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Africa Fintech Foundry Unveils ‘The Big Tech Show’
Africa Fintech Foundry (AFF), an initiative that aims to nurture, fund, and accelerate the growth of Tech startups in Africa has launch a television show, ‘The Big Tech Show’.
The television documentary show launched in collaboration with Accelerate TV is aimed at exposing innovators and creating awareness on how African start-ups are using technology to solve problems.
Africa Fintech Foundry (AFF) is a pan-African initiative focused on creating new opportunities in Africa by providing a platform designed to inspire and challenge African innovators and entrepreneurs.
Speaking at the launch of the show in Lagos, Ade Bajomo, executive director of technology and operations, Access Bank, said that The Big Tech Show is basically to showcase the best that Africa have got. “We are building an ecosystem and that ecosystem is at the infancy stage as such we have to expose it.
“Show how innovators are throwing up the innovations, show how they are solving the problems. Now nerds rule the world because they are solving difficult problems. This is part of celebrating Africa and this programme goes around to Ghana, Kenya, South Africa and Nigeria,” he said.
According to him, “the role of AFF is basically to stay out there and look at the entire ecosystem across Nigeria and Africa as a whole and look for innovators across all fields and see how we can partner to develop solutions that can solve real deep problems.
“It can be for financial services, Agrictech, Insurtech or in solving social responsibility issue. It is about bringing that collaboration, that is why AFF is set up to find those Innovators, starts up, creative people fuse their ideas together and bring it back into the ecosystem.
“There are two things that changed the narrative in Nigeria, first one is Nollywood without support from anywhere became third in the world. The second is Afrobeat and the third one is developing and that is what we are doing here.
“The role of AFF is also to build that ecosystem, articulate all the issues in the ecosystem make them accessible, get more people to join the ecosystem and promote the ecosystem to fully develop so that Africa becomes the hub of digital innovation and for us to be solving our own problems in the fourth, fifth and six industrial revolution across the world”.
Uzoma Dozie, chief executive officer, Sparkle, described The Big Tech Show initiative as a very noble initiative. “What AFF is trying to do is to expo and create awareness of how many countries across Africa are trying to leverage on technology to make life better for their own people.
“Secondly, we need African organisations doing expose’ of what Africans are doing, you can’t expect Americans or Europeans to be doing it, let us take control of the narratives. That is exactly what The Big Tech Show is doing here. I think it is wonderful,” he stated.
On Impact of Fintech in Africa, Dozie said that Africa has not started in exploring Fintech. “They will always say that the biggest example of Fintech impact is in Nairobi with M-pesa. Where they used mobile money to effect change on how people transfer and changed their life.
“In Nigeria, we have seen that as well, but we haven’t talked about it enough. We need to do much more, Nigeria is a much bigger country with over 200 million people though with infrastructure challenges. We have education, health and Agriculture. These are areas where technology can play a role.
“From financial perspective Nigeria has done very well in FinTech, we have better mobile financial Apps than you can find in Europe but we need to use it to impact more life to go down on the pyramid. We are doing well, we have great creativity and entrepreneurship, we just need more collaboration between the private sector, regulators and legislatures for us to now build these skills. We need a common denominator. Right now, we are all working in silos.
“This kind of Big Tech Show would create that awareness among people in different stakeholder’s group. When you see what other countries are doing you ask yourself how come we are not doing this in Nigeria but we are actually investing in technology but how come it is not reaching the man on the street. What do we need to do? That might force us to come together to collaborate and find solution.
Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, cofounder, general partner – Future Africa, said that a lot of younger entrepreneurs need an encouragement and mentorship. “This show is going to help to inspire them so that they can see how people who did it before did it perhaps they will have an opportunity to follow in their steps.
“It is interesting that the bankers have decided to tell the stories of these entrepreneurs through collaboration between AFF and Accelerate TV,” he noted.
This holiday season just got a whole lot more exciting! PalmPay, one of Africa’s leading fintech platforms, operates Nigeria’s most used mobile wallet and has teamed up with Jumia, the continent’s e-commerce giant, to launch a festive campaign that’s all about convenience, rewards, and enhancing your shopping experience.
Running from December 11th to 28th, 2024, this holiday campaign is set to reward shoppers who use the new “Pay with PalmPay” feature on Jumia with cash prizes. Every purchase made using the direct payment method automatically enters participants into a draw, giving them a chance to win exciting cash rewards while enjoying the seamless shopping and payment process.
A Strategic Partnership To Enhance Digital Payments
The integration of the “Pay with PalmPay Wallet” feature on Jumia marks a major milestone in the partnership between the two industry leaders.
Speaking at the media announcement, Mr. Chika Nwosu, Managing Director of PalmPay, highlighted the broader mission driving this collaboration: “We are thrilled to join forces with Jumia to redefine convenience for shoppers. At PalmPay, our mission has always been to drive economic empowerment through accessible and user-friendly financial services. This partnership is a natural step forward in achieving that goal.”
Beyond the holidays, this partnership with Jumia m,k is a signal of bigger things to come. Mr. Chika added: “This is more than just about payments—it’s about creating value for our customers. We are excited about the opportunities this partnership will unlock in 2025, including campaigns and innovative initiatives that will further transform the online shopping landscape.”
Sunil Natraj, CEO of Jumia Nigeria, highlighted the shared vision between both companies, stating: “At Jumia, we are dedicated to creating value for our customers by ensuring a convenient, reliable, and secure shopping experience. This partnership with PalmPay strengthens our commitment to enhancing the digital payments within our platform. By integrating PalmPay, we are providing more options for customers to access affordable and quality goods with the convenience of cashless transactions.”
How to Join the Holiday Fun
Participating in the campaign is simple. When shopping on Jumia, select the “Pay with PalmPay” option at checkout, and your entry into the draw is automatic. It’s that easy!
Bonus Entry: Share a screenshot of your purchase on X (formerly Twitter) using the hashtag #PalmPayXJumia to increase your chances of winning. Additional winners will be selected from participants engaging with the campaign on Twitter.
Whether you are shopping for gifts, or gadgets this festive season, PalmPay and Jumia are making sure your experience is not only seamless but also rewarding.
To learn more about the campaign, stay tuned to the official X accounts (formerly Twitter) of @palmpay_ng and @JumiaNigeria. for updates, announcements, and more chances to win.
Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offenses Commission (ICPC), has revealed that none of the Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs), in the country complied fully with ethical standards, policies, and anti-corruption measures in the passing year.
This was following the findings from the Commission’s Ethics and Integrity Compliance Scorecard (EICS) for the MDAs.
The Commission warned that henceforth, non-compliant MDAs will face necessary actions, including enforcement, to ensure adherence to government directives.
According to the EICS scorecard released on Thursday in Abuja by Demola Bakare, ICPC spokesperson, no MDA out of 330 MDAs that were assessed through physical deployment by ICPC teams achieved full compliance.
The EICS serves as a preventive tool used to assess and enhance the compliance of MDAs with ethical standards, policies, and anti-corruption measures.
Findings from the report indicated that no MDA achieved full compliance, while 29.55 per cent of MDAs captured attained substantial compliance, and 51.62 per cent had partial compliance.
The report also observed that 15.91 per cent showed poor compliance, while 292 per cent were non-compliant.
According to the report, common gaps included a lack of whistle-blower policies, strategic plans, and effective stock verification units, adding that many MDAs failed to conduct any forms of system studies or render financial and audit reports.
Commenting on the report, Bakare noted: “This year, 2024, the tool covered 323 responsive MDAs, with 15 MDAs non-responsive and categorised as high corruption risk.
“It is imperative to inform you that this initiative has yielded some positive and value-driven impacts, and these are, but not limited to, increased awareness and compliance with anti-corruption measures, enhanced competition among MDAs to meet criteria, and improved procurement processes and data reliability.
“The Commission recognises the MDAs with substantial compliance and will continue deploying these tools to promote integrity and accountability.
“Non-compliant MDAs will face necessary actions, including enforcement, to ensure adherence to government directives. We are certain that these efforts will continue to underline ICPC’s dedication to enhancing good governance and preventing corruption.”
Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals (DPRP) has dismissed claims that the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) used a $1 billion loan secured through a crude forward sale agreement to support the refinery during a liquidity crisis.
In a statement on Wednesday, Anthony Chiejina, company’s chief branding and communications officer, said the NNPCL’s stance was a distortion of the facts.
“We would like to clarify that this is a misrepresentation of the situation as $1bn is just about 5% of the investment that went into building the Dangote Refinery,” Chiejina said.
Chiejina stated that the refinery’s decision to enter into a partnership with the NNPCL was based on the recognition of “their strategic position in the industry as the largest offtaker of Nigerian crude” and at the time, the sole supplier of petrol into Nigeria.
“We agreed on the sale of a 20% stake at a value of $2.76 billion. Of this, we agreed that they will only pay $1 billion while the balance will be recovered over a period of 5 years through deductions on crude oil that they supply to us and from dividends due to them,” Chiejina said.
“If we were struggling with liquidity challenges we wouldn’t have given them such generous payment terms. As at 2021 when the agreement was signed, the refinery was at the pre-commission stage.”
According to the statement, the agreement would have been cash-based rather than credit-driven if the refinery struggled with liquidity issues.
The refinery’s spokesman said the NNPCL was subsequently unable to supply the agreed 300,000 barrels a day of crude (bpd).
He stated that the shortfall was because the NNPPC “had committed a greater part of their crude cargoes to financiers with the expectation of higher production which they were unable to achieve”.
“We subsequently gave them a 12-month period for them to pay cash for the balance of their equity given their inability to supply the agreed crude oil volume,” he said.
“NNPCL failed to meet this deadline which expired on June 30th 2024. As a result, their equity share was revised down to 7.24%. These events have been widely reported by both parties,” he said.
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