👨🏿‍🚀TechCabal Daily – Big Tech Energy

Events

As far as spectacles go, GITEX is up there with the best of them. It explains why a number of governments and their delegates attend these events and become convinced their cities or countries must host the showcase.

Here’s what I wrote when I visited Uganda in late 2023 for an investor conference that brought some of Africa’s most prominent VCs together:

“David Gonahasa shared that the idea for an investor summit was born when a Ugandan delegation attended the Marrakech edition of the GITEX conference in May 2023. “Do we have something like GITEX in Uganda? Make it happen,” Gonahasa remembers the minister saying at the time.”

Uganda wasn’t alone in its wishful thinking. Two people who attended the conference last year also said the Lagos State government also wanted to bring GITEX to Africa’s most populous country. That same year, the organisers of GITEX entered an agreement to host the event in Morocco for 10 years. Dream dashed it seemed.

Yet, since Wednesday, there was chatter about a big announcement. The conference app told me twice about an important announcement from the director general of Nigeria’s National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA).

By 3:30 pm, the cat was out of the bag, GITEX had entered into an agreement to bring the show to Nigeria. Read all about it here.

I spent the rest of the day managing my energy better than Wednesday. I wasn’t planning on clocking 10k steps again. There’s a side note to how it’s possible to feel a little overwhelmed—there’s a lot to see.

Yet, a few things stood out: Visa’s impressive booth had an interactive Virtual Mall that was pretty neat.

The Financial Times has ranked Moniepoint as Africa’s fastest-growing fintech based on its absolute and compound growth rate. Read more about it here.

Regulations

Last year, African countries were working together to investigate and potentially regulate big tech companies like Google and Meta over concerns that these companies were engaging in practices that may harm African consumers, businesses, and economies.

Now, the Kenyan government is already making amendments to its laws in a bid to crack down on “Big Tech” with stricter competition laws. The Competition Authority of Kenya (CAK) is proposing changes to the Competition Act to target anti-competitive practices by large tech companies.

The proposed amendment to the Competition Act includes a new definition of “digital activities.” According to the amendment, “digital activities” refers to providing services or digital content over the internet for the benefit of both business and individual consumers, regardless of whether these services or content are paid for or free, and whether they involve multiple parties or not.

This aims to safeguard Kenyan businesses from unfair tactics including mergers and acquisitions aimed at eliminating competition, restricting access to other companies’ services on their platforms and forcing you to buy a specific product if you want to use another product they offer. 

These proposed amendments will protect consumers’ rights in the digital and tech space. Similar to regulations in the US and Europe, it will empower CAK to police, investigate, and initiate antitrust probes against potential anti-competitive behaviour by tech giants like Google, Amazon, and Apple.

The proposed law targets eight sectors: online intermediation services, online marketplaces and app stores, online search engines, online social networking services, video-sharing platforms, independent interpersonal communication services, operating systems, cloud computing services, and online advertising services.

The proposed amendment would also prohibit the “abuse of superior bargaining” which means a company has so much power that it can force or dictate unfair business deals on other companies without needing to be the biggest company in the market.

To enforce the amendment, the CAK will carry out compliance checks on foreign tech firms to determine if their activities have resulted in unfair competition for rivals. The amendment will also allow the agency to take into account problems and concerns that have been identified in other countries or markets when making its own regulatory decisions.

The agency has set a deadline of June 11, 2024, for stakeholders to submit their feedback on the draft legislation.

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AI

The Zambian government has finalised the drafting of its Artificial Intelligence (AI) policy which will serve as a guide for leveraging the benefits of AI. 

Zambia’s Science and Technology Minister, Felix Mutati, revealed the AI strategy will launch within the next two months. 

Like many believe using AI comes with benefits, the minister also believes AI will help the production of copper by making exploration methods more effective. According to GlobalData, Zambia was the world’s eighth-largest producer of copper in 2022 and the country presently accounts for 4% of global production of copper. 

Using AI will involve using AI to analyse geological data and identify promising areas for mining, helping Zambia reach its goal of 3 million tonnes annually.

“AI will bring a lot of economic benefits to the country. It will create alternative jobs and also fast-track mineral exploration”, Mutati said.

The minister noted that Zambia will hold an AI Conference next month to prepare the country for a future with AI. “AI is here to stay and there is no need to worry about job losses”, Mutati said. 

According to Larry Mweetwa, acting director for science and technology, the ministry is currently training its workforce in artificial intelligence. He also stated that conversations with stakeholders on the AI strategy will begin soon. “The government wants assistance from the industry on how to effectively benefit from artificial intelligence”, he said. 

This comes months after both the Nigerian and Kenyan governments announced they would launch national AI strategies to help boost their economies.

Find the answer here 👉🏾 paystack.com/2023

Fintech

MTN’s fintech arm is taking a leap of faith.

Nigeria’s digital payment space has been characterised by rapid changes in recent times. COVID-19 and an ill-timed currency redesign helped Nigerians embrace electronic transactions as a default mode of payment. Per NIBSS, electronic payments in 2023 surged by 55% when compared with the previous year. Nigerians made digital transfers 818.4 million times in each month of 2023.

The switch to digital payments has made winners in fintechs like Moniepoint, OPay, and Palmpay, who, through their agent networks, have helped improve financial inclusion in the country. 

Some of these mobile money operators also offer digital wallet services to help other fintechs collect payments. 

While digital wallets represent a tiny fraction—8%—of mobile money payments in Nigeria, MTN’s fintech arm, MoMo PSB, is betting big on this section and believes the future of payments is in wallets.

The news: MTN MoMo has released an open Application Programming Interface (API) that will allow other fintechs to collect payments. MoMo PSB, which currently has over 40 million wallet users in Nigeria, is betting on its new API offerings and super app to take a bigger slice of the market share. Merchants who intend to use the API will first create a new MoMo wallet.

MoMo first launched the API in 2023 but included services like cash disbursement, and payments, which allowed it to onboard companies like Vasnets, Wakanow, Travelstart, and Huawei. 

Why is this important? Offering wallet services to fintechs presents a new revenue stream for Momo PSB. New fintechs can save on the cost of building out their wallet solutions by leveraging the APIs for their wallet offerings.

TC Insights

This week, three Kenyan e-mobility companies, Roam Electric, BasiGo & Mogo, each secured $10 million in debt funding from the US government, bringing the total package to $30m. (May 27)

Here’s the other deal for the week:

• South African compliance startup Orca Fraud raised $550,000 in pre-seed. The funding round was led by Norrsken22 with participation from First Circle Capital, Musha Ventures, Kara Ventures, and several strategic business angels. (May 24)

Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn for more funding announcements. Before you go, our 2024 Nigerian Payments Report is out. Click this link to download it.

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Events

• TechCabal is set to announce its first set of speakers for the second edition of its Moonshot Conference which is set for October 9–11, 2024, at the Eko Convention Centre, Lagos, Nigeria. Moonshot will assemble Africa’s biggest thinkers, players and problem solvers on a global launchpad for change. If you want to join the stakeholders in Africa’s tech ecosystem for three days of insightful conversations, then get an early-bird ticket at 20% off. 

Here’s what we’ve got our eyes on

• Solana welcomes $DAVIDO, but party ends quickly as valuation dips in 24 hours
• Kenyan AI startup Chpter joins Safaricom’s Spark Accelerator
• Oracle plans to open two public Cloud Regions in Morocco

Written by: Muyiwa Olowogboyega, Faith Omoniyi, Towobola Bamgbose

Edited by: Timi Odueso, Ope Adedeji & Kelechi Njoku

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