South Africa’s Nedbank taps MTN executive to lead technology transformation
Nedbank, South Africa’s fourth-largest lender, has appointed former MTN Group Chief Information Officer Nikos Angelopoulos as its new chief information officer, as banks increasingly recruit telecom executives to lead their digital transformation efforts. Angelopoulos, who joins Nedbank on September 1, spent eight years overseeing technology strategy, cloud investments and digital infrastructure across MTN Group’s 16 markets. His appointment comes as banks invest heavily in artificial intelligence, cloud computing and cybersecurity, bringing the skills required to run large-scale telecommunications networks closer to those needed to operate modern financial institutions. “Nikos is an internationally experienced technology executive with more than 30 years’ experience across Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas,” the bank said in a statement announcing the appointment on Friday. “He joins Nedbank from MTN Group, where he served as Group Chief Information Officer since 2018, with responsibility for information technology strategy, investments, delivery and governance across 16 markets serving more than 300 million customers.” The appointment also reflects the growing convergence between banking and telecommunications. While the two sectors have traditionally operated in different worlds, both now depend on always-on digital services, real-time transactions, cybersecurity and data to serve millions of customers. For banks, that means the skills needed to build tomorrow’s financial institutions increasingly resemble those required to run one of Africa’s largest telecom networks. Rather than relying solely on career bankers, lenders are recruiting executives with experience scaling complex digital ecosystems across telecoms, payments and other technology-driven businesses. The lender added that Angelopoulos has led “large-scale digital, cloud, data and artificial intelligence transformation initiatives” during a career spanning more than three decades. Before joining MTN, he held senior technology leadership roles at UAE telecom operator du, British telecoms group Vodafone, and global technology consulting firm Accenture. Those credentials suggest Nedbank is betting that experience managing technology platforms at continental scale will become more valuable as banking evolves. The CIO role has also changed. Once responsible for keeping IT systems running, today’s technology chiefs are expected to shape AI strategy, oversee cloud migration, strengthen cybersecurity and modernise core banking platforms. That evolution is pushing banks to widen their search for technology leaders. The appointment highlights a broader shift in banking recruitment. In April 2026, African banking group Absa appointed former M-PESA Africa chief executive officer (CEO) Sitoyo Lopokoiyit to lead its Personal and Private Banking business. In July, Stanbic Bank Kenya, a subsidiary of Standard Bank Group, named former Safaricom executive Michael Mutiga as CEO. Not all banks are looking outside their organisations. Capitec promoted Andrew Baker to CIO in February 2026, tasking him with leading the bank’s next phase of technology evolution for its more than 25 million clients. Nedbank’s appointment also completes a leadership transition that began in January when Ray Naicker resigned after more than two decades at the bank. Naicker, who became Group CIO in 2023 after serving as Group Chief Digital Officer, was credited with helping shape Nedbank’s technology strategy and digital transformation. For years, banks invested in branches and balance sheets to stay ahead. Today, they’re investing in the people who build and run digital platforms. Nedbank’s latest hire is another sign of that shift. True scale demands moving beyond surface-level integrations to robust execution. We’ve filtered the noise out of Moonshot 2026, optimising the conference strictly for high-calibre connections between startup founders, global financial operators, enterprise leaders and individuals rewiring Africa’s technical frameworks. Get 20% off Early Bird tickets for a limited time.
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How two high school sweethearts built an AI company for farmers
Before Joseph Simukoko introduced me to Mwiche Mukoma, we had already spent nearly half an hour talking at Nairobi Street Kitchen. The conversation wandered from Zambian politics to African immigration, from why the continent still struggles to trade with itself to the industries that could define its economic future. Simukoko speaks the way some people sprint—leaning forward, tugging at his dreadlocks as ideas arrive faster than sentences can contain them. His optimism is infectious. Not naïve optimism, but the conviction of someone who genuinely believes Africa’s future can be engineered. Where Simukoko is animated, Mukoma is measured. Soft-spoken and deliberate, the former banker weighs every word before letting it leave her mouth. While Simukoko fills the room with energy, she steadies it. Together, they feel like complementary halves of the same ambition. Their story started in high school, where they first met as teenagers before eventually becoming husband and wife. In 2022, after careers in banking and agricultural development, they founded Green Giraffe, a Zambian startup using AI and satellite technology to help smallholder farmers access premium markets. Ironically, the company only exists because an export deal collapsed after they failed to prove compliance with European food standards, a setback that forced them to build the technology themselves. We continued our conversation in the lobby of the Somerset Westview Hotel in Nairobi’s Kilimani neighbourhood. They spoke about colonial trade patterns, the absurdity of African countries finding it easier to trade with Europe than with one another, why entrepreneurship can outlast development aid, and the lessons they have learnt from farmers, investors, rejection, and each other. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. If Green Giraffe never existed, what do you honestly think you’d be doing today? Mukoma: My background is in finance, so I’d probably still be working in a bank, pushing paper and convincing myself I was helping people manage their money. But what we’ve built with Green Giraffe feels far more meaningful. In less than three years, we’ve changed how thousands of farmers interact with markets and food systems. I can look at myself in the mirror and say we built something that genuinely matters. I couldn’t say that after eight years in banking. Simukoko: I’d still be doing something around smallholder farmers. I’ve worked with them since 2010, and my obsession has always been making markets work for them. That’s why we teamed up. Mwiche wanted to create markets through agro-processing, and together we evolved into solving the compliance barriers that keep African farmers out of premium markets. Green Giraffe is just the latest expression of a mission I’ve had for years. How did you meet? Simukoko: We met at university about twenty years ago. She studied finance, and I studied agriculture. Mukoma: As you grow older, you realise many African countries suffer from the same problems. Sometimes trade fails because of something as simple as missing documentation. We came to Kenya and saw products like mabuyu (a popular snack in East Africa made from babob tree seeds) that we also have in Zambia, and I kept asking myself, “Why don’t we trade more with each other?” You start seeing that producers lose money, consumers lose choices, and everyone pays the price for systems that don’t make sense. Eventually, you stop asking why and start trying to fix it. Mwiche Mukoma, Green Giraffe co-founder, talking to a guest during the Zambian Gastronomy Awards 2025. Image source: Green Giraffe People assume entrepreneurs were always ambitious children. What were you like? Mukoma: A troublemaker. My parents always said I wasn’t difficult; I was frustrated by systems that made no sense. I questioned everything, broke rules, and always believed there had to be a better way. Simukoko: She likes calling herself a troublemaker, but in high school, she became the first student trusted to run the school tuck shop. Nothing went missing. As for me, I was usually several pages ahead of the teacher. I’d be staring out the window, the teacher would assume I wasn’t paying attention, ask me a question, and I’d answer it in detail. Sometimes I’d even be asked to teach the class. I was difficult to teach because I was constantly curious. Mukoma: One thing I appreciate about him is his humility. He always asks whether there’s a better solution. He’ll listen to everyone before making a decision. You’ve built a business helping African farmers reach global markets. Why does Africa still export raw produce while importing products made from its own crops? Mukoma: A lot of our thinking has been conditioned over generations. We’ve inherited systems that tell us what our role in the global economy should be. Simukoko: Colonialism didn’t really end. It simply changed form. Kenya is famous for tea, but who decided tea should define Kenya? European countries are famous for chocolate without growing cocoa. We’re still using transport systems designed to move raw materials out of Africa rather than connecting African markets. Even our language reflects it. We call countries “landlocked” instead of “land-linked.” Why is exporting automatically assumed to mean Europe? Africa is becoming the world’s largest market. Why aren’t we asking how to sell to Ghana, Mauritania, or Kenya before thinking about Europe? The African Continental Free Trade Area exists, yet Africans still struggle to travel across Africa. Sometimes it’s cheaper and easier to fly to Europe than to another African country. That mindset has to change. Mukoma: If we traded more with each other, we’d stop exporting raw materials and start exchanging finished products that create wealth on the continent. What belief did you hold at 25 that you now think was completely wrong? Simukoko: I believed development aid was the answer. Today, I think entrepreneurship creates a more sustainable impact. Aid eventually runs out; businesses keep solving problems because customers pay for solutions. When organisations like USAID pulled back, younger me would have panicked. Today I see an opportunity. Every challenge creates space for an entrepreneur to build something useful. Mukoma: Mine was
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MTN Nigeria’s fintech revenue slumps after airtime lending pause
MTN Nigeria’s fintech business posted one of its weakest performances in recent years after the telecom operator temporarily suspended its airtime and data credit service, underscoring how much one product had come to underpin the division’s growth. Fintech revenue fell 72.4% year-on-year to ₦12.99 billion ($9.50 million) in the second quarter of 2026. The sharp decline pulled first-half fintech revenue down 7.2% to ₦77.2 billion ($56.49 million), making it one of the few weak spots in an otherwise strong earnings report that saw the telecom operator’s profit after tax jump 70.6% to ₦707.54 billion ($517.69 million), according to the company’s first-half 2026 financial statements. The decline followed the temporary suspension of MTN’s airtime and data credit advance service, Xtratime, on April 16 as the company implemented processes required under Nigeria’s Digital, Electronic, Online or Non-Traditional Consumer Lending Regulations, 2025, which introduced a new licencing and compliance framework for digital lenders. The results underscore how dependent MTN Nigeria’s fintech business has become on its airtime and data credit service. While its mobile money business continued to attract new users, the suspension of a single product was enough to push the entire fintech division into decline. The timing is significant as MTN Nigeria works to separate its fintech business, a transaction investors have closely watched as a key step toward unlocking the unit’s value. The telco said it has since resumed the service and expects fintech performance to recover in the second half of the year. “With operations now recommenced, we expect activity levels to progressively ramp up through H2, supporting a stronger contribution from our fintech business over the remainder of the year,” Karl Toriola, MTN Nigeria’s chief executive officer, said. Despite the decline in reported fintech revenue, the company’s underlying mobile money business continued to expand. Mobile money revenue grew by approximately 132%, while active MoMo wallets increased by 1.3 million to 5 million during the period, suggesting that customer adoption continued even as lending activity slowed. MTN Nigeria also said it is progressing with the structural separation of its fintech business following shareholder approval, although the transaction remains subject to regulatory approvals. “We also continue to progress the structural separation of the fintech business following shareholder approval, subject to regulatory approvals. Once completed, the transaction is expected to improve balance sheet flexibility, reduce future funding obligations and allow MTN Nigeria to retain meaningful exposure to long-term fintech growth,” the telco said. In April, shareholders approved a restructuring that will move MoMo Payment Service Bank Limited and Y’ello Digital Financial Services Limited into a new holding structure backed by MTN Group. Under the proposed arrangement, MTN Group, through its fintech investment arm, will inject ₦152.06 billion ($110.54 million) for a 60% stake in the fintech businesses, while MTN Nigeria will retain the remaining 40%. Both parties will consolidate their interests under a new Central Bank of Nigeria-regulated holding company. In June, MTN said it was awaiting regulatory approval to complete the separation. Outside fintech, MTN delivered one of its strongest half-year performances on record. Total revenue rose 25.9% to ₦2.99 trillion ($2.19 billion), driven by strong growth in data services, which increased 38.39%, while voice revenue grew 11.99%. The telecom operator ended the period with 92.2 million subscribers, 55.7 million active data users, and declared an interim dividend of ₦26 per share. True scale demands moving beyond surface-level integrations to robust execution. We’ve filtered the noise out of Moonshot 2026, optimising the conference strictly for high-calibre connections between startup founders, global financial operators, enterprise leaders and individuals rewiring Africa’s technical frameworks.Get 20% off Early Bird tickets for a limited time.
Read MoreQuick Fire 🔥 with Omolara Dada
Omolara Dada is a senior product marketing manager at Busha, a Nigerian digital asset exchange, where she is building the business-to-business (B2B) marketing function from the ground up. With over six years of experience in African fintech, she has worked previously at Anchor, a Y Combinator-backed Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) platform, and Earnipay, an earned wage access (EWA) product, leading go-to-market strategy, product positioning, and growth across B2B and consumer-facing financial products. Her work sits at the intersection of complex financial infrastructure and the human beings who need it explained clearly enough to act on it. Beyond her day job, Dada is a career coach and content creator building a platform for mid and senior professionals across Nigeria and beyond. She creates content around salary negotiation, career visibility, and the unspoken rules of navigating corporate life, drawing an audience of over 14,000 professionals across Instagram and LinkedIn. Explain your job to a five-year-old. You know when you make something really cool but nobody knows about it? My job is to help people find out about cool things, understand why it’s useful, and want to use it. I work for a company that helps businesses move money, and I make sure the right people know we exist and understand how we can help them. What’s the hardest part about working in fintech in Nigeria? Trust, and how hard it is to earn, how easy it is to lose. You’re often asking businesses to move their money in a new way, through a newer company, in an environment where people have been burned before and where the economy itself is unpredictable. That means the bar for proof is high. It’s not enough to be clever or well-designed. You have to be credible, consistent, and genuinely reliable before anyone hands you something as sensitive as their money. This also makes the work meaningful because when a business trusts you, you know you earned it. You’ve moved from traditional fintech into digital asset finance (crypto). What are the similarities operationally, and where do the complications arise? The similarities are bigger than people think. At its core, both are about moving money and building trust while you do it. The fundamentals of good marketing, clear positioning, and understanding your customer’s real problem don’t change whether you’re marketing a payments API or a stablecoin product. The complications come from two places. First, education: with digital assets, you’re often explaining the category itself before you can explain your product. People understand what a bank transfer is. They don’t always understand what a stablecoin is, so you carry a heavier teaching burden. Second, regulation and perception. The space moves fast, the rules are still forming, and there’s a lot of noise and skepticism to cut through. You spend a lot of energy separating the real, useful infrastructure from the speculation people associate with crypto. What’s the first thing you had to figure out with no playbook, building Busha’s B2B marketing from scratch? Who exactly we were talking to. When you’re the first B2B marketing hire, nothing is pre-defined. So the very first thing was getting brutally clear on who the customer actually is, what problem we solve for them that they genuinely care about, and how to say it in a way that resonated with them. Everything else- the content, the channels, the campaigns comes after getting that clarity. I spent my early weeks asking a lot of questions. What’s the most common mistake you see people, especially early-stage professionals, make when negotiating salary? Accepting the first offer. Saying thank you and signing on the spot, as though the number they were given is fixed and final. It rarely is. Most employers build room into that first offer and wait to see if you know that. Early-stage professionals often don’t; they’re so relieved to be chosen that negotiating feels ungrateful, even greedy. But you’re allowed to take a day. You’re allowed to ask if there’s flexibility. You’re allowed to counter. The people who do this, calmly and professionally, earn significantly more over a career than people who are equally talented but stay silent. Your silence is expensive. It just doesn’t send you an invoice. What’s one skill you’re interested in but not great at, and another you’re great at but not interested in? Interested in but not great at data analytics. I work in a world where numbers drive every decision, and I can read and use data, but I’d love to be genuinely fluent in it, pulling my own insights without needing to ask. It’s actually why I’m doing a data course this year. Great at but not interested in: I’m good at the highly detailed, administrative side of getting things over the line. The trackers, the follow-ups, the operational tidiness. I can do it well because I’ve had to, but it doesn’t really excite me.
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👨🏿🚀TechCabal Daily – More birr for Ethiopia’s Safaricom
In partnership with Lire en Français اقرأ هذا باللغة العربية TGIFTWWBRF. A few headlines to usher you into the weekend. Let’s get into it. Become smarter about tech and commerce in Francophone Africa, and the policies shaping them. Read our newsletter here first or subscribe below. Subscribe Quick Fire with Omolara Dada Visa taps Anne Kinuthia-Otieno Safaricom bets on Ethiopia Who secured the bag? World Wide Web 3 Job Openings features Quick Fire with Omolara Dada Image Source: Omolara Dada, senior product marketing manager at Busha. Omolara Dada is a senior product marketing manager at Busha, a Nigerian digital asset exchange, where she is building the business-to-business (B2B) marketing function from the ground up. With over six years of experience in African fintech, she has worked previously at Anchor, a Y Combinator-backed Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) platform, and Earnipay, an earned wage access (EWA) product, leading go-to-market strategy, product positioning, and growth across B2B and consumer-facing financial products. Her work sits at the intersection of complex financial infrastructure and the human beings who need it explained clearly enough to act on it. Explain your job to a five-year-old. You know when you make something really cool but nobody knows about it? My job is to help people find out about cool things, understand why it’s useful, and want to use it. I work for a company that helps businesses move money, and I make sure the right people know we exist and understand how we can help them. What’s the hardest part about working in fintech in Nigeria? Trust, and how hard it is to earn, how easy it is to lose. You’re often asking businesses to move their money in a new way, through a newer company, in an environment where people have been burned before and where the economy itself is unpredictable. That means the bar for proof is high. It’s not enough to be clever or well-designed. You have to be credible, consistent, and genuinely reliable before anyone hands you something as sensitive as their money. This also makes the work meaningful because when a business trusts you, you know you earned it. What’s the first thing you had to figure out with no playbook, building Busha’s B2B marketing from scratch? Who exactly we were talking to. When you’re the first B2B marketing hire, nothing is pre-defined. So the very first thing was getting brutally clear on who the customer actually is, what problem we solve for them that they genuinely care about, and how to say it in a way that resonated with them. Everything else- the content, the channels, the campaigns comes after getting that clarity. I spent my early weeks asking a lot of questions. Getting paid in cedis just got easier for African businesses operating in Ghana. Fincra now issues dedicated GHS virtual accounts to enable businesses to collect payments. See how Fincra GHS virtual accounts work. companies Visa appoints ex-Airtel Money Kenya chief as East Africa head Image Source: Tenor On July 25, Anne Kinuthia-Otieno, former managing director of Airtel Money Kenya, the telecom company’s mobile money arm, announced on LinkedIn that she was stepping down from her role. A few speculations flew around on where she was headed next: banking, telecoms, or fintech. Now, we have an answer. On Thursday, Visa, the payments giant, confirmed that the former mobile money executive was taking over as its East Africa Lead, bringing her experience—and years of banking expertise—to a different kind of fintech. Why Visa wanted her: When Kinuthia-Otieno took over Airtel Money Kenya in 2021, Safaricom’s M-PESA controlled the market. Airtel Money held just 3.1% of mobile money subscriptions, and nearly five years later, that share had climbed to 10.2%. Her new role: As Visa’s East Africa head, Kinuthia-Otieno will oversee the company’s operations across seven markets, working with clients and partners to expand digital payments, strengthen partnerships and bring more people into the formal financial system. The timing makes sense: Visa is already midway through its five-year, $1 billion investment commitment in Africa, building infrastructure, experimenting with stablecoin-powered payments, and trying to make itself more deeply woven into Africa’s payments ecosystem. Hiring someone who understands both banking and mobile money gives it an advantage. If she could help expand Airtel Money’s footprint in M-PESA’s backyard, Visa is betting she can help do the same for digital payments across East Africa. Download PalmPay. Bank smarter. Transaction Guard lets you set single, daily, or monthly transaction limits. Whenever a transaction exceeds your chosen limit, facial verification is required before it can be completed, helping to prevent unauthorised transfers. With PalmPay, you stay in control. Learn more. companies Safaricom invests $11 million in Ethiopian operations, eyes profitability in 2027 Image Source: Tenor When Safaricom decided to expand into Ethiopia in 2022, there was uncertainty around whether it could achieve scale. State-owned telecom firm Ethio Telecom controlled an overwhelming share of the market—and still does—helped by the conservative economic model Ethiopia had maintained for years, which tended to favour local incumbents. Yet, Safaricom has stuck with its plan. With 14.7 million customers in Ethiopia, it appears that Kenya’s largest telecom operator now believes it can capture a much larger share of the upside in neighbouring Ethiopia. It has just put in more cash to back that belief. The latest cheque: Safaricom has injected another KES 1.4 billion ($11 million) into its Ethiopian subsidiary, taking its total funding contribution to KES 159.6 billion ($1.23 billion) by the end of June 2026. The profitability race: The encouraging part is that the business is finally producing numbers that make the spending easier to justify. Active customers rose from 13.6 million in March to 14.7 million in June, adding over 1 million users in a single quarter and growing 46% year-on-year. Between the lines: Safaricom is now targeting earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) profitability by March 2027. That matters because Ethiopia has already absorbed an $850 million telecom licence fee and the additional $150 million M-PESA licence
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Visa appoints ex-Airtel Money Kenya chief as East Africa head
Visa, the global payments company, has appointed Anne Kinuthia Otieno, the former managing director of Airtel Money Kenya, as the Vice President and Head of East Africa, less than a week after announcing her departure from the mobile money operator. She will assume the role on August 4, overseeing Visa’s business across seven East African markets. According to Visa, Kinuthia-Otieno will be based in Nairobi, where she will lead the company’s efforts to grow digital payments, deepen partnerships with financial institutions and partners, and expand financial inclusion across the region. The appointment answers the question industry watchers had after Kinuthia-Otieno stepped down as Airtel Money Kenya chief months before Airtel Africa’s planned initial public offering (IPO) of its mobile money business on the London Stock Exchange. “East Africa is one of the most dynamic and innovative payments markets in the world, with tremendous opportunities to advance financial inclusion and digital commerce,” she said in a statement. “I look forward to working with Visa’s clients, partners and talented teams across the region to help drive the next phase of growth and innovation.” Kinuthia-Otieno joined Airtel Money Kenya in August 2021 after spending more than a decade in the banking sector. Before Airtel Money Kenya, she held senior leadership roles at Absa Group, where she oversaw governance and sales distribution, and spent more than seven years at Barclays Bank. She left Airtel Money after overseeing one of the company’s strongest growth periods. When she took over in September 2021, Airtel Money accounted for 3.1% of the country’s mobile money subscriptions, compared with M-PESA’s 96.8%. By March 2026, Airtel Money’s market share had increased to 10.9%, while M-PESA’s had fallen to 89.1%. After her departure, Airtel Money Kenya appointed Bonke Michael, who had spent nearly a decade at the company, as its acting managing director. Kinuthia Otieno joins Visa as the payments giant accelerates its expansion across Africa. The company is four years into a five-year, $1 billion investment commitment to advance resilient and inclusive economies across the continent. Visa is also investing in local capabilities, opening its first African data centre in Johannesburg, and exploring stablecoin-based settlements. “Anne’s appointment comes at an exciting time for Visa and for East Africa’s digital economy,” said Michael Berner, senior vice president and regional managing director, Southern and Eastern Africa, Visa. “Her deep understanding of the region, proven leadership experience and passion for financial inclusion will be instrumental as we continue working with clients, partners and governments to expand access to digital payments and economic opportunity.” True scale demands moving beyond surface-level integrations to robust execution. We’ve filtered the noise out of Moonshot 2026, optimising the conference strictly for high-calibre connections between startup founders, global financial operators, enterprise leaders and individuals rewiring Africa’s technical frameworks. Get 20% off Early Bird tickets for a limited time.
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Nigeria’s petrol three-wheelers are going electric—with batteries powered by diesel
Two years ago, Moses’ mechanic gave him advice that cost the mechanic his business. Moses was a regular, often bringing his commercial three-wheeler, popularly known as keke in Nigeria, to the workshop. Perhaps that frequency is what led the mechanic to suggest Moses rip the failing petrol engine out of his keke and let a startup called Swap replace it with an electric motor. He told TechCabal he has not visited a mechanic since the replacement. “Since I started, I have not fixed my engine,” Moses said in an interview at a battery swapping station in Magodo run by Swap, a Nigerian startup that converts petrol kekes to electric kekes across its five stations in Lagos. He bought his keke secondhand with its engine already failing. It had been worn down by Lagos traffic, bad fuel, bad roads, and compounding neglect. After his mechanic sent him to Swap, Moses registered, and Swap converted his vehicle for free. Now, twice a day, he rides to the battery station in Magodo, one of the most expensive high-income neighbourhoods in the city, and swaps a dead battery for a charged one. Within two minutes he’s back to work. Three-wheelers have been the last-mile replacement since the government banned commercial motorcycles across most of Lagos, Nigeria’s most populous city, in 2020. They ferry passengers through narrow roads buses cannot reach, and some cars would rather avoid. They also connect major roads and are affordable enough to remain an option for Lagosians. There are now just over 300 converted kekes in Lagos, according to Swap, and the company says more than 100,000 tricycles are on a waitlist. There are many reasons for the gap between those two numbers, and that is what this story is about. Moses and the other drivers who have already switched, alongside the long waitlist, show the demand is real. What holds Swap back is the cost and difficulty of keeping batteries charged and the capital needed to meet the demand. Different stations, different realities When I visited Swap’s station in Ikorodu, a fast-growing town on Lagos’s northeastern outskirts, in June, it had been without electricity since January 2026. To charge batteries, the station runs two generators that barely stop. As soon as a round of batteries is charged, the next batch goes on, and the generators keep burning diesel so that drivers keep working. The station serves 150 drivers and charges between 90 and 100 batteries, according to Victor Oguare, the station manager. Only two diesel generators carry that load. “If one generator runs for four hours, we shut one down and let it rest for one hour,” Oguare said. “Then we turn on the other one and shut that one down to rest for another hour. There’s a way we normally shuffle it so that it will not cause any overworking.” To keep batteries available, Swap buys diesel in bulk. “We purchase 1,000 litres for our drums, which serves us for three to four days,” he said. At the current retail price of ₦1,750 ($1.28) per litre, that comes to ₦1.95 million ($1,450) every three to four days—roughly ₦487,500 ($363) a day just to keep the batteries charged. Over a 30-day month, buying at that rate runs about ₦14.6 million to ₦19.5 million ($10,900 to $14,500). Swap declined to comment on how much it spends on diesel. Swap’s Magodo station. Image Source: Wunmi Eunice/TechCabal. On generators, the station’s capacity to charge batteries drops sharply. The grid delivers far more power, so instead of 90 batteries at a time, the station manages 40 to 50, and each charge cycle stretches from 90 minutes to nearly two and a half hours. A generator-powered station runs at roughly a third of the output of a grid-connected one. Oguare told TechCabal the shortages caused by the reduced output are rare. But the drivers tell a different story. “We used to be there for some hours waiting for batteries,” said Paul, an Ikorodu-based keke driver who operates on a hire-purchase arrangement and asked to be identified by his first name. Paul did not choose to go electric. His keke belongs to a fleet owner, and he was handed the key and told where to swap. He pays ₦7,500 ($5.61) daily to the owner, plus the cost of each battery swap: ₦2,800 ($2.09) for the first, ₦2,800 ($2.09) for the second, and ₦2,200 ($1.65) for the third if he can get one. He told me he makes around ₦20,000 ($14.96) on a four-battery day. Subtract the ₦7,500 ($5.61) higher-purchase fee and roughly ₦10,000 ($7.48) in swap costs, and he takes home somewhere between ₦2,500 ($1.87) and ₦5,000 ($3.74). On days when batteries run short, when the generators cannot charge fast enough to meet demand, Paul gets two or three batteries instead of four. His earning window shrinks to a few hours. The ₦7,500 ($5.61) delivery fee does not shrink with it. “If I pay ₦7,500 [$5.61] for delivery, with the ticket money, everything that I paid, I will not take anything home,” Paul said. “It’s not easy.” He has run out of battery mid-route. When that happens, he pushes the keke. There is no jerrycan equivalent for an electric vehicle, no roadside solution. You either push or you ask someone to help you push. When I visited Swap’s Magodo station in June 2026, I saw drivers arriving on foot, carrying their dead batteries because the kekes could not move. A Swap technician preparing to swap a charged battery for a dead one. Image Source: Wunmi Eunice/TechCabal. Despite the frustrations of an occasional battery shortage or a pack dying mid-trip, drivers still prefer Swap’s engines to petrol. “It’s better than fuel,” Paul said. When batteries are available, the economics work. He doesn’t need a mechanic. The ride is smoother. A petrol keke driver on a similar route spends over ₦10,000 ($7.26) daily on fuel alone, he estimated, before repairs. Anthony Adiku has driven the same keke since 2022. He converted it in December 2025, after
Read MoreAfter foreigners leave, South Africa’s convenience stores face a tech test
When foreign-owned spaza shops, South Africa’s township convenience stores, shut their doors after weeks of anti-immigrant protests, many township residents expected little more than a change in ownership. Instead, they found themselves paying more for everyday essentials. The scale of the disruption is becoming clearer. While there is no official tally of closures, the Africa Diaspora Forum (ADF), a migrant advocacy group, says hundreds of foreign-owned spaza shops have shut across KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng and the Western Cape provinces in recent weeks. “We don’t have a complete audit, but the number is in the hundreds,” ADF chairperson Amir Sheikh told TechCabal in an interview on Thursday. “Most of our members operate in the fast-moving consumer goods sector, selling everyday essentials like bread, sugar and other basic groceries. Those are the products where we have seen the sharpest increases.” Bread, he said, has risen from about R16 ($0.95) to as much as R30 ($1.79) in some communities. “The concern from residents is becoming louder because higher prices are directly affecting household budgets,” said Sheikh. The price increases have fuelled heated debate on social media, where videos of foreign shopkeepers leaving township businesses have gone viral. While some South Africans have welcomed the return of locally owned businesses, others question whether township consumers can afford the higher prices that have followed. The issue has also dominated radio phone-ins. East Coast Radio reported sharp divisions among listeners over whether supporting local ownership should come at the expense of affordability. Those frustrations spilled into a KZN Spaza Shop Roundtable on Tuesday, where local shop owners appealed to the government for urgent support. Many said that although they welcomed efforts to grow South African-owned businesses, they struggled to match the buying power, supplier networks and operating efficiencies that had helped many foreign-owned retailers keep prices low. Yet beneath the political debate lies a much larger business story. The next battle for South Africa’s estimated R900 billion ($53.6 billion) township economy may not be over nationality at all. Government officials and fintech companies have shared with TechCabal that digital payments, merchant data, embedded finance and smarter supply chains, not ownership alone, will determine whether local spaza shops can remain competitive while keeping prices affordable. A spaza shop. Image source: The Mercury. Building a digital spaza economy That belief lies at the heart of the Department of Small Business Development’s strategy to modernise township retail. For Minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams, the recent disruptions have reinforced the need to help South African-owned spaza shops overcome structural barriers that have long undermined their competitiveness. “Spaza shops are vital contributors to township and rural economies,” Ndabeni-Abrahams told TechCabal in an interview on Monday. “They provide communities with access to essential goods, create employment opportunities and support local economic activity.” Despite their importance, many South African-owned spaza shops continue to face limited access to finance, high operating costs, weak bulk-buying power, low levels of digital adoption and intense competition, she said. To tackle those challenges, the government launched the R500 million ($29.80 million) Spaza Shop Support Fund in March 2025. Unlike earlier support programmes, the initiative combines funding with digital infrastructure, including point-of-sale (POS) systems, inventory management software, digital payments, compliance support and business development services. “The Department has approved the Small Business Portfolio Digital Transformation Strategy,” said Ndabeni-Abrahams. “The strategy sets out a range of digital interventions aimed at addressing the structural barriers faced by spaza shops and other micro, small and medium enterprises.” Among its flagship initiatives is a National Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise (MSME) Service Portal, designed to give entrepreneurs access to funding opportunities, business support programmes and government services through a single platform. The government also plans to roll out an Integrated Payment Gateway for electronic payments and a national Application Programming Interface (API) Gateway linking banks, fintech and public systems to improve access to finance and digital services. “Through these initiatives, government seeks to build a more competitive, inclusive, digitally enabled and sustainable spaza shop sector by improving access to finance, supporting the adoption of digital payments, strengthening integration into broader business ecosystems and value chains, and contributing to township economic growth, job creation and broader economic transformation,” she stated. For retailers that have historically operated almost entirely in cash, those changes could reshape how they do business. The Small Enterprise Development Finance Agency (SEDFA), the government’s small business funding agency, has already begun equipping qualifying spaza shops with modern PoS devices that do far more than process card payments. They enable barcode inventory tracking, real-time stock management, automated sales reporting, digital ordering and business analytics that help owners understand which products generate profits and which quietly erode margins. “Technology is expected to play a transformative role in the future of South Africa’s spaza economy by improving competitiveness, operational efficiency, financial inclusion and long-term sustainability,” noted Ndabeni-Abrahams. The digital records generated by those systems also create something many informal retailers have never had before: a verifiable transaction history. Rather than relying solely on collateral, fintech lenders can use merchant sales data and cash-flow analytics to assess creditworthiness, giving small retailers better access to working capital. “Digital tools can improve stock control, reduce losses, support better purchasing decisions and create transaction histories that strengthen credit assessments, making it easier for businesses to access finance,” said Ndabeni-Abrahams. Minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams. Image source: TechCentral. From policy to the shop floor While the government sees digital infrastructure as a way to modernise township businesses, some spaza shop owners are already seeing the benefits of adopting tech. Terry Gatsheni, who owns two convenience stores and a tavern in Thokoza, says technology has transformed the way he runs his business. His stores use touchscreen POS terminals to process sales, manage inventory, conduct stock-taking and curb theft. “Before, you had to count everything by hand, and sometimes you’d only realise stock was missing when it was too late,” Gatsheni told TechCabal on Wednesday. “Now the system shows us what’s coming in, what’s going out, and what we need to reorder. It makes running the
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Kenya empowers investigators to seize crypto wallets tied to financial crime
Kenyan investigators have never had much trouble spotting suspicious crypto transactions. Getting their hands on them has been the problem. The country’s new cryptocurrency regulations close that gap. With court approval, the rules empower authorities, including financial crime investigators, to seize devices, seed phrases, and hardware wallets that unlock digital assets, allowing the government to control cryptocurrencies linked to fraud, money laundering, corruption, and terrorism-financing investigations. Existing Kenyan laws, including the Proceeds of Crime and Anti-Money Laundering Act and the Anti-Corruption and Economic Crimes Act, already let investigators freeze traditional bank accounts and trace suspicious transfers. A crypto wallet whose owner kept the private keys offline, however, was difficult to access using general asset‑seizure powers. The Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASP) Regulations, 2026, gazetted on July 24, establish a freezing and seizure framework for virtual assets within Kenya’s broader asset‑seizure regime. “A licencee served with a seizure order shall grant an authorised officer access to any premises where the virtual asset devices are suspected to be and the authorised officer may seize and detain any physical device, hardware wallet, seed phrase backup or electronic system necessary to access the virtual assets,” the regulations read. A seed phrase is the 12- or 24-word recovery code that helps a user regain access to their crypto assets. Whoever controls it can move the funds, which is precisely why investigators now have explicit legal grounds to seize it. The regulations form part of Kenya’s broader effort to strengthen monitoring of money laundering, terrorism financing, and other illicit financial flows as the country works to exit the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) grey list. In April, Kenyan authorities froze several Binance accounts linked to suspected fraud, money laundering, terrorism financing, and the movement of stolen public funds. Binance told affected users that some restrictions had been imposed at law enforcement’s request. The new framework gives future freezes a much clearer footing. Under the Regulations, a freezing order is an order by a competent court or lawful authority directing a virtual asset service provider “to prohibit any dealing, transfer, conversion, withdrawal or disposal of a specified virtual asset,” giving investigators room to lock down assets before any seizure or forfeiture. The April operation highlighted the limits of Kenya’s existing enforcement processes. Centralised exchanges could be pressured to restrict accounts, but self-custodied wallets sitting outside regulated platforms posed a harder problem: investigators could identify the wallet without being able to touch the assets inside it. Crypto volatility is another target of the new rules. A token worth millions of shillings when frozen could lose a substantial portion of its value before a prosecution is completed. The regulations now allow authorised officers, with court approval, to convert frozen virtual assets into fiat currency during an investigation to preserve their value. “The authorised officer may, upon approval of the competent court, convert virtual assets into fiat currency to preserve value,” the regulations read. Once an order is issued, exchanges and wallet providers must preserve the affected assets, halt withdrawals and transfers, and give investigators access to relevant systems and records. Seized assets must then be transferred to a secure digital wallet controlled by the competent authority, creating a formal custody chain for recovered crypto assets. The regulations apply to any provider operating “in or from Kenya.” A platform is deemed to meet that threshold if it actively solicits or targets Kenyan users or earns income from Kenya, even without a physical office in the country. Failure to comply with a freezing or seizure order is a criminal offence. Licenced crypto operators that refuse to freeze assets, grant investigators access to premises where the suspected assets could be, or assist with the seizure and transfer of virtual assets can face fines of up to KES 5 million ($38,640), up to five years in prison, or both. Companies can be fined up to KES 8 million ($61,800). The framework forms part of Kenya’s broader effort to align with global anti-money-laundering and counter-terrorism financing standards as it works to exit the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) grey list. Bringing crypto exchanges, wallet providers, and stablecoin issuers into a licencing and reporting regime supports one of FATF’s key recommendations: improving risk-based AML/CFT supervision of financial institutions by extending oversight to sectors that have historically operated outside the traditional banking space. Kenya’s crypto market grew largely through peer-to-peer trading with limited regulatory visibility. Licencing exchanges and taxing digital assets is only part of the shift. Investigators can now treat the physical backups behind a wallet as evidence in their own right—searched for, seized, and used to secure the assets behind them—pushing Kenya toward one of the more aggressive crypto-enforcement regimes on the continent. True scale demands moving beyond surface-level integrations to robust execution. We’ve filtered the noise out of Moonshot 2026, optimising the conference strictly for high-calibre connections between startup founders, global financial operators, enterprise leaders and individuals rewiring Africa’s technical frameworks.Get 20% off Early Bird tickets for a limited time.
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Kenya’s new crypto rules could force exchanges to delist foreign stablecoins
Kenya could force local cryptocurrency exchanges to stop offering foreign-issued stablecoins—such as Tether’s USDT, Circle’s USDC, and Mento Labs’ USDm—after the central bank was granted authority to restrict access to offshore stablecoins, tightening oversight of the dollar-backed tokens that dominate crypto trading across Africa. The Kenyan Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASP) Regulations, 2026, published on July 24, prohibit licenced cryptocurrency exchanges from offering any stablecoin that has not been approved by the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) and issued by a licenced stablecoin issuer. The new provision, added to the gazetted version of the rules, could force offshore stablecoin issuers such as Tether and Circle to seek CBK approval and work through licenced Kenyan entities if they want their tokens to remain available on regulated Kenyan exchange platforms. It also gives the central bank direct oversight to cut off local access to foreign stablecoins without having to regulate the offshore issuers themselves. “A virtual asset exchange shall not list any stablecoin unless that stablecoin has been approved by the Central Bank of Kenya and is issued by a duly licenced stablecoin issuer,” the policy read. A stablecoin is a cryptocurrency pegged to the value of a real-world currency, such as the US dollar. Kenyan traders widely use tokens such as USDT and USDC to move money between exchanges, hold dollar exposure, settle peer-to-peer (P2P) trades, and access international crypto markets. The final regulations go significantly further than earlier draft proposals, which contained only general powers that allow regulators to halt or delist stablecoin issuance. The gazetted version introduces a much more specific restriction aimed at foreign-issued tokens. “Where a stablecoin is issued outside Kenya, the Central Bank of Kenya may exercise its powers under this regulation by directing licenced intermediaries operating in Kenya to restrict access to, or trading of, such stablecoin,” the policy read. The move comes as regulators worldwide increase scrutiny of stablecoins following concerns about reserve backing, consumer protection, illicit financial flows, and the growing role of dollar-linked tokens in cross-border payments. The European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework imposes authorisation requirements on stablecoin issuers. Regulators in the United States, Singapore, and Hong Kong have also moved toward stricter oversight of fiat-referenced digital tokens. Kenya’s approach is notable because it targets market access rather than the offshore issuer itself. The CBK would not need direct jurisdiction over Tether or Circle to affect their availability in Kenya; it could order licenced local exchanges and wallet providers to stop offering the tokens to Kenyan users. The rules could have significant implications for local crypto businesses. Most retail trading activity in Kenya is conducted through P2P channels and dollar-backed stablecoins, which are often preferred over volatile cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ether for payments, remittances, and savings. Under the rules, stablecoin issuers will now be required to hold KES 300 million ($2.3 million) in paid-up capital, a 40% reduction from the KES 500 million ($3.85 million) requirement proposed in the draft regulations released in March. The lower capital threshold could make it easier for firms seeking to issue stablecoins under Kenyan regulation. However, the new rules make clear that access to foreign stablecoins in Kenya will no longer be determined solely by existing on global blockchains, but by whether the CBK permits licenced local intermediaries to continue offering them to Kenyan users. True scale demands moving beyond surface-level integrations to robust execution. We’ve filtered the noise out of Moonshot 2026, optimising the conference strictly for high-calibre connections between startup founders, global financial operators, enterprise leaders and individuals rewiring Africa’s technical frameworks. Get 20% off Early Bird tickets for a limited time.
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