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Nigeria’s big banks are entering the financial technology (fintech) space, which is causing competition for existing fintech firms.  The banks are making strategic investments in fintech businesses to secure their future. This move threatens the valuation of top fintech firms like Flutterwave, Interswitch, and Opay, which are currently valued at over $1 billion.  Other fintech companies like Moniepoint and Paga are also establishing themselves in the industry. The big banks, including Stanbic, Access Bank, and GTB, are developing online banking platforms to compete with the fintech firms.  They are starting to see positive results from their investments in fintech. For example, GTBank’s fintech firm, Squad, became profitable in its first month of operations, recording a profit before tax of N926 million in the first six months.  Guarantee Holding Company’s fintech arm generated about N139.3 billion in revenue between June and December.  Wema Bank also ...

  Nigeria is getting ready to get rid of its expensive gasoline subsidies in June.  The World Bank  has given the country $800 million so it can keep its national social program going. The largest economy in Africa has allotted 3.36 trillion naira, which is equivalent to $7.3 billion, for petrol subsidies, and these subsidies will remain in place until the middle of 2023. Nevertheless, despite the fact that it will cost more than both healthcare and education put together, there are no reserves made for the costs after that time. The government is thinking about giving workers cash transfers and free rides on public transportation as a way to make up for the negative effects that taking away subsidies will have on the poorest parts of society. The Minister of Finance has stated that the government has identified ten million families, which is equivalent to fifty million people, as part of its vulnerable list, and there are still a number of programs that are in the proces...

  Jeune Afrique, a French-language pan-African weekly news magazine, has unveiled the list of the top 500 most important companies in Africa. Jeune Afrique revealed the ranking of the top 500 companies on the African continent that have the best-taken advantage of business opportunities in the 2021 financial year. Africa has various financial institutions and  South Africa has various young entrepreneurs.  Sonatrach, the national state-owned oil company of Algeria, has topped the list of the top 500 companies in Africa. The company reached a turnover of 34 billion dollars and a net result of more than 5.5 billion dollars. The largest company in Africa with 154 subsidiaries witnessed a dollar increase of 75% in its export activity.  Sonangol, the second-largest oil producer on the African continent, is the 12th most important company in Africa, according to Jeune Afrique. However, it witnessed a drop in production of around 10% in 2021. South Africa has around 8...

  Tech billionaire and the CEO (Chief Executive Officer) of Twitter, Elon Musk , fired a top Twitter engineer who told him he was declining in popularity on the micro-blogging site, according to a report by The Platformer. On Tuesday,  Musk met with several Twitter employees to discuss his declining view count on Twitter. He told the engineer, «You’re fired, you’re fired.» The Platformer did not reveal the name of the engineer. During the meeting, Twitter employees discussed internal data and a Google Trends chart with Musk. Google Trends data reportedly showed that Musk’s popularity dropped in recent months. An engineer told Musk that his popularity might be declining on the social media platform due to a lack of public interest since his Twitter purchase. After hearing this,  Musk fired the engineer. Musk told employees that his view count was impacted by an internal issue. He asked Twitter employees to track how oft...