E-Business
Visa Launches First Visa’s Everywhere Initiative in Sub Sahara Africa

Visa has announced that its Visa’s Everywhere Initiative, a global innovation program that tasks start-ups to solve commerce challenges of tomorrow and further enhance their own product propositions and provide visionary solutions for Visa’s vast network of partners, will expand into the Sub Sahara Africa (SSA) region.
Entrants in the first-ever Sub-Sahara Visa’s Everywhere Initiative will have the opportunity to compete for a chance to win up to US$50,000, access to Visa’s products and services, expert mentorship and support from Visa and exposure to key Visa partners and clients.
“In a highly dynamic industry, Visa’s Everywhere Initiative allows us to explore a host of ideas that solve business challenges, influence our product roadmaps, support our customers, and shape our culture of innovation,” said Andrew Torre, Regional President for CEMEA for Visa.
With just 17% of people in Africa having access to formal financial services, almost a third of funding raised by African startups in 2017 was in the Fintech sector. Venture funding for African startups jumped by 51% to R to $195 million in 2017.
“With over a hundred million dollars invested over the past ten years alone , the region’s Fintech industry is on the brink of a transformative breakthrough, and we believe the time is ripe to bring together its brightest minds and work on the next big idea in payments technology.
With a clear goal of enabling cashless economies and financial inclusion, Visa is committed to fostering an entrepreneurial spirit and driving innovation in its payments landscape,” added Geraldine Mitchley, Senior Director for Digital Solutions for Visa Sub Sahara Africa.
Beginning 23 March, Visa invites eligible participants in the SSA region to submit their business solutions that apply to one of the following three briefs:
- How can your startup leverage Visa Developer APIs to either: Enable smaller merchants to accept payments in-store digitally OR Provide a safe and secure solution for online merchants to drive eCommerce and reduce cash on delivery?
- How can your company use Visa’s APIs to leverage mass reach partner platforms like Facebook to help businesses operating in fast-paced consumer centric environments improve cash flow and receive payments?
- How can your startup leverage technology to provide services that are functional for illiterate customers to provide them with secure transaction experiences that build and enhance their confidence in the banking system?
Each challenge has been structured keeping in mind the niche dynamics of the local landscape. As the region’s domestic merchants rapidly expand their digital commerce proposition, payment gateways must also evolve at a breakneck speed to offer their customers a hassle-free shopping experience.
Sub-Sahara Africa is a diverse region and home to products like MPesa in Kenya, Snapscan in South Africa and Paga in Nigeria. Payment solutions like Scan to Pay or Tap with mobile are fundamentally shifting the way people pay to provide more convenient yet ultimately secure ways to pay and be paid.
Participants can access visa.com.za/everywhereInitiative for details on the Visa’s Everywhere Initiative from 23 March. Participants have until 17 May 2018 to submit their ideas, after which judges from Visa will select three finalists per brief to present their ideas to the judging panel at Visa’s local offices in the region.
One winner per brief will be selected, and each will receive a US$25,000 monetary prize. Winners of the prize will be invited to a working meeting with Visa, and may be presented with the opportunity to create a prototype. Visa will then select one overall winner to receive an additional US$25,000.
Visa’s Everywhere Initiative is part of a global implementation that is strategically important to the global payments company’s goal of fostering the growth of next generation payment technologies. To date, the program has had nearly 2,100 participating startups across North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Africa and the Middle East.
E-Business
NIMC Says NIN Services Back Online

National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has announced the restoration of its National Identification Number (NIN) verification services nationwide.
This, according to the commission, follows the completion of a system maintenance exercise.
In a statement issued on Friday, the NIMC confirmed that all previously disrupted services have resumed.
“NIMC wishes to inform the general public that the recent technical maintenance has been completed and all services have been restored,” the statement read.
The NIMC urged Nigerians seeking to enroll for NIN to visit the its official website to locate the nearest enrollment centers.
The agency also encouraged individuals to make use of its self-service portal for tasks such as data modification, including name changes.
To further ease the verification process, the Commission recommended downloading the NIMC NameAuth app (oath.app) from the Google Play Store or Apple App Store for quick and secure NIN authentication.
NIMC expressed appreciation for the public’s patience during the service disruption, which had impacted banks, telecom providers, and government agencies that rely on NIN verification for their operations.
E-Business
Report Reveals African Organizations Dangerously Overestimating Cyber defences

Many businesses are overestimating their defence against cyber attacks, which creates a significant human risk blind spot. A new KnowBe4 report exposes a worrying disconnect between what leaders think about their cyber security readiness and what employees experience.
According to the KnowBe4 Africa Human Risk Management Report 2025, based on insights from cyber security decision-makers across 30 African countries, despite high awareness, a critical gap exists in turning that awareness into actual readiness and resilient behaviour.
Key findings from the KnowBe4 Africa Human Risk Management Report 2025:
Confidence vs awareness: While cyber security awareness is high, leaders express uncertainty about their workforce’s ability to act on that awareness. Many feel employees may overestimate their capabilities in recognising, reporting and mitigating threats.
The need for adaptive and personalised security awareness training: Many companies fail to personalise security awareness training to specific roles or risk exposures.
Widespread BYOD usage: A large percentage of employees (between 41% and 80%) use their personal devices for work.
AI policy development is lagging: Many companies (46%) are still in the process of developing policies for using AI tools in the workplace.
Regional variation: Southern Africa trains more, East Africa governs AI better and West/Central Africa sees the most human-related security incidents.
This gap is significant because Africa has become an attractive target to cyber criminals, especially those that launch AI-powered attacks. A LexisNexis Risk Solutions study found 60% of South African organisations have seen an increase in AI-facilitated financial crime – above the 56% global average.
Kehinde Popoola, regional manager and key representative for West and East Africa at Rubrik, said digital transformation is gaining momentum in Africa and companies are more exposed to cyber risk. The Rubrik executive adds that amid an increase in threats, it is crucial that organisations adopt an assumed breach mindset.
The KnowBe4 research shows that cyber security preparedness and the actual structures required to support secure behaviour seem misaligned.
The report highlights that just 10% of cyber security leaders are fully confident that staff would report a phishing attack or other cyber threat, despite rating employee security awareness of cyber threats at four out of five or higher.
There is also a significant perception gap between decision-makers and general employees in Africa regarding security awareness training, with 68% of leaders believing that training is tailored to roles, compared to only a third of employees feeling adequately trained.
KnowBe4 asserts that many organisations only conduct annual or biannual training that is too generic to effectively change behaviour, contributing to uncertainty about its effectiveness.
According to another report, the KnowBe4 African Cybersecurity and Awareness Report 2025, which focuses on end-user based responses, only 43% of African respondents felt confident in their ability to recognise a cyber threat, and just one in three believed their security awareness training was adequately tailored to their role. This comparison suggests the development of a dangerous perception gap in many organisations.
“There’s a disconnect here – between what leaders think is happening and what employees are actually experiencing,” says Anna Collard, SVP content strategy and evangelist at KnowBe4 Africa. “The data shows that without procedural and cultural follow-through, awareness simply doesn’t translate into readiness.”
“The continent’s cyber security posture may be more confident than it is truly resilient,” Collard adds.
E-Business
Domain of Deception as Attackers Deploy Spyware Under Guise of Legal Threats

Kaspersky has detected a rapidly escalating malicious campaign that has targeted over 1,100 corporate users since June 2025. The attackers pose as a legal firm and in their emails threaten recipients with lawsuits over alleged domain name patent violations, aiming to deploy malware.
Victims who opened and launched the attached files – that mimicked legal documents – had a Trojan installed on their devices, and the attackers could spy on the content of their screens. Organisations across healthcare, finance, and education sectors have been targeted.
The campaign began with 95 emails on June 11 and has since continued to escalate. Apart from claiming that the recipient’s domain name violates patented combinations of a major brand and threatening litigation, in the email the fake legal bureau also expresses the patent holders’ interest in acquiring the domain and offers getting acquainted with the details of the alleged violations by opening the attached archive with “documents”.
It is worth noting that the attackers, likely to avoid detection, attach an archive that is not password protected, and inside it includes another archive that is password protected and a file containing the password along with it.
After the user entered the archive password and clicked on the alleged legal document inside, a Trojan was installed on the device. The user saw a message displayed that read, “This document cannot be opened on this device. Try opening it on another windows device,” and simultaneously the Tor Browser was covertly downloaded and installed in the background.
Through it, the malware regularly sent snapshots of the user’s screen to the attackers over the Tor network. The malware also autostarts whenever the computer is restarted.
“This campaign is a sophisticated blend of psychological manipulation and technical deception, leveraging fear of legal action to coerce businesses into executing harmful files hidden in attached archives. Its rapid growth since June 11 underscores the urgency for organisations to bolster defenses.
Victims face the risk of losing their private data. Robust email security, employee training, and swift incident reporting are essential to counter this evolving threat,” comments Anna Lazaricheva, spam analyst at Kaspersky.
- Telecom2 days ago
MTN Nigeria Debuts Game-Changing CPaaS Platform at NextNow Forum
- Telecom3 days ago
NCC Approves MTN, 9Mobile Roaming Collaboration Deal
- E-Financial2 days ago
NAICOM Issues New Licenses to SanlamAllianz Life, General Insurance
- News2 days ago
AMCON Confirms ₦100Bn Sale of Ibadan DisCo Amid Legal Disputes
- E-Financial2 days ago
GTCO to Become First Nigerian Bank to List on London Stock Exchange
- E-Business2 days ago
Domain of Deception as Attackers Deploy Spyware Under Guise of Legal Threats
- E-Financial3 days ago
World Bank Approves Extra $65m for Nigeria’s SPESSE
- E-Financial3 days ago
Ecobank Taps Google Cloud to Deepen Financial Inclusion