TechCabal

Access Holdings, the parent company of Access bank, will pay $109.6 million (₦179.1billion) to acquire National Bank of Kenya (NBK) from KCB Bank Group, according to its financial statements for Q2, 2025. The takeover, announced in March 2024, was completed in May; however, the Nigerian lender’s latest financial statements indicate that it has yet to remit the payment for the acquisition. The $109 million deal aligns with TechCabal’s earlier estimated valuation of around $100 million for the company, which is 1.25 times NBK’s book value of $79.77 million as of 2023. The group aims to increase its footprint in East Africa’s largest economy, where it already owns Access Bank Kenya. With NBK’s national reach and government-linked client base, the acquisition gives Access a ready-made network and a chance to gain relevance in East Africa’s competitive banking market, where it reported a loss of $1.47 million in H1 2025. 🔗 Click the link below for full details  👉 https://lnkd.in/dbWNGygS    

New data from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) reveals that just 57,200 devices nationwide are 5G-enabled, 0.05% of the country’s 140 million smartphone users. The affordability challenge remains a critical bottleneck. As of 2025, entry-level 5G smartphones cost between ₦160,000 ($114.29) and ₦200,000 ($142.86), while mid-range options fall in the ₦250,000 ($178.57)–₦400,000 ($285.71) bracket, in a country where the minimum wage is at ₦70,000 ($50.00). The GSMA estimates that an entry-level smartphone still costs about 48% of a low-income earner’s monthly income, leaving millions reliant on older 3G and 4G devices. 🔗 Click the link below to learn more  👉 https://lnkd.in/d-ZMXfYB     

Sun King, an off-grid solar company, has opened its first large-scale manufacturing plant in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, marking a significant step in its plan to produce more of its products locally. The new facility will assemble solar-powered televisions and smartphones designed to work efficiently with the company’s off-grid solar systems. It will have the capacity to produce up to 700,000 units annually, with the potential to scale up as demand grows. Sun King’s new Nairobi plant signals growing interest in clean energy firms and a push to build closer to their customers in Africa. As demand for affordable solar power and electric mobility grows, companies like Sun King are betting that the continent’s next big wave of growth will come from making climate-friendly technology locally. 🔗 Click the link below to learn more 👉 https://lnkd.in/dPvPXw2a     

For years, USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data) was the poster child of financial inclusion; every digital payment solution ultimately got a USSD code. The low-tech bridge brought millions without smartphones or internet access into the digital payment net. However, its relevance is now fading as mobile apps take over. USSD transactions fell to ₦2.19 trillion ($1.50 billion) in H1 2024 from ₦4.84 trillion ($3.32 billion) in the previous year, according to the Central Bank of Nigeria. Transaction volume dropped by more than half, from 630.6 million to 252.06 million. In contrast, mobile app payments have picked up. Transaction values jumped 33.65% to ₦104.07 trillion ($71.38 billion) in Q1 2025 from ₦77.87 trillion ($53.41 billion) a year earlier. We tackle what this shift means for Nigeria’s financial system in this week’s edition of Follow the Money 🔗 Click the link below to read 👉 https://lnkd.in/gQbA-fw6     

Frank Ireri, the former Housing Finance boss who spent more than a decade trying to turn one of Kenya’s oldest mortgage lenders into a modern financial group, has died of cancer in Nairobi. He was 63. For much of the 2000s and 2010s, Ireri was a familiar name in Kenya’s banking sector—a confident, sharp-witted banker who believed that Housing Finance could be more than a niche mortgage lender. When he took over as managing director in 2006, the company was struggling to remain relevant in a fast-changing banking market dominated by aggressive commercial banks and new digital challengers. He set out to give it a new life. Ireri diversified its loan book, created new business arms, and by 2014, oversaw the creation of HF Group, a holding structure meant to transform the lender into a full financial services company. 🔗 Click the link below for more  👉 https://lnkd.in/dT9TGN8N 

Women have often described the feeling of being dismissed by medical professionals, speaking but not quite being heard. Complaints abound about being dismissed or rushed through appointments, especially if pain or symptoms are not immediately visible. Débbo Africa, founded by Nigerian doctors Dr. Zara Isa Modibbo and Dr. Aisha Nabila Wanka, is changing that with MyDébboApp, an AI-powered platform that lets women describe symptoms, identify possible causes, and connect with specialists. Already working with over 100 specialists and facilitating 1,000+ diagnostic tests across 10 Nigerian states, the startup plans to launch MyDébboApp publicly in Q1 2026, making women’s healthcare more accessible and empathetic across Africa. 🔗 Learn more at the link below   👉 https://lnkd.in/d6_wQTqv  

Zest, the fintech subsidiary of Stanbic IBTC Holdings, has reported its first profitable quarter since its 2023 launch. The turnaround reflects the growing maturity of bank-backed fintech subsidiaries as they move from early losses to sustainable growth. Zest posted a profit after tax of ₦543 million ($372,438) in the third quarter of 2025, compared to a ₦1.89 billion ($1.29 million) loss after tax in the same period of 2024, according to Stanbic IBTC’s financial statement for the period ended September 30, 2025. The fintech’s performance came despite higher operating costs, which rose to ₦2.12 billion ($1.45 million) in Q3 2025, up from ₦1.26 billion ($864,221) in the first half of the year. 🔗 Get more details at the link below   👉 https://lnkd.in/d3pqUFSE  

In rural Zambia, where access to essential medicines is often constrained by stockouts and delivery delays, a new report shows that health facilities using Duniya Healthcare’s logistics platform, helped avert 578 deaths in six months, almost twice as many as those relying on traditional procurement. The report comes amid long-running concerns over Zambia’s fragile medical supply chain, where frequent stockouts and delayed deliveries continue to undermine rural healthcare. Despite government efforts to stabilise supply, most public and faith-based facilities still rely on inconsistent deliveries from central warehouses or ad hoc procurement through private wholesalers. The Duniya study provides rare quantitative evidence that improving distribution efficiency can significantly cut preventable deaths in remote areas. 🔗 Learn more  👉 https://lnkd.in/dWhQdag4  

Airtel Money, the financial services arm of Airtel Africa, has seen its annualized transaction value climb above $193 billion, a 35.9% year-on-year increase, as the company advances plans for a public listing in the first half of 2026. According to Airtel Africa’s latest half-year results to September 2025, Airtel Money’s customer base climbed by 20% year-on-year to reach 49.8 million users across 14 countries. The growth was driven by an expanding agent network, improved smartphone penetration, and an increasingly digital customer experience. Read more here : https://lnkd.in/ewuzZNDg #AirtelAfrica #TechCabal

Hackers say they have stolen millions of medical and personal records from M-Tiba, a Safaricom-backed digital health wallet, in what could be one of Kenya’s largest-ever data breaches. A group calling itself Kazu claims to have gained access to more than 17 million files, or approximately 2.15 terabytes of data, from M-Tiba’s servers. The group shared a 2GB sample of the stolen data on its Telegram channel (Kazu Breach), containing what appear to be patients’ names, national ID numbers, dates of birth, phone contacts, and, in some cases, their medical diagnoses and billing information. The leaked files include information on about 114,000 users, both account holders and their beneficiaries, according to files examined by TechCabal. Kazu claims as many as 4.8 million people could be affected, a figure that has not been independently verified. Get more details here : https://lnkd.in/eqt6FhzS