusted individuals and organisations can refer insurance products within their networks. Under the model, a pharmacist could recommend or sell health insurance products, while a travel agent could recommend travel insurance when booking an international trip. Community associations and other local networks could also introduce insurance products to their members through Myka’s partner platform. The model drew inspiration from agency banking, which expanded access to financial services by relying on local agents. “This work would not be possible without the kind of regulatory engagement that NAICOM has shown,” he said. “That openness to exploring new models—while maintaining the consumer protection standards that should always
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From Siri AI to iOS27: Everything Apple announced at WWDC 2026
Table of contents Tim Cook’s final keynote as CEO All the major announcements from Apple’s WWDC 2026 What developers are getting When can you get all of these? Apple just wrapped its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2026 keynote, and it was one of the most significant in the company’s history. Tim Cook took the stage one last time as CEO, and Apple used the moment to finally deliver on a promise it made two years ago: a completely rebuilt Siri. The tech giant also announced iOS 27, iPadOS 27, macOS 27 “Golden Gate,” watchOS 27, visionOS 27, and tvOS 27. No new hardware was shown. This was a software-only event, and AI was the whole story. Here is everything Apple announced, broken down by platform. Tim Cook’s final keynote as CEO This was Tim Cook’s last WWDC keynote as Apple’s chief executive. Cook steps down as CEO on August 31, 2026, and John Ternus, Apple’s head of hardware engineering, takes over on September 1. Cook moves to the role of executive chairman. Ternus did not appear on stage during the keynote, which many observers found notable given the transition. Software chief Craig Federighi kicked off the announcements by laying out Apple’s three focus areas for this year: platform improvements, trust and safety, and a major push forward for Apple Intelligence. Federighi was blunt about the privacy angle from the start: “We believe privacy in AI is non-negotiable. Data is only used to execute your request, and outside experts can continue to verify this promise at any time.” This keynote carried some extra weight. Apple promised a smarter, context-aware Siri at WWDC 2024 and did not deliver it for nearly two years. In May 2026, the company also sought approval for a $250 million class-action settlement over those undelivered Siri features, covering roughly 36 million iPhone 16 and iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max units sold between June 2024 and March 2025. Eligible owners could receive between $25 and $95 per device. Apple denied wrongdoing. Today’s keynote was Apple’s chance to show it has finally followed through. All the major announcements from Apple’s WWDC 2026 1. Siri AI: Apple is calling the new assistant “Siri AI,” and it is a complete rebuild. VP Mike Rockwell introduced it as “the biggest overhaul since Siri launched in 2011.” The new version is powered by Apple’s next-generation Foundation Models, which Apple says were built in deep collaboration with Google using Gemini. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported that Apple is paying roughly $1 billion a year for a 1.2 trillion-parameter Gemini model, and The Information reported that the heaviest queries route to Google Cloud, which runs on Nvidia Blackwell B200 GPUs, because running that model inside Apple’s Private Cloud Compute was too slow at scale. Apple did not confirm those numbers on stage, so treat them as credible reporting rather than official figures. What Siri AI can do: Dedicated Siri app: There is now a standalone Siri app across iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and Vision Pro. Your chat history syncs privately across all your devices via iCloud and Private Cloud Compute. You can set conversations to expire after a set period. Conversational mode: You can go back and forth with Siri in a natural, multi-turn conversation for research, planning, and brainstorming. Apple demoed asking Siri to pull up the FIFA 2026 World Cup schedule, then plan a viewing party and suggest dishes from both competing countries. On-screen and personal context awareness: Siri can see what is on your screen and act on it. It can access your emails, messages, files, and photos to give you relevant answers. Apple demoed asking about a location seen in an Instagram post and getting directions instantly. Visual Intelligence: This feature, first introduced with iPhone 16, becomes a dedicated “Siri mode” inside the Camera app. You can point your camera at a restaurant bill to split it through Wallet, scan a poster to add an event to your calendar, or identify nutrition information on a food package. Customisable voice: You can now adjust Siri’s pace and expressiveness beyond the existing preset voices. Image source: @theapplehub on X Cross-platform: Siri AI is available on watchOS, visionOS, CarPlay, and AirPods. Mac integration: On Mac, Siri is built into Spotlight (Command+Space) and accessible via Ctrl+click on images, text, and videos. There is a dedicated Mac app and a new monochrome menu-bar icon. Apple demoed selecting three presentations and asking Siri to compare them. Writing tools: Highlight any text and Siri will suggest improvements. “Write with Siri” can learn how you communicate with specific contacts and adapt accordingly. System-wide automatic proofreading works even inside third-party apps. On iOS, you access Siri AI by swiping down on the Dynamic Island, which shows a “Search or Ask” prompt. Siri AI launches in English first and expands to more languages later. Some features will have daily usage limits, with higher limits for iCloud+ subscribers. Important: Siri AI will NOT be available on iPhone or iPad in the European Union at launch, due to the Digital Markets Act (DMA). Federighi said Apple is “deeply disappointed” and that there is currently no timeline for Siri AI arriving on iOS or iPadOS in the EU. EU users will still get Siri AI on Mac, Apple Watch, and Vision Pro. Siri AI is also unavailable in China while Apple works through regulatory requirements. 2. iOS 27: iOS 27 is built around two things: significant performance gains and AI features woven into the apps you use every day. Performance improvements: Up to 30% faster app launches Up to 70% faster loading of new photos in your camera roll Up to 80% faster AirDrop transfers, Mail loading, and Apple Music playback start Faster Wi-Fi-to-cellular handoff when you leave a network A modified CPU scheduler that makes older iPhones feel faster iOS 27 runs on every iPhone that supported iOS 26, so iPhone 11 owners and second-generation iPhone SE owners benefit too. No devices were dropped. Rebuilt search: Apple rebuilt the foundation powering
Read MoreThe CBN has a big plan for payments by 2028. 13 things worth knowing.
Nigeria leads on payments and fintech in Africa, and that isn’t a conversation that needs an argument. It’s anchored on world-class payments system visions and the rigorous implementation that comes with them. The Central Bank of Nigeria has been at this for almost twenty years, and it’s genuinely good at it. The first vision came in the mid-2000s; the last one launched in November 2022, and between them they took a country where most adults had no bank account, and cash settled almost everything, and turned it into one of the few places on earth where you can send money to a stranger and watch it land in seconds. We built a real financial identity in the Bank Verification Number (BVN), an agent network of close to two million touchpoints, and an instant-payment system the rest of the continent studies, and we now move well over a quadrillion Naira a year through electronic channels. PSV 2028 is the next installment, and it’s ambitious, which is the polite way of saying the CBN has handed itself roughly thirty months to deliver a list that would stretch a far simpler country. There’s plenty to like, a few things I’d argue with gently, and a couple of things I wish were in it that aren’t. Thirteen points, in that order. The good 1. The National Payment Stack is the real deal The most important thing in the document is as flashy as the foundation of the Burj Khalifa, deep and invisible. The NPS is NIBSS’s full rebuild of the national rails, and it’s already gone live, with its first real transaction running between PalmPay and Wema Bank in November 2025, and it’s now rolling out to the rest of the banks (pages 34 and 42). It replaces the NIBSS Instant Payments engine that’s carried us since 2011 and was processing more than nine billion transfers a year before it ran out of room, and being built on ISO 20022, it finally gives us richer payment data, automated reconciliation, and the international compatibility we’ve lacked. If PSV 2028 shipped nothing else, this would earn its keep. 2. The CBN builds policy with the industry This is the strength most people don’t appreciate, and it’s a big reason these documents are worth taking seriously. When the CBN wants to set national policy, it convenes the Nigerian experts who actually run the rails, the banks, the fintechs, the switches, the development partners, and the subject-matter experts, and it builds the thing with them rather than handing down an edict and daring everyone to comply. PSV 2028 says as much in its own acknowledgements, crediting financial institutions, industry associations, and fintech innovators for shaping the document (page 10), and anyone who’s sat through these working sessions knows how real that process is. When the industry pushed back on the automated-AML timeline, the compliance window was stretched from twelve months to eighteen, and when operators argued the 10-meter POS geo-fence was impossible to hit accurately, the CBN widened it to 70. A regulator that consults and then actually adjusts is rarer than it sounds, and it’s a big part of why Nigerian payments policy tends to stick once it lands. 3. Fraud and cybersecurity are finally first-class, and the work has already left the page For years, fraud was the thing everyone complained about, and everyone refused to kill. PSV 2028 puts it at the center, with AI-driven monitoring and predictive analytics (page 63), a stronger Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (CFT) posture (page 38), a national security operations center, and an industry fraud-intelligence sharing platform (pages 39 and 95 to 103). Why it matters is well documented, because NIBSS data shows fraud losses jumped from about ₦11.6 billion in 2020 to 52.3 billion in 2024. And unlike most vision-document promises, this one’s already moving across more than one CBN department at once. The CBN’s Banking Supervision Department issued the baseline standards for automated AML in March 2026, giving deposit banks 18 months and other institutions 24 months to run AI and machine-learning monitoring with annual accuracy testing. The Payments System Supervision Department ordered GPS geo-tagging on every POS terminal layered on device binding and a BVN fraud watchlist on the instant-payment side. Whatever you make of any single rule, the direction’s crystal clear and it’s happening now. 4. The BVN, and the reason NIN exists at all Give the CBN its due on identity. The BVN sits under more than 320 million accounts and became the backbone of digital Know Your Customer (KYC), and it’s the proof of concept that made the National Identification Number (NIN) program credible, so the two are a sequence and not rivals (pages 32 and 75 to 76). The document puts NIN coverage past 122 million as of late 2025, and it’s refreshingly blunt that enrollment is short of funding and field kits, which is the real reason it still trails the BVN. That candor matters, because the forced bank-account-to-NIN linkage has itself been flagged as a risk that could push people back into the informal system if the identity rails can’t keep pace. 5. The compliance-automation ambition is genuinely modern PSV 2028 wants a national RegTech and SupTech capability, a machine-readable CBN rulebook in JSON and XML, and 90% of institutions feeding automated compliance data to the CBN by 2028 (page 63). This isn’t blue-sky talk, because the automated-AML baseline standards now in train are already the first concrete move toward supervision that reads structured data in near real time instead of chasing quarterly paper returns. Very few central banks anywhere have committed to this in writing, and it’s the sort of capability that compounds quietly for a decade. 6. Consumer protection and inclusion, which I wish ranked higher The track record here is real, with the service-level rules that force ATM chargebacks to clear within a day and failed POS reversals within three (page 32), and formal inclusion did climb from 56% in 2020 to
Read MoreMTN revives streaming ambitions with new pan-African platform
MTN Group, Africa’s largest telecoms company, has launched MTN One TV, a streaming platform that gives the operator another shot at Africa’s video entertainment market nearly a decade after its South Africa-focused FrontRow service failed to gain traction. In a Monday statement, the company said MTN One TV will offer a mix of free-to-view, advertising-supported, pay-per-view, and subscription-based content models depending on local market conditions. The launch marks MTN’s most ambitious attempt yet to build a pan-African content business, one that could immediately tap into the group’s 307.2 million subscribers reported at the end of 2025. While the company has not disclosed which markets will receive MTN One TV first, it operates across 16 African countries, giving the platform distribution scale that few regional streaming rivals can match. The platform, which combines live television, local content, and international programming, will be rolled out progressively across MTN’s markets as the company seeks to capture a larger share of Africa’s growing digital entertainment economy. “The proposition is designed to give customers greater choice in how they watch content, with viewing models that may vary by market and can include free-to-view content, advertising-funded experiences, pay-as-you-watch access, and subscription offerings,” MTN said “Depending on local availability, customers may also be able to pay through airtime, Mobile Money, and other locally supported payment methods, helping to reduce common barriers to streaming access.” The move reflects a broader push by African telecom operators to expand beyond connectivity into digital services, content, and fintech. In December 2025, Vodacom launched the Value News Network (VNN) as part of a broader digital engagement strategy, and Safaricom has continued to deepen the integration of content and digital services. MTN One TV extends that evolution into video entertainment, using the group’s network reach, mobile money infrastructure, and billing relationships to address barriers that have historically constrained streaming adoption across Africa, including payment friction, affordability, and limited access to international credit cards. The launch also comes as Africa’s streaming landscape undergoes significant change. Showmax, the subscription streaming service previously operated by Canal+-owned MultiChoice, shut down in April as the company shifted focus to DStv Stream, its linear over-the-top (OTT) offering, creating an opening for telecom operators seeking to bundle content, connectivity, and payments into a single ecosystem. “Entertainment is increasingly becoming an important gateway to digital participation,” Selorm Adadevoh, MTN Group Chief Commercial, Strategy and Transformation Officer, said. “Through MTN One TV, we are leveraging the scale of our connectivity, fintech, and digital capabilities to make relevant content more accessible while creating new opportunities for Africa’s creative and digital economies. This is aligned with our ambition to deliver digital solutions for Africa’s progress.” The launch builds on MTN’s partnership with video software company Synamedia in April 2025 to develop a pan-African streaming platform initially targeted at Nigeria before expanding across its footprint. MTN is no stranger to streaming. In December 2014, the operator launched FrontRow, later rebranded as VU, in South Africa. It was a Netflix-style video-on-demand service offering movies and television shows through subscriptions and pay-per-view rentals. The company later cut prices from R179 ($10.85) to R99 ($6) monthly in an effort to compete with Netflix and Showmax. The service ultimately failed to scale and was discontinued in 2017 as competition intensified and consumer adoption remained limited. In 2018, MTN launched MusicTime, a music streaming platform that gained modest traction across several markets by allowing users to stream and download music while managing data usage. Unlike FrontRow, however, MusicTime remained an audio product and never evolved into a broader entertainment platform. MTN also discontinued Ayoba, its instant messaging app, in March to consolidate its digital services ecosystem under its Ambition 2030 Strategy. In 2021, MTN partnered with South African broadcaster eMedia on eVOD, providing technology and distribution support, though the service remained eMedia’s product rather than an MTN-owned platform. Those earlier efforts highlight the challenges of building sustainable streaming businesses in African markets, where content licencing costs, limited broadband penetration, and low consumer spending power have historically constrained growth. MTN One TV highlights the company’s first attempt to build a scaled, pan-African video entertainment proposition by combining content distribution, mobile payments, and telecom infrastructure. The company said the rollout will occur in phases, with content partnerships and viewing experiences tailored to individual markets before being consolidated under the MTN One TV brand over time.
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