This week: MTN’s mobile money mess

Plus: the hackers want ShopRite to pay for their customers’ data.

Editor’s Notes

Week 26, 2022
Reading time: 5 minutes

Big employee moves this week at TLcom and Flutterwave. Did you miss them? We brought up the news. Healthy workplace culture in startups is (always) on our minds at TechCabal, and we have a story about it here.

Have a good weekend,

Kelechi Njoku,
Managing Editor, TechCabal.

Editor’s Choice

	MTN alleges $53 million mobile money fraud MTN hasn’t courted fintech for so long, but it is already taking 18 Nigerian banks to court over a £22.3 billion ($53.7 million) mobile money fraud. The fraud was allegedly committed over a period of one month. Read the story on TechCabal
	Launch of Paystack Transfers in South Africa Paystack went south for its customers. The fintech company launched its Paystack Transfers services in South Africa to facilitate money transfers on the platform which could only collect payments until now. Learn more about Tech Cabal
	Former Goldman Sachs chief executive named Flutterwave CTO Bidding farewell to Goldman Sachs, former chief executive Gurbhej Dhillon joins Africa’s largest fintech startup Flutterwave as chief technical officer (CTO). He will use his leadership, engineering and application architecture experience to bring internal infrastructure developments to Flutterwave. More information about this rental on TechCabal
	Abeg pockets the MOMO license New name, new service. Abeg was renamed PocketApp by its parent company PiggyTech. He also bagged a mobile money license (MOMO) to upgrade from a payment app to a social commerce app that supports e-commerce merchants in Nigeria. Read it on TechCabal
	FirstCheck Africa costs $2 million more FirstCheck Africa verifies the gender financing gap in Africa. The women-focused angel fund received a $2 million commitment from venture capital firm TLcom Capital. Added to their first fund of $10 million, they will have $12 million to write more checks for startups led by African women. Read it on TechCabal
	Binance partners with Khaby Lame Most followed TikTok influencer Khaby Lame, who rose to fame by making complicated things simple. Binance is harnessing the magic of Khaby to drive mass adoption of crypto, NFT, and all things Web3. Learn more about Tech Cabal

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	A ransom for ShopRite customer data Cyber-terrorist group RansomHouse is demanding a ransom from Africa’s largest retailer, Shoprite, for the data of some of its customers in Eswatini, Namibia and Zambia. Their threat is simple: Pay us, or we’ll sell the 600 GB of data. Read the full story on TechCrunch
	Sudan cuts its internet… again Following the military coup in Sudan, the country’s internet was shut down to discourage online press and protests against the political violence plaguing the country. Quartz Africa has all the details
	COVID vaccines go mobile in Kenya COVID-19 vaccines are on wheels in Kenya. The country’s Ministry of Health is working with Amref Health Africa and AstraZeneca to send solar-powered mobile clinics to vaccinate people in hard-to-reach areas of the East African country. The news is on The Guardian
	AfDB grants ECOWAS $2 million Many problems in West Africa are about power and the African Development Fund (ADF) wants to change that. It approved a $2 million technical assistance grant for electricity reforms in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) countries. Learn more about IT News Africa
	South African charged with $1.7 million bitcoin scam In this week’s Pyramids episode, Johann Steynberg reached new heights. Johann ran a $1.7 million bitcoin-based network marketing scam that started in South Africa and grew to 160,000 members worldwide. Read about it on MyBroadband