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TechCabal Daily – Safaricom waives MPesa transaction fees due to coronavirus

17th March 2020









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TOGETHER WITH FLUTTERWAVE

17 – 03 – 2020

Hi! Welcome to today’s edition of TC Daily! If this mail was forwarded to you, please take a moment to subscribe. Also, join us on Telegram! Below are some important tech happenings you should know about today:

You can now trade on one of the world’s largest trading platforms for a much smaller fee. Deposit up to 18,000,000 NGN on Binance at a flat fee of just 150 NGN via bank transfer. Click here to start trading.

Safaricom will not charge MPesa users for transactions below Ksh. 1000 ($9.67) for the next 90 days. After a Monday morning meeting between the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) and Payment Service Providers (PSPs), a number of measures took effect from midnight March 16 to June 30, 2020. “PSPs and commercial banks will eliminate charges for transfers between mobile money wallets and bank accounts,” the central bank said.

These are branded “emergency measures” whose immediate aims are to limit the spread of Covid-19 through the handling of banknotes. The World Health Organisation has not provided a definite statement on discouraging cash as a coronavirus mitigation measure. However, Kenya’s central bank is taking advantage of the new pandemic to “reduce the use of cash in the economy over the medium term.”

Airtel Kenya has also announced that they have stripped away transaction fees on their mobile money platform for the same 90-day period. But unlike Telkom and Safaricom, Airtel has waived fees on all bands.
 

University of the Witswatersrand in Johannesburg is engaging mobile network operators for data partnerships. Four South African Universities including Wits have suspended academic activities following the spread of the novel coronavirus in the country. Wits in particular is reportedly in discussion with Telkom, Vodacom, and MTN. The conversations with the telcos is to prepare the University for the possibility of offering online classes during the period in which classes will be suspended, according mybroadband.

A similar conversation is happening in Kenya where Code Mashinani, an edtech startup, is planning to train teachers on how to create courses online and run live classes. The Kenyan government has directed that schools should close indefinitely as cases of the virus rise in the country.

Still on education but away from coronavirus news, we take you to Cote d’Ivoire, to Oschool. Founded in 2016, it is a virtual learning platform for accessing online courses and seminars created by professionals for the African market. Oschool provides live lessons that allow students to fully understand the concepts they are learning, Disrupt Africa reports. They so far has over 1,000 students regularly attending its free or paid courses.

Nigerian startup Termii has graduated from the winter 2020 Batch of YCombinator, Techpoint reports. A communication-as-a-service firm, Termii spent three months in the Bay Area participating in the famed accelerator programme. Founded by Gbolade Emmanuel (CEO) and Ayomide Awe (CTO) in 2014, Termii is backed by early-stage venture capital firm Microtraction and joins the likes of Paystack, Flutterwave, Tizeti, BuyCoins as Nigerian companies to have gained exposure at YC.

The agent for The Economist Group, CT Productions is hosting stakeholders in the Nigeria financial technology industry in Lagos on Thursday, March 26 at Eko Hotel & Suites. The event will present attending fintech firms with important research findings from the Economist Intelligence Unit, the research and analysis division of The Economist Group and the world leader in global business intelligence. More information on the event is available at www.africaeventsct.com. For delegate tickets  you may reach out at: africa.eventsctp@gmail.com.

Paga has played in the fintech space for more than a decade. This week, its CTO Eric Chijioke will relocate to Mexico from Ethiopia to flesh out the company’s expansion to the North American ecoystem. We caught up with Tayo Oviosu, Paga’s co-founder and CEO for a quick chat on the journey so far and their bold targets for their new decade.

And on Nigerian startups up to big things, check out this piece about Lifestores, the pharmacy-tech company that has raised over $1 million in a seed-stage funding round.

Before you go, please help us out here: We would like you to take a quick survey to help us ensure we are reaching you with the right stories and information about technology and innovation in Africa. It’s only three questions and will take a few minutes. Please click this link to fill out the survey. Thank you very much!

That’s it for today,

See you tomorrow

– Alexander

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