E-Business
IFC, Mastercard Foundation Study Examines Attitudes to Mobile Money in Africa
IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, and the Mastercard Foundation have published an ethnographic study on the perceptions and attitudes to digital financial services in Sub-Saharan Africa. The study will increase financial inclusion by helping financial services providers better understand the user of African digital financial services (DFS).
The report, A Sense of Inclusion: An Ethnographic Study of the Perceptions and Attitudes to Digital Financial Services in Sub-Saharan Africa, is based on research conducted at the Africa Studies Center Leiden, University of Leiden. The study focuses on four countries of varying degrees of DFS market maturity: Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Senegal and Zambia. It is a knowledge product of the Partnership for Financial inclusion, a $37.4 million joint initiative of IFC and the Mastercard Foundation, to advance financial inclusion in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Lesley Denyes, IFC’s Program Manager for the Partnership for Financial Inclusion, said, “This research really gives a voice to the users of mobile money and agent banking in Africa. It’s based on observation and personal stories rather than aggregated statistics, and gives us a vivid idea of what lies behind the success of digital financial services on the continent and what the current challenges are to further expand financial inclusion.”
Ruth Dueck-Mbeba, Senior Program Manager at the Mastercard Foundation, said, “We are particularly pleased to see this latest publication from the Partnership for Financial Inclusion, and its focus on clients.
The report seeks to understand the underlying barriers to the use of digital financial services, and the drivers that build client trust in those services. With this deeper understanding, we can give clients voice.”
Since digital financial services were first introduced in Sub-Saharan Africa about ten years ago, the continent has taken a lead in the global evolution of a mass market for affordable, accessible and sustainable financial services for low-income people, rural populations and small-scale entrepreneurs in emerging markets.
There are now over 277 million registered users on the continent, with about 100 million active accounts, almost 60 percent of the global total (GSMA). In countries such as Kenya and Tanzania, the use of digital financial services has led to a near doubling of the financial inclusion rate.
The report provides an in-depth description of what digital financial inclusion means in relation to social and cultural factors. One of the interesting findings relates to how digital payments interact with extended family structures and financial obligations within social networks.
Some DFS users have found, for example, that the immediate accessibility of mobile transactions makes it difficult for them to escape unwanted solicitations for financial aid from distant family members.
“Now, with the development of money transfers, whenever a family member asks for money, you need to make it clear – either you have money or you don’t. You can no longer claim you can’t get it to them because if you say that, the person will answer that you should send it by Wari, Joni-Joni, etc.,” a policeman and DFS service user in Louga, Senegal, told the researchers.
Transcorp Hotels Plc has delivered a stellar performance in the first half of 2025, recording a 60% year-on-year surge in revenue to ₦47.57 billion, up from ₦29.72 billion in H1 2024. Gross profit climbed 71% to ₦36.21 billion, maintaining a strong 76% margin despite inflation and operational headwinds.
The hospitality giant, a subsidiary of Transnational Corporation Plc, also announced an interim dividend payout of ₦1.024 billion — offering ₦0.10 per 50 kobo ordinary share to shareholders.
In a bold move, the company unveiled Nigeria’s largest corporate venue — the 5,000-seat Transcorp Centre — staking its claim as the new leader in event hospitality. Chairman Emmanuel Nnorom described the results as proof of Transcorp Hotels’ transformative strategies and unwavering investor commitment. MD/CEO Uzo Oshogwe attributed the success to relentless execution and a resilient business model.
Transcorp Hotels, renowned for iconic assets like Transcorp Hilton Abuja and its digital platform Aura, says it isn’t just leading Nigeria’s hospitality sector — it’s redefining excellence across Africa.
Chinese “threat actors” have hacked Microsoft’s SharePoint document software servers and targeted the data of the businesses using it, the firm has said.
China state-backed Linen Typhoon and Violet Typhoon as well as China-based Storm-2603 were said to have “exploited vulnerabilities” in on-premises SharePoint servers, the kind used by firms, but not in its cloud-based service.
The US tech giant has released security updates in response and has advised all on-premises SharePoint server customers to install them.
“Investigations into other actors also using these exploits are still ongoing,” Microsoft said in a statement.
The firm said it had “high confidence” the hackers would continue to target systems which have not installed its security updates.
It added that it would update its website blog with more information as its investigation continues.
Microsoft said it had observed attacks in which hackers had sent a request to a SharePoint server “enabling the theft of the key material by threat actors”.
Charles Carmakal, chief technology officer at Mandiant Consulting firm, a division of Google Cloud, told reporter, it was “aware of several victims in several different sectors across a number of global geographies”.
Carmakal said it appeared that governments and businesses that use SharePoint on their sites were the primary target.
A number of adversaries who stole material encoded by cryptography were then able to regain ongoing access to the victims’ SharePoint data, he said.
“This was exploited in a very broad way, very opportunistically before a patch was made available. That’s why this is significant,” Carmakal said.
Carmakal said the “China-nexus actor” was deploying techniques similar to previous campaigns associated with Beijing.
Microsoft said Linen Typhoon had “focused on stealing intellectual property, primarily targeting organizations related to government, defence, strategic planning, and human rights” for 13 years.
It added that Violet Typhoon had been “dedicated to espionage”, primarily targeting former government and military staff, non-governmental organizations, think tanks, higher education, the media, the financial sector and the health sector in the US, Europe, and East Asia.
Meanwhile, Storm-2603 was “assessed with medium confidence to be a China-based threat actor”.
National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has issued a public warning that it is not associated with NINcard.com.
According to the commission, the website has been circulating online to offer services for Nigerians seeking National Identification Number (NIN) services.
NIMC, in a post on its official X account on Wednesday, said, “NINcard.com is not in anyway affiliated to NIMC. Stay vigilant!”
The warning was accompanied by screenshots of fake payment receipts and OTP request pages from the website, both of which were boldly stamped “FAKE” by NIMC to alert the public.
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