MSMEs are crucial for economic growth globally, including in Nigeria. And for a long time in Africa’s largest economy, they have served as the lifeblood fuelling economic growth and development by creating jobs, reducing poverty, and generating wealth. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) says that MSMEs account for 96 per cent of businesses, 84 per …
Flutterwave partners Token.io to provide Pay-By-Bank Transfer to Users in UK and EU
Flutterwave, Africa’s payments technology company, has partnered with Token.io, an account-to-account (A2A) payment infrastructure provider in Europe, to integrate Pay-By-Bank transfer capabilities into Flutterwave’s platform. This announcement was made at the Money20/20 Europe fintech conference in Amsterdam. A2A payments, commonly known as ‘Pay-By-Bank,’ offer a secure and swift method to transfer funds between bank accounts. …
Billlboxx founders join Norrsken Accelerator program 2023
Justus Obaoye and Abdulazeez Ogunjobi founders of Billboxx, a business-to-business (B2B) software as a service (SaaS) company have been selected to join the Norrsken Accelerator program for 2023. Norrsken Accelerator nurtures innovative startups and provides them with the necessary resources, mentorship, and network to scale their businesses and create a positive impact in their respective …
British Airways, Boots and BBC among companies hit by cyber security attack
Airline says incident at payroll provider was caused by vulnerability in file transfer tool British Airways, Boots and the BBC on Monday confirmed they had been affected by a “cyber security incident” involving their payroll provider which has affected some of the UK’s best-known names. BA said the incident at Zellis, its payroll provider, was …
Apple’s Vision Pro headset to cost 6x Meta’s Oculus
Apple announced its entry into the metaverse with the launch of its augmented reality and virtual reality (AR/VR) headset called Vision Pro. The headset is expected to challenge the dominance of Meta’s Oculus in the metaverse but at over six times the price of the latter. The mixed reality headset, Vision Pro is the first …
Telcos add 2m subscribers amidst declining broadband penetration
Improved broadband penetration has the potential of creating wealth and unlocking huge opportunities for millions of Nigerians Despite the declining rate of broadband penetration, Nigeria’s telecommunications companies reported an additional two (2) million new internet subscribers as of April 2023. Recent data from the Nigeria communication commission (NCC) show that internet subscribers rose to 157 …
Two Indian Brothers wanted at home Are living big in Nigeria
At a ceremony in November, the Nigerian government celebrated the discovery of as many as 1 billion barrels of oil in the country’s arid northeast, almost 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) away from the crude-rich Niger Delta. The state’s partners in the multi-billion dollar project in the impoverished, landlocked corner of the country is a company …
Weekly Economic Index: The future of the naira, South Africa’s momentum, and a new fintech player
Unifying the Naira exchange rate. Last week, Nigerians were thrown into a frenzy after reports emerged that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) sold foreign currency to banks at a rate of N631 to a dollar during the weekly bidding. This was seen as a devaluation since just 24 hours earlier, the dollar had been …
Petrol price hike puts millions of businesses on edge
The surge in petrol prices occasioned by the removal of subsidy is the latest headache facing millions of small businesses in Nigeria, a couple of months after a cash crisis caused economic activity to shrink for the first time in almost three years. Many of the country’s 39.6 million nano, micro, and small businesses have …
Inflation chops household spending to six-year low
Surging prices of goods and services in Africa’s most populous country have pushed household consumption expenditure to the lowest in six years. Nigeria recorded a negative real annual growth rate of household consumption expenditure of 4.07 percent in 2022, down from 25.65 percent in 2021, according to a report by the National Bureau of Statistics …