OPPO Find X9 Ultra vs Find X8 Ultra: Which should you buy?
Table of contents The biggest upgrades on the Find X9 Ultra OPPO Find X9 Ultra: Full specs and features OPPO Find X8 Ultra: Full specs and features Side-by-side comparison When OPPO launched the Find X9 Ultra at its headquarters in Chengdu, China, on April 21, 2026, the biggest story was the geography. For the first time since OPPO introduced the Ultra-tier label in 2024, an Ultra-range Find X phone is available outside China. The Find X8 Ultra, which launched a year earlier in April 2025, was never officially released outside China. That global shift changes everything for you as a Nigerian buyer. Both phones are imports for now since there is no official OPPO Nigeria channel for either. However, the X9 Ultra, with confirmed launches in the UK, Europe, and India, will be far easier to source through grey-market vendors than its predecessor ever was. Here is how the two phones compare across every meaningful spec. The biggest upgrades on the Find X9 Ultra OPPO’s tagline for the X9 Ultra is Your Next Camera, and the phone mostly lives up to it. The most significant change over the X8 Ultra is the camera system. Where the X8 Ultra used a 50 MP 1.0-inch Sony LYT-900 main sensor alongside three 50 MP companions, the X9 Ultra moves to a five-camera rear setup led by two 200 MP sensors. These are a Sony LYT-901 main camera and an OmniVision OV52A 3x telephoto. On top of that, OPPO added an industry-first 50 MP 10x optical periscope built around what the company calls a Quintuple Prism Reflection design. Engadget, which tested the phone ahead of launch, called the 1/1.12-inch main sensor the largest 200 MP sensor in a phone yet. Beyond cameras, the X9 Ultra brings several other upgrades: A newer Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip, replacing the X8 Ultra’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Battery capacity jumps from 6,100 mAh to 7,050 mAh with a silicon-carbon build OPPO calls the Glacier Battery Display peak brightness rises from 2,500 nits to 3,600 nits, and the refresh rate hits 144 Hz in supported games Android 16 and ColorOS 16 out of the box IP66 added on top of the IP68 and IP69 ratings that the X8 Ultra already had Bluetooth 6.0, 8K video, an O-Log2 log profile with ACES support, a 50 MP autofocus selfie camera, and AirDrop-compatible Quick Share for transfers between your phone and iPhones or Macs OPPO Find X9 Ultra: Full specs and features Image source: The Tech Chap on YouTube 1. Display The X9 Ultra has a 6.82-inch LTPO 2.0 AMOLED panel at a resolution of 3168 x 1440, which works out to 510 pixels per inch. It runs at an adaptive 1-120 Hz refresh rate, with 144 Hz unlocked in select games. Touch sampling sits at 300 Hz. Brightness is rated at 800 nits typical, 1,800 nits in high-brightness mode, and 3,600 nits peak HDR. The panel supports Dolby Vision, HDR Vivid, and HDR10+ with 10-bit colour. PWM dimming runs at 2,160 Hz, the minimum brightness drops to 1 nit, and the top glass is Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2. OPPO uses what it calls an X3 luminescent material with pixel-level gamma correction. 2. Processor, RAM, and storage The X9 Ultra runs on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, a 3 nm chip (model SM8850-AC) with two Oryon V3 Phoenix L cores at 4.6 GHz and six Oryon V3 Phoenix M cores at 3.62 GHz. The GPU is an Adreno 840 clocked at 1,200 MHz. RAM is LPDDR5X, available in 12 GB or 16 GB. Storage uses UFS 4.1 in 256 GB, 512 GB, or 1 TB options inside China. For global buyers, OPPO is selling only the 512 GB and 1 TB variants. 3. Battery and charging The Glacier Battery is a 7,050 mAh silicon-carbon cell. It supports 100 W SUPERVOOC wired charging, 50 W AIRVOOC wireless charging, and 10 W reverse wireless charging. The charger also works with 80 W SUPERVOOC, 18 W PD, 18 W QC, and 55 W PPS profiles. OPPO claims up to 31 hours of YouTube playback per charge, though that figure is based on manufacturer lab conditions. 4. Camera system OPPO’s partnership with Hasselblad, the Swedish camera brand whose cameras went to the moon, has been in place since 2022. The X9 Ultra marks the fourth generation of that collaboration, now branded the New-Generation Hasselblad Master Camera System. Hasselblad co-branded the launch event in Chengdu. Video: 8K at 30 fps on both 200 MP sensors; 4K at 30, 60, or 120 fps; 4K Dolby Vision up to 120 fps; 1080p slow motion to 240 fps; 720p slow motion to 480 fps. The O-Log2 log profile supports real-time LUT preview, LUT burn-in, ACES colour management, and custom 3D LUT imports. OPPO also introduced a feature called LUMO, an internal optical zoom processing system that quadruples the pixel count at the 2x and 6x focal lengths. Optional accessories include the Hasselblad Earth Explorer Kit (a grip-case with a 300 mm teleconverter for roughly 13x optical) and the TILTA KHRONOS Kit, which includes ND filters, manual focus handles, and an internal HDMI output. 5. Design and durability The X9 Ultra measures 163.16 x 76.97 mm. Thickness is 8.65 mm for the Canyon Orange version and 9.10 mm for Tundra Umber, with weights of 235 g and 236 g, respectively. The frame is aluminium alloy. The Canyon Orange back is glass; Tundra Umber uses an eco-friendly vegan leather inspired by the Hasselblad X2D 100C Earth Explorer Edition camera. Globally, the phone ships in Tundra Umber and Canyon Orange. Polar Glacier is China-exclusive. The phone carries IP66, IP68, and IP69 ratings, plus Swiss SGS five-star drop and shock certification. There are two physical buttons besides the power and volume keys: a customisable Shortcut Button on the left and a pressure-sensitive Quick Button on the right that doubles as a camera shutter and zoom slider. 6. Software and AI The X9 Ultra ships with Android 16 and ColorOS
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This AI doctor answers the hardest questions women ask
28 avril 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 A minuit, quand les cliniques sont fermées et les salles d’attente vides, une femme à Abidjan tape une question sur son téléphone. Elle veut savoir pourquoi ses règles sont en retard, ce que signifie une douleur qu’elle ne sait pas nommer, une inquiétude qu’elle porte en silence depuis des semaines. Elle n’écrit pas à une amie. Elle ne fait pas défiler un groupe Facebook en espérant une réponse. Elle parle à Kiko — l’assistant de santé basé sur l’intelligence artificielle de La Ruche Health, disponible sur WhatsApp, vingt-quatre heures sur vingt-quatre, gratuitement. Ce n’est pas un cas extrême. C’est le cas d’usage central. Depuis son lancement en 2022, La Ruche Health, une start-up spécialisée dans les technologies de la santé basée à Abidjan, affirme que a répondu à plus de 500 000 questions de santé via Kiko, facilité plus de 5 000 téléconsultations payées avec des spécialistes vérifiés, et constitué une base de patients dans dix pays — sans un seul cabinet, une seule salle d’attente, ni un seul carnet d’ordonnances. Quatre-vingt-dix-huit pourcent de ces interactions se font sur WhatsApp. L’entreprise a été fondée par Rory Assandey, PDG, et Benjamin Sasu, directeur technique — deux cofondateurs qui ont bâti leur MVP ensemble pendant plus d’un an avant de se rencontrer en personne pour la première fois dans un couloir d’aéroport. Ce qu’ils ont construit depuis est l’un des produits de santé grand public les plus discrètement importants d’Afrique de l’Ouest francophone. 1. Un système bâti sur un vide Source de l’image : Getty Images via iStockphoto Le problème que résout La Ruche Health n’est pas subtil. En 2023, la Côte d’Ivoire comptait environ 0,2 médecin pour 1 000 habitants—bien en deçà du ratio recommandé par l’OMS—et près de 80 % de ces médecins sont concentrés à Abidjan. Pour le reste du pays, les soins spécialisés ne sont pas lents ni coûteux. Ils sont, en pratique, absents. Le tableau de la santé maternelle rend cela concret. Le ratio de mortalité maternelle de la Côte d’Ivoire s’élève à environ 480 décès pour 100 000 naissances vivantes — plus de trois fois la moyenne mondiale de 197. L’Afrique de l’Ouest et l’Afrique centrale représentent collectivement plus de la moitié de tous les décès maternels à l’échelle mondiale, selon le rapport régional 2025 de l’UNICEF. Dans l’ensemble de l’Afrique de l’Ouest francophone, le taux de prévalence contraceptive moderne reste compris entre 13 % et 27 %, avec un besoin non satisfait moyen en contraception de 27 % — encore plus élevé chez les femmes non mariées, selon une recherche publiée dans Sexual and Reproductive Health Matters. En Afrique de l’Ouest, environ quatre femmes enceintes sur dix n’effectuent toujours pas les quatre consultations prénatales recommandées, selon une analyse multipays des enquêtes démographiques et de santé menées entre 2015 et 2022. La situation de l’assurance maladie aggrave le tableau. La Côte d’Ivoire a introduit la Couverture Maladie Universelle (CMU) en 2014, mais son adoption est restée limitée. Les données de La Ruche sont sans appel : 96 % de leurs patients payants ne bénéficient d’aucune couverture d’assurance et règlent leurs factures entièrement de leur poche. Chaque consultation représente ainsi une dépense discrétionnaire dans un pays où, selon les estimations de la Banque mondiale, 36 % de la population vivait en dessous du seuil de pauvreté correspondant au revenu intermédiaire inférieur (4,2 dollars par jour) en 2025. C’est dans ce vide que Rory Assandey a construit la plateforme à laquelle il pensait depuis 2015 — forgée, dès le début, par ce qu’il a vu en grandissant. « Mon père conduisait lui-même les femmes à la maternité — parce que pour beaucoup de familles vivant à dix kilomètres de là, sans transport fiable ni route pour accéder aux soins, son camion faisait la différence entre un accouchement sûr et une tragédie. » — Rory Assandey, PDG Sa mère dirigeait une équipe de sages-femmes. Son père créait la prise de conscience et construisait le chemin pour l’atteindre. « Ensemble, ils formaient un système complet, » a dit Assandey. « Ma mère et son équipe sont le réseau de spécialistes de santé vérifiés — désormais disponibles en ligne. Mon père, c’est Kiko et notre plateforme de télémédecine — qui créent la prise de conscience, établissent la confiance et orientent les patients vers les professionnels qui peuvent les aider. On a juste construit l’infrastructure pour le faire à grande échelle. » Ce que les femmes demandent quand personne ne regarde L’intuition produit au cœur de La Ruche Health est d’une simplicité trompeuse : les gens parlent de leur corps d’une manière radicalement différente quand ils ne se sentent pas jugés. Les données de Kiko pour 2025 le montrent concrètement. Sur un échantillon de trois mois, 31 % des questions concernaient le cycle menstruel, 23 % la grossesse, 21 % la contraception et 21 % le soutien émotionnel — les moments de santé fondamentaux de la vie reproductive d’une femme, systématiquement mal desservis par les soins en présentiel dans des contextes marqués par la stigmatisation, le genre des soignants, le coût et la géographie. La première raison de consultation payée reflète cette réalité : 34 % concernent la grossesse et le post-partum, la gynécologie et la dermatologie représentant chacune 20 % de plus. La base d’utilisateurs est composée à 82,4 % de femmes, dont 45 % ont entre 25 et 34 ans. Pour que cela fonctionne, Sasu a dû faire un choix technique délibéré : Kiko ne pouvait pas
Read MoreEthiopia-based Dodai raises $13 million to expand battery-swapping EV network
Dodai, an Ethiopia-based electric mobility company that focuses on electric two-wheelers, has closed its $13 million Series A funding round to expand its electric motorbike and battery-swapping network across Addis Ababa. The round includes $8 million in equity and $5 million in debt, with participation from Value Chain Innovation Fund, UTokyo Innovation Platform Co., Nagase, Persistent Energy, For Seasons, CBC Co., Ltd, Inclusion Japan (ICJ), and debt financing from British International Investment (BII). The funding comes as Ethiopia positions itself as one of Africa’s most aggressive electric vehicle markets. In 2024, the government banned the import of private internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles and expanded that ban to include gasoline and diesel trucks in 2025. That policy has accelerated adoption, with the country now recording around 100,000 electric vehicles on its roads, according to its Ministry of Transport and Logistics. “Ethiopia is emerging as one of Africa’s most compelling frontier markets for the clean mobility transition, where the right capital can unlock outsized impact and long-term value,” said Leslie Maasdorp, CEO of British International Investment (BII). “BII’s investment will support Dodai to scale critical e-mobility and battery-swapping infrastructure, and accelerate the development of a commercial market for electric motorbikes.” Founded in 2023 by Sasaki, Dodai locally assembles electric motorbikes and batteries, and operates a battery-swapping infrastructure that allows drivers to replace depleted batteries. The company, which raised $7 million in 2024, is building a model in a market attracting competition from local and Chinese manufacturers like the Belayneh Kinde Group (BKG) and Yadea. Dodai is betting on its integrated model of combining local assembly with battery-swapping infrastructure to reduce charging friction for riders. Since its launch, the company said it has locally assembled and deployed over 2,000 electric motorbikes. Dodai’s new funding will be used to scale its battery-swapping and e-bike network, as the company aims to set up 30 battery-swapping stations across Addis Ababa and reach 3,000 users over the next 12 months. “This funding will help take us from early traction to real scale,” said Yuma Sasaki, CEO and Founder of Dodai. “We’ve proven the model in Addis Ababa—now we’re building the network and infrastructure needed to make electric mobility the default.” Over the next three years, the company plans to scale to 30,000 users and 1,000 battery-swapping stations across Addis Ababa, before expanding into cities like Abidjan, Kinshasa, Accra, Dar es Salaam, and Cairo from 2028, exporting its model to other high-growth urban markets across the continent. “We chose Ethiopia because that’s where the opportunity to build from first principles really exists,” said Sasaki. “This raise allows us to double down on that bet—and show what the future of mobility in African cities can look like.”
Read MoreKenya’s Central Bank is hiring for crypto compliance roles as landmark regulation nears
The Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) is hiring for senior and managerial roles to oversee licencing and compliance for virtual asset service providers (VASPs), even as the regulations governing the sector are still being finalised. On Monday, the regulator posted four positions within its Digital Payment Services Division on its careers portal, all closing May 18. The roles span licencing, product approval, and compliance oversight of virtual asset service providers. It is the first time the regulator has advertised roles specifically dedicated to VASPs, a sign that it is assembling capacity ahead of what could be an imminent regulatory rollout. A manager-level hire would lead the licencing function, reviewing applications, recommending approvals or rejections, and developing standard operating procedures for the new VASP regime. Two deputy manager positions would respectively handle licencing and product approval, and oversight and compliance, the latter focused on risk-based supervision of licenced VASPs, including anti-money laundering (AML) checks, cybersecurity assessments, and enforcement of licencing conditions. A senior business analyst role rounds out the team, focused on application review and regulatory guidance for incoming VASP applicants. The hiring comes seven months after Kenya’s parliament passed the Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASP) Act in October 2025, which for the first time created a legal framework for the country’s crypto sector. Under that law, the CBK will oversee virtual assets used for payments, carving out a market where crypto-linked remittances and mobile money integrations have grown steadily. Yet, the subordinate regulations needed to actually operationalise that law are still not in place. The National Treasury drafted the VASP Regulations in March and opened them for public comment until April 10. They have yet to be gazetted. The regulations, as drafted, propose a 13-member inter-agency Coordination Committee on which the CBK sits alongside other state agencies—including the Capital Markets Authority (CMA), the Financial Reporting Centre (FRC), and the National Computer and Cybercrimes Coordination Committee (NC4)—a structure meant to manage oversight across the various use cases of virtual assets. With the comment period closed and the regulations still pending, the hiring suggests the CBK is building internal capacity ahead of implementation. All four roles require backgrounds spanning payments, banking operations, financial services, or law, with the more senior positions demanding familiarity with anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorism financing frameworks and international VASP standards. Kenya joins a growing list of African countries, including Rwanda and Ghana, moving to bring crypto under formal oversight, but the gap between legislating and regulating remains a challenge across the continent. For now, the CBK is hiring, with or without the rulebook fully written.
Read MoreRack Centre to train engineers as Nigeria’s data centre talent shortage grows
Rack Centre, a Lagos-based Tier III carrier and cloud-neutral data centre facility, is launching a structured training programme for university students and engineering graduates to expand Nigeria’s technical workforce. The programme will kick off on Wednesday. The move comes as demand for data infrastructure grows alongside cloud adoption and AI workloads. While new facilities are being built—bringing the number of operational data centres in Africa to 249 as of February 2026—operators say the supply of engineers needed to manage critical systems, particularly power and cooling, has not kept pace. “There’s a lot of recycling of the same people across companies,” Adebola Adefarati, Rack Centre’s head of marketing and communications, told TechCabal on Monday. “People move from one data centre or telco to another, and it becomes a closed loop. The industry has to start creating new talent.” A survey by the Africa Data Centre Association suggests that 67% of data centre operators in Nigeria identify talent retention as a major challenge. In comparison, more than 60% rely on informal, in-house training to keep operations running. Globally, the workforce deficit is even more pronounced, with projections from Uptime Institute intelligence pointing to a need for 2.5 million additional data centre professionals by 2025. In Africa, the issue is compounded by a mix of limited specialised training, aggressive local hiring, and international poaching. Engineers trained to operate in high-stress environments like Lagos—where unreliable grid power and high ambient temperatures are the norm—are particularly attractive to global employers. “Once people gain experience running reliable systems in Nigeria, they become prime targets,” Adefarati said. “We’ve seen a number of our own people leave for opportunities abroad.” Rack Centre’s response is to build a broader pipeline rather than compete for the same limited pool. Data centres require relatively small teams, but with highly specialised expertise. Much of the infrastructure is automated, so staffing needs are low—typically 30 to 100+ people for a 100MW facility. For a 13.5MW site like Rack Centre’s, the workforce is even smaller at about 65 full-time staff, including technicians, engineers, and management, meaning the company cannot absorb all the talent it trains and expects graduates to be distributed across the industry. The programme will train between 15 and 20 engineers in its first cohort, with only a fraction expected to be absorbed internally. The rest will be absorbed by other operators within the data centre ecosystem and telecom operators. Participants will undergo two certification tracks, including one delivered in partnership with Schneider Electric’s training platform, followed by an advanced course and a one-month internship inside a live facility. The full programme runs for four to five months. Training costs, estimated at $2,500 per participant, are fully subsidised, reflecting a broader industry consensus that individuals cannot shoulder the financial burden of specialised certification, according to Adefarati. “The issue is not that people aren’t studying engineering,” he said. “It’s that they’re not trained to work on systems that must run 100% of the time. Data centres are different. You’re dealing with redundant power, precision cooling, and real-time fault detection in a highly sensitive environment.” That complexity is especially pronounced in Nigeria, where maintaining uptime requires adapting global standards to local realities, like hot environments. Cooling systems, for instance, must operate efficiently in temperatures that can exceed 40°C, while power infrastructure must compensate for an inconsistent grid supply. Rack Centre’s programme is being developed in collaboration with the Africa Data Centres Association, which is working toward a broader goal of training up to 1,000 data centre professionals over the next two years. The effort aligns with a wider industry push toward a “source-train-place” model, designed to create a continuous pipeline of talent rather than episodic hiring. The programme also targets structural imbalances within the workforce. Women remain significantly underrepresented in core operational roles, accounting for as little as 5% of technical staff in some facilities. Rack Centre says it aims to ensure that at least one-third of participants in each cohort are female. “Data centres are often seen as hardware,” Adefarati said. “But their success is fundamentally about people.”
Read MoreBotswana Tech Fund sees opportunity where African venture capital rarely flows
For the seventh consecutive year, the Big Four (Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa) pulled in over 80% of all venture capital deployed across Africa in 2025, a share that has barely moved since 2019. But last year, South Africa alone took 19% of the total, and 29% of all African equity funding, making it the largest equity market on the continent. Beyond Johannesburg and Cape Town, the rest of Southern Africa, like Gaborone, Lusaka, Windhoek, Maputo, Luanda and Harare, captured almost nothing. For exits, the gap is even wider, as nearly half of the 138 venture-backed exits tracked by the African Private Capital Association across Africa between 2019 and 2024 were in South Africa. The country’s deep and more liquid capital markets, established secondary structures, and concentration of strategic acquirers have made it the default exit jurisdiction for the continent. As a result, founders building elsewhere in Southern Africa often look to South Africa when seeking capital or planning an exit. Botswana Tech Fund, a new fund anchored out of Guernsey, a self-governing British Crown dependency in the English Channel, is trying to change that. Backed by Stephen Lansdown, the British billionaire who co-founded Hargreaves Lansdown, the FTSE 100 financial services firm, and who has invested in Botswana since 2007 through his Tuli Conservation Trust, the fund has £10 million ($13.5 million) in committed capital, with a first close of £5 million ($6.7 million). It is operationally based in Botswana and run in partnership with Launch Africa, the pan-African seed-stage VC firm with over 130 portfolio startups. Martin Davis, the fund’s co-founder, is a UK technology investor and entrepreneur who also chairs Bethnal Green Ventures, a London-based social impact accelerator that has run programmes for 15 years. His co-lead, Florence Bavanandan, is head of platform and operations at Launch Africa, where she helped build the fund’s portfolio support infrastructure. Together, they have designed a multi-stage strategy with three legs: a pre-seed accelerator that will deploy £100,000 ($135,000) cheques to roughly 100 Southern African-based companies over five years; primary growth-stage investments of £500,000 ($670,000) to £2 million ($2.7 million); and secondaries that buy out early-stage VCs from already-developed companies in the bigger African markets. The geographic focus is what makes the fund unusual. Most African VCs follow the well-known capital concentration map in Lagos, Nairobi, Cairo, and Cape Town. Botswana Tech Fund is built around what Davis and Bavanandan call the “digital gap”: the Southern African markets that get less than a fifth of the continent’s funding despite collectively housing tens of millions of consumers and a younger, increasingly digital population. Their bet is that closing the gap requires capital deployed at the source, not routed through Johannesburg or filtered through Big Four ecosystems where most of the deal flow already lives. In this week’s Ask an Investor, Davis and Bavanandan explain why the fund is anchored in Botswana rather than Lagos or Nairobi, what they look for in founders at the pre-seed stage, why they expect haircuts on every secondary they touch, and why they believe the next decade of African private equity will be dominated by international PE money looking for roll-ups. This interview has been edited lightly for clarity and length. What’s the fund’s thesis, and what type of founder are you looking for? The thesis is pretty simple. I don’t need to tell you about the attractiveness of the African market for developing technology and digitisation—high-growth population, rising urbanisation, digital leapfrogging—all of that is happening within African markets. Right now is ripe for the digitisation of Africa. Some nations are further forward than others, and there’s definitely an increasing gap. What we’re looking to do with our fund is help accelerate the areas where digitisation has been slow and inevitably close that gap. We’re focusing on the critical core markets where this is the case. We’re centred in Botswana but also looking at other Southern African countries like Zambia, Namibia, Mozambique, Angola, and Zimbabwe. The countries are where we feel that over the next decade, there’s going to be a significant move forward in technology being applied to advance digitisation across the entire economy. This is important for a couple of reasons. One is that only by digitising the economy will the economy speed up its development and build economic growth. With a rising younger population, that’s particularly important in this part of Africa. The other side is that economic growth creates opportunities for people to stay in the countries where they were brought up, rather than facing the dilemma of becoming economic migrants to other parts of the continent or the world. We are providing the capital to allow talented entrepreneurs and engineers in those markets to build digital capabilities at home, with principally international capital, to help digitise the economy and close that digital gap. We’re talking about software technology applied at whatever stage capital is required, because it’s not always early stage or late stage. The other thing is that the beauty of software is that it flattens the world. We believe the next Mark Zuckerberg could come from Africa, and there’s no reason why it can’t come from one of the SADC countries. With the technological infrastructure and the governmental support to build digital capabilities, there’s no reason why the next entrepreneur to build a multi-billion-dollar company can’t come from this environment. The only reason it won’t is if they haven’t got the capital to start. That’s what we’re trying to do. What’s the geographical focus, and why Botswana? Southern Africa countries—particularly those centred around Botswana, but also Namibia, Zambia, Mozambique, Angola, and Zimbabwe—are the principal focus, because that’s where we see the greatest digital gap. That’s the geographic focus, and that’s where we want to provide the capital to help build economic growth. The fund is based in Botswana because that’s where the most progress has been made and where the greatest infrastructure exists. Maybe Botswana and Zambia, but particularly Botswana. We will do early-stage startup investments from all of those
Read MoreWhy bank transfers above ₦10,000 will cost ₦60 under CBN’s new guide
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) says it wants to eliminate fees on transactions below ₦5,000 ($3.68) and reduce charges on mid-tier payments to drop the cost of cashless payments. Under a draft guide to charges by banks and other financial institutions dated April 21, 2026, inter-bank transfers between ₦5,000 ($3.68) and ₦50,000 ($36.81) will now cost ₦10 ($0.007). Fees for transfers above ₦50,000 ($36.81) remain capped at ₦50 ($0.037). The changes mark one of the most significant pricing shifts in Nigeria’s payments space in six years, effectively lowering the cost of sending money for millions of users who rely on small, frequent transactions. By removing fees on small transfers and compressing charges on mid-range transactions, the regulator hopes to incentivise the further adoption of electronic payment options by small businesses. Current Bank Transfer Fees What customers already pay across different transfer tiers. NGN (₦) USD ($) ₦50 ₦25 ₦10 ₦0 Fee: ₦10 ₦10 Below ₦5k Fee: ₦25 ₦25 ₦5k – ₦50k Fee: ₦50 ₦50 Above ₦50k In 2024, e-payments crossed the ₦1 quadrillion ($736.14 billion) mark. According to Moniepoint’s 2025 Informal Economy Report, only one in four informal businesses reported that digital payments accounted for at least 10% of their total revenue in 2025. How the policy affects transfers Today, bank customers already pay transfer fees: The Stamp Duty Shift Who pays the hidden transfer fees? Toggle to see the change. 2025 (Old Rules) 2026 (New Rules) ₦ $ Sender Pays Receiver Pays Transfers of ₦10,000+ Sender Total: ₦60 Receiver Deducted: ₦0 ₦10 ₦50 Bank Fee Stamp Duty Transfers of ₦50,000+ Sender Total: ₦100 Receiver Deducted: ₦0 ₦50 ₦50 Bank Fee Stamp Duty The 2026 Reality The burden has fully shifted. Senders now absorb the bank transfer fee AND the government’s Stamp Duty, making mid-to-high value transactions noticeably more expensive to initiate. Although the new pricing regime seeks to reduce the overall cost of transactions, transfers above ₦10,000 ($7.36) will still be priced at least ₦60 ($0.044). Five years after replacing stamp duty with the Electronic Money Transfer Levy (EMTL), Nigeria reintroduced stamp duties in 2026. Introduced in 2020, EMTL imposed a flat, one-off ₦50 charge on electronic transfers of ₦10,000 ($7.36) and above, paid by the receiver. From 2026, the ₦50 ($0.037) levy is no longer deducted from the receiver but from the sender, increasing transfer costs. The Stamp Duty Shift How total sender costs changed from 2025 to 2026. Hover over any bar to see why. 2025 Total (Sender) 2026 Bank Fee 2026 Stamp Duty Transfers of ₦10,000+ 2025 ₦25 2026 ₦10 + ₦50 Stamp Duty = ₦60 Transfers of ₦50,000+ 2025 ₦50 2026 ₦50 + ₦50 Stamp Duty = ₦100 Interact with the data Hover or tap on the grey (2025) or colored (2026) bars to see exactly how the rules shifted and who is paying for it. PoS fees get structure The new guide also introduces a more structured fee regime for Point of Sale (PoS) withdrawals. On-us withdrawals, using your bank or fintech’s own agent to get cash, will now cost ₦100 ($0.074) per ₦20,000 ($14.72). For not-on-us withdrawals, using another bank or fintech’s own agent to get cash, customers will pay ₦100 ($0.074) per ₦20,000 ($14.72), in addition to a fee determined by the agent. This represents a shift from the current informal pricing structure, where PoS withdrawals can cost as much as ₦100 ($0.074) per ₦5,000 ($3.68). PoS terminals are increasingly becoming the primary means of cash for many. In the first quarter of 2025, PoS terminals moved ₦116.79 billion ($85.97 million) per day. Nigeria 2026 Fee Checker See exactly what leaves your account. Bank Transfer PoS Withdrawal Transaction Amount (₦) ₦ Using my bank’s agent (On-Us) Agent’s extra charge (₦) Principal Amount: ₦15,000 Bank Fee: + ₦10 Stamp Duty Levy: + ₦50 Agent Markup: + ₦0 Total Deducted ₦15,060 At this tier, the ₦50 Stamp Duty (now paid by the sender) makes up the bulk of your transaction cost. For banks and fintechs, the CBN’s new transfer fee policy could reshape revenue expectations. In the first nine months of 2025, eight of Nigeria’s largest banks earned ₦514.82 billion ($378.98 million) from electronic payments. For the government, however, little changes. Stamp duty, like the EMTL before it, remains a small but growing source of revenue, with collections rising to ₦392.78 billion ($289.14 million) in the first 11 months of 2025. For users, sending small amounts is now cheaper, or free, but transfers above ₦10,000 may feel more expensive once the levy is applied, even as PoS withdrawal fees become more predictable. Exchange rate used: ₦1,358.44/$
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👨🏿🚀TechCabal Daily – South Africa fails its AI test
In partnership with Lire en Français اقرأ هذا باللغة العربية Happy salary week. Nigeria’s elections have a retention problem. A new Zikoko Citizen report predicts what participation in the 2027 election might look like, drawing on trends from previous cycles, and explores what could bring about a massive turnaround. Read the full report here. South Africa’s AI policy row Mastercard’s 10-year agreement with Nedbank Kenya establishes gambling monitoring unit Nigeria’s plan to upgrade Internet connection World Wide Web 3 Job Openings Policy Critics are calling out South African regulator for fake citations in its AI policy Solly Malatsi, South Africa’s Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies. Image Source: ITWeb On April 2, South Africa’s Department of Communications and Digital Technologies (DCDT) published a draft version of its AI policy for public comment. South Africa’s proposal decentralises AI oversight by assigning different agencies to monitor its development. The regulator designated AI technologies as “unacceptable,” “high,” “limited,” and “minimal” risk, marking its risk tolerance and what technologies can be comfortably applied to finance and other critical systems that affect the public. Failing its own AI test: Yet, in a somewhat dramatic twist, critics of the proposed AI policy have found at least six of the citations in the draft to be fabricated. According to local publication News24, the policy includes referenced articles that were either never published, could not be linked to existing academic journals, or were simply fabricated by AI hallucinations. It’s a bit of a head-scratcher and an embarrassing situation for a country’s policy against AI risk and ethical use of the technology to be written by AI. Political critics of Solly Malatsi, the country’s Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies, including Khusela Diko, Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Communications, have asked South African regulators to withdraw the policy. Malatsi responded on Saturday, saying he asked the DCDT Director General to “investigate and take action against anyone found to be responsible for any wrongdoing,” suggesting that regulators are now looking inward to find where the lapses occurred. In another post on Sunday, Malatsi confirmed the claims to be true and withdrew the draft policy. “The most plausible explanation is that AI-generated citations were included without proper verification. This should not have happened,” he wrote on X, adding that there will be consequences for those “responsible for drafting and quality assurance.” Zoomout: South Africa’s cabinet will be scrambling over the next few days to save face in what could potentially be a major public embarrassment resulting from a lack of detail. Whether somebody at the DCDT office used AI or not, the draft policy provided a framework to tackle AI risks as the technology gains more prominence in public systems. In Nigeria, the Central Bank is urging banks to use AI in money-laundering systems to combat fraud. South Africa’s policy showed that awareness, where most other countries’ frameworks, including Nigeria and Kenya, focused on centralising AI oversight. The intention is good, but the method of delivery may be less than perfect. Right now, South Africa’s cabinet is scrambling, and it is peak theatre. 20+ Markets. One API. Fincra connects your business to Africa’s payment rails without building market by market. For collection, payout, FX, and settlement through a single integration. See what this means for your business. Companies Mastercard deepens Africa push with Nedbank deal and crypto play Image Source: MyBroadBand Mastercard is tightening its grip on Africa’s payment rails, and it is doing so from both ends: traditional banking and digital currency. The payments giant has signed a 10-year agreement with Nedbank, South Africa’s fourth-largest commercial lender by assets, to migrate the bank’s card portfolio onto its network across South Africa, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Eswatini, Lesotho, and Mozambique. The deal will see Nedbank tap into Mastercard’s fraud detection systems and faster transaction processing as it pushes deeper into digital banking. This is a long game. Card networks rarely switch, and when they do, it signals a deeper alignment on technology, pricing, and future products. For Mastercard, locking in a major bank across multiple markets strengthens its position in a region where digital payments are growing, especially in e-commerce. At the same time, it is looking ahead. Mastercard has since announced plans to acquire BVNK, a stablecoin infrastructure company, in a $1.8 billion deal, signalling a future in which card payments and crypto wallets are more intertwined. Between the lines: Mastercard is not choosing between fiat and crypto. It wants both. By adding stablecoin capabilities to its network, it is positioning itself as the bridge between traditional banking systems and digital currencies. Why this matters: Payments are becoming a stack rather than a single system. Cards, mobile money, and crypto are increasingly expected to work together, and companies like Mastercard want to sit at the centre of that flow. For banks like Nedbank, the partnership offers a way to modernise without rebuilding from scratch, plugging into global infrastructure while focusing on customers. The Safe and Reliable Banking App With over 35 million users and a 99.9% transaction success rate, PalmPay is making digital banking safer, simpler, and more reliable for everyday Nigerians. Download the app to learn more. Government Kenya sets up unit to tackle rising gambling addiction Image Source: Tenor When it comes to gambling and the risk-reward nature of online betting platforms, Kenyan regulators have noticed a trend: the house is always winning, and too many people are paying the price. The country’s Betting Control and Licencing Board (BCLB), its gaming sector regulator, has set up a dedicated unit to address rising addiction tied to online betting, as concerns grow over how deeply gambling has embedded itself in everyday life. The new unit will focus on consumer protection, awareness, and intervention as cases of problem gambling increase. This is not happening in isolation. Across Africa, regulators are starting to respond to the surge in online betting. South Africa has moved to tighten oversight around advertising and consumer protection, while Nigeria and Ghana have also faced mounting pressure to
Read MoreAirtel Money pushes into merchant payments with Absa Bank Kenya account integration
Airtel Money, Kenya’s second-largest mobile money wallet, has integrated with Absa Bank Kenya to allow small businesses move money between mobile wallets and bank accounts without the manual steps that often delay settlement. Merchants can now receive payments from Airtel Money users into Absa accounts and paybill numbers, a mobile money billing code similar to a merchant payment ID. The integration targets a persistent bottleneck for small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs), which often operate across mobile money, bank accounts, and agent networks, slowing transactions and complicating cash management. Direct wallet-to-bank settlement reduces those delays while giving Airtel a clearer route into merchant payments, a segment long dominated by Safaricom’s M-PESA. “This is about unlocking the full potential of digital payments for SMEs across Kenya and ensuring they have the tools to grow with confidence in a rapidly evolving economy,” Absa Bank Kenya Business Banking Director, Renato D’Souza, said in a statement on Monday. Transaction value through mobile money agents totaled KES 633.35 billion ($4.9 billion) in February 2026, according to the Central Bank of Kenya, even as volumes declined with more users shifting to direct wallet and bank transfers. M-PESA continues to anchor the market, processing 21.9 billion transactions worth KES 20.2 trillion ($156 billion) in the six months to September 2025, based on Safaricom disclosures. Airtel’s share has climbed to about 11%, according to Communications Authority data, reflecting steady gains among price-sensitive users and merchants. The Absa integration extends that push by positioning its wallet as a more practical tool for day-to-day business transactions. As more payments originate on telecom networks, lenders are integrating with mobile platforms to stay connected to transaction flows and retain opportunities to offer credit, savings, and working capital products. Banks like NCBA and KCB have already built similar integrations through partnerships with Safaricom. NCBA runs M-Shwari, a savings and loan product linked to M-PESA, while KCB offers KCB M-PESA, which provides short-term credit through the same platform. Equity Bank takes a different approach through Equitel, its mobile virtual network, which links customer accounts directly to mobile money services for payments and transfers. The Airtel–Absa integration extends Airtel’s push into merchant payments, where Safaricom has entrenched bank partnerships such as M-Shwari and KCB M-PESA that combine payments with savings and credit.
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The Next Wave: Kenya will make small loans harder to justify
Cet article est aussi disponible en français <!– In partnership with –> First published 26 April, 2026 Kenya will make small loans harder to justify Central Bank of Kenya Governor Kamau Thugge. IMAGE | NMG Kenya is preparing to change how credit works at the smallest end of the market, and the move is bigger than it looks. A draft Financial Consumer Protection Framework released in March 2026 would require lenders to assess and document a borrower’s ability to repay before issuing a loan. That sounds like standard banking practice. In Kenya’s digital credit market, it cuts into the core logic that made instant loans possible in the first place. For over a decade, digital lenders have operated on a different premise. Instead of verifying income and expenses in the traditional sense, they have relied on behavioural signals, mobile money flows, and repayment history to make decisions in seconds. This allowed them to issue millions of small loans, often under KES 1,000 ($8), to people with no formal financial records. The new framework does not ban that model outright, but it raises the bar for what counts as acceptable evidence in a credit decision. That distinction matters. The question now is not just whether defaults will fall. It is whether the economics of instant micro-lending can still hold under a system that demands proof, documentation and auditability. Will documented affordability work? The appeal of digital lending in Kenya has always been its ability to bypass the constraints of formal finance. Most borrowers operate in the informal sector, where income is irregular and rarely documented. Traditional underwriting struggles in that environment because it depends on stable records such as payslips, tax filings, or bank statements. Digital lenders solved this by redefining what creditworthiness looks like. Instead of asking what you earn, they asked how you behave. How often do you transact on mobile money? Do you repay previous loans on time? Are your spending patterns stable? These proxies are imperfect, but they are fast, cheap, and scalable. The draft rules push the system back toward a more conventional definition of affordability. Lenders must now show that a borrower can repay without falling into financial distress, using reliable information about income, expenses, and existing obligations. In practice, that introduces friction into a model that depends on speed and low marginal cost. This is where the tension sits because behavioural data enabled lending even when documentation was missing. The new framework does not fully reject that data, but it reduces its sufficiency on its own. The cost problem and who absorbs it At small loan sizes, cost discipline is everything. A lender can afford to spend time and resources verifying a KES 100,000 ($775) loan because the expected return justifies it. That logic breaks down for a KES 500 ($4) loan. Digital lenders made these small loans viable by driving the cost of decision-making close to zero. Automated models process large volumes of applications with minimal human intervention. The economics depend on issuing many loans quickly, with losses offset by pricing and repeat borrowing. Introduce a requirement to verify income and expenses, and to change the cost structure. Even partial compliance, such as building systems to cross-check data or flag inconsistencies, adds overhead. In a market where much of the relevant data is not formally recorded, verification becomes harder still. Next Wave continues after this ad. Africa’s Business Heroes is calling Africa’s boldest entrepreneurs, shaping the future today. If you’re building a high-impact business, this is your moment. Apply for a chance to win a share of the $1.5M prize pool, plus mentorship and access to a powerful pan-African network. Applications close April 28. Start your journey now. Apply today! If the cost of assessing a loan approaches or exceeds the expected revenue from that loan, the rational move is to stop issuing it. That does not require every loan to become unprofitable. It only requires enough friction to erode margins at scale. Banks are likely to adapt with relative ease. They already operate under stricter regulatory frameworks and have access to more comprehensive customer data. Their digital lending products tend to target customers with some level of financial history, even if limited. Telecom-linked products occupy a middle ground because they have rich transaction data from mobile money platforms, which could support more robust affordability assessments. Whether that data meets the new standard of “reliability” will depend on how regulators interpret it. However, standalone digital lenders like Tala and Zenka face the most pressure. Their competitive advantage lies in speed, automation, and the ability to serve customers with thin or non-existent credit files. If they are required to document affordability in ways that cannot be fully automated, their cost base rises while their addressable market shrinks. Some consolidation is likely. Smaller players may exit or be acquired. Others may move toward larger loan sizes or specific customer segments where verification is more feasible. This is why I think that some consolidation is likely. Others may move toward larger loan sizes or specific customer segments where verification is more feasible. Some already have. Branch, for instance, has transitioned into a microfinance bank to target higher-value loans within the same customer base while operating under a structure better suited to deeper underwriting. Bateman’s warning, and its limits Milford Bateman, a seasoned economics researcher, has framed Kenya’s situation as a potential replay of the 2010 microcredit crisis in Andhra Pradesh, where aggressive lending and weak oversight led to the sector’s collapse. His argument is that Kenya has allowed a similar pattern to emerge: rapid expansion, high interest rates to cover risk, and a growing base of over-indebted borrowers. Kenya’s digital lending market has expanded quickly, and default rates on small loans are high. The practice of increasing loan limits based on repayment behaviour, rather than a deeper assessment of financial capacity, can mask underlying stress. In that sense, the system has relied on continued access to credit to sustain itself. The Andhra Pradesh crisis was
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