TechCabal Daily – Fuel for thought ⛽

IS NIGERIA READY FOR CREDIT CARDS?

Last week, Fintech Farm—a UK-based startup creating digital banks in emerging markets—announced the close of a $7.4 million seed round.

Fintech Farm launches neobanks in different countries and provides loans to customers with slim credit histories via cards and apps. 

In the wake of its new round, co-founder Dmytro Dubilet announced plans to launch in Nigeria in the first quarter of 2022. It’s already gotten a cooperative license and may be partnering with a bank once it reaches 200,000 customers. It’s also looking to provide credit cards to people other than the “upper-middle class”. 

Is Nigeria credit card-ready though?

As Tage Kene-Okafor rightfully states, Nigeria is a credit-hungry country, with digital lenders like Fairmoney and Carbon catering to this market. 

Is it credit card-ready, though?

Nigeria’s budding credit system has its own problems. The most notable is poor data storage, which means lenders can’t access the creditworthiness of users. 

This problem has caused some lenders [and users] issues with repayment. From unethical retrieval means to fraudulent users, Nigeria still has some ways to go before its credit system is standard. 

But Fintech Farm isn’t bothered. The team plans to address this by building its own credit assessment system.

What do you think? 

WHICH PHONES EMIT THE MOST RADIATION?

Here’s something we’re hoping parents and professional WhatsApp Broadcasters don’t twist: mobile phones do emit radiation. 

This isn’t new. It’s been known for a while that phones emit low levels of radiofrequency energy, non-ionising radiation. However, there presently isn’t any proof yet that links this radiation to health issues like cancer, although experts say that it is likely—especially considering the number of devices in the world today. 

Statista, a German company specialising in analysing market and consumer data, recently released a report on which mobile [smart] phones emit the most radiation. 

The company did this by analysing the Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) of each phone while a user was calling with the phone placed on their ear. The vendors analysed include iPhone, Samsung, Xiaomi, Motorola, Sony, ZTE, Huawei, Google, OnePlus, and Oppo. 

“There’s no universal guideline for a ‘safe’ level of phone radiation,” Statista states. “But the German certification for environmental friendliness ‘Der Blaue Engel’ (Blue Angel) only certifies phones which have a specific absorption rate of less than 0.60 watts per kilogram, and the featured phones double that benchmark.”

GOOGLE AND FACEBOOK’S ILLEGAL SWEETHEART DEAL

Does the worth of a successful trillion-dollar company lie in the number of lawsuits against it?

Because Google and Facebook—and even Apple and Amazon— are beginning to make it look like it. 

In yet another antitrust lawsuit brought by a coalition of US states, both Google and Facebook are implicated in what US state attorneys are tagging an illegal agreement to manipulate the digital advertising market. 

How?

In the advertising business, both companies are worthy competition to one another. 

In 2018, $116 billion out of Google’s $136 billion revenue was gotten from ads. Facebook, on the other hand, made $50.3 billion from ads. Even though Google was making at least twice as much, it still saw Facebook as a threat, especially as Facebook was using a different ad tool. To curb this, Google allegedly agreed to give Facebook advantages in online ad auctions routed through Google’s tool. 

One of these advantages is that Google would allow Facebook to bid in—and win—a fixed percentage of ad auctions.

The suit also claims that Google misled advertisers about the pricing and process of its ad auctions. Google, while supposedly deflating prices for companies that advertised, increased the prices for the buyers of the ads, and pocketed the difference. 

Zoom out: While the suit was filed in December 2020, it’s still ongoing and more wrongdoings are being revealed. An interesting revelation is that Project Bernanke, a secret Google project that “used data from past bids in the company’s digital advertising exchange to allegedly give its own ad-buying system an advantage over competitors”.

TC INSIGHTS: ENERGY NEEDS MONEY

In Africa, more than 500 million people live without electricity. With an access rate of a little over 40%, it is the lowest in the world. Electricity remains a key component of the global economy, and with this low figure– many Africans are unable to partake actively in it.

As the world pivots to renewable energy sources, Africa is stuck between using fossil fuel systems which are easy to build but expensive to maintain, and renewable energy which is expensive to install but cheaper to maintain. 

Presently, the main sources of energy in the region are not environmentally friendly. Yet, the implementation of renewable energy in Africa continues to lag behind much of the rest of the world, with solar and wind contributing only 3% of Africa’s generated electricity in 2018.  

Although the cost of generating electricity from renewable energy has reduced in recent years, most African countries face financial constraints and can’t afford the investment required to build renewable energy systems. To offset the constraints,  African countries must organise financing to raise funds for renewable energy infrastructure projects.

“Financing structures such as the Nigerian Electrification Project (NEP) performance-based grants exist for renewable energy projects but concessional loans from LFIs (Local Financial Institutions) can be more beneficial,” Oluwatobi Adebisi, a Finance Energy expert said in a call with TechCabal.

“It is also important for African countries to develop structures to access offshore funds geared towards climate finance,” he added

With proper financing, renewable energy will increasingly offer competitive and sustainable electricity for Africa, as more plants get built across the continent.

You can download our report on renewable energy in Africa here and watch videos from our events. Send your custom research requests here.

TECH PROBE

Last week, we asked you which African startups would reach the unicorn benchmark in 2022.

Here are some of the most interesting responses we got:

• “I think Piggybank will certainly be recognised as one. It already is one but not officially.” – Anonymous (Email)
• “Kuda Bank, because it has shown a lot of promise and has the potential to do so.” – Somatic Designs (@somaticdesigns, Instagram)
• “Pledre. It allows individuals and organisations create virtual schools in minutes.” – Oluwanifemi Williams (@oluwanifemiwilliams, Instagram)

Other responses listed TeamApt, GetEquity, ThankUCash, and Eden Life. 

JOB OPPORTUNITIES

Every week, we share job opportunities in the African ecosystem.

• Klasha – Head of Strategic Partnerships – Lagos, Nigeria

• US Embassy in Uganda – Consular Assistant, Computer Control Assistant – Kampala, Uganda

• Sendchamp – Senior DevOps Engineer, Brand Designer – Africa (Remote) 

• Metacare – Software Engineer, Mid-level Back End – Africa (Remote)

There are more opportunities here. If you’d like to share a job opening or an opportunity, please fill this form.

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