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PRESENTED BY VENTURES PLATFORM & BUDX

19 – 11 – 2018

Welcome to today’s edition of TC Daily. Did a friend or colleague forward this to you? Do take a moment to subscribe so you don’t miss out on future editions.

A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSORS

“Labs by ARM” is a 12-week intensive corporate accelerator powered by Ventures Platform. The accelerator is designed to help early and growth stage fintech companies commercialize and massively distribute their innovations. Applications are open for the next 3 weeks, please apply at armlabs.com.ng

BFD: The Central bank of Nigeria’s “Exposure Draft of New CBN Licensing Regime (License Tiering) for Payment System Providers in Nigeria” (pdf) document is the latest piece of contentious legislation it will pull from what seems to be a never-ending well of badly conceived ideas. In it, the CBN requires the sums of ₦5 Billion (~$14m), ₦3 Billion (~$9m) and ₦100 million (~$300K) minimum shareholder funds for PSP (super), PSP (standard license) and PSP (basic license) respectively. Now, there are a variety of opinions on this (check herehere and here) but at least one thing jumps out: fintech companies and startup are not banks; they are tech companies and as such do not ordinarily operate with, or need such heavy balance sheets. Dr Aloy Chife tweeted a great response thread and in it he said, “The CBN’s narrow regulatory focus elides a wider context, namely the crucial importance of FinTech to the national economy.” As for what it means for fintech startups right now, not so much. Most of them already operate on a MFB license anyway but it could mean being unable to build out certain features or offering certain services down the line.
Take A Step Back: Africa has been on a “fintech run” of sorts over the past couple of years with innovative products and businesses popping up at an accelerated pace and startups in the segment raising over 45% of total startup funding on the continent in 2017. Should this growth persist, regulation is an important part of the equation and regulatory decisions in countries like Nigeria, which is Africa’s largest economy, could further exclude huge segments of the African market.

US-based PE firm Emerging Capital Partners (ECP) has announced the final close of its fourth Pan-African fund, the ECP Africa Fund IV (AFIV). The $640 million fund is reportedly “the largest closing of an African private equity fund since September 2016, excluding infrastructure and real estate funds,” per The Exchange.

Facebook has published its Transparency report for the first of 2018 and it details how it has been enforcing its standards, government requests for user data (African countries too – Nigeria made 9 requests), requests to restrict access to content that government and organizations believe violates local laws, and Internet disruptions that restrict people’s access to its products.

The Ugandan government said it’s “reduced” 0.5% mobile money tax would go into effect last Friday after President Museveni signed the bill into law last week, per Dignited. Apparently, telcos have been charging users the previously announced 1% tax despite the government claiming to have reduced the tax to 0.5%.

Kago Kagichiri has stepped down from his role as CEO of Kenyan edtech startup, Eneza Education, per Techweez. He’ll remain on the board and Munyutu Waigi will come on as provisional CEO.

Nigeria-based payments startup OyaPay has launched a mobile self checkout solution called OyaPay Go. It’ll use a combination of an app on the shoppers phone, a verification app for the cashier/store clerk, and a store dashboard for the manager, to deliver an experience similar to Amazon’s Go stores.

A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSORS

Nigerian-American photographer, Chi Modu, is coming home. His photo exhibition & workshop, sponsored by BUDX, run from December 1– 2, 2018. Register here to enjoy panel talks, workshops, live performances and an after-party.

In an interview with the MIT Technology Review, Yoshua Bengio, one of the pioneers of modern AI, said developed countries need to make AI technology more accessible to the developing world. In his words: “It is already hard for them to do research with little resources, but in addition if they can’t have access to the community, I think that’s really unfair … The potential for AI to be useful in the developing world is even greater. They need to improve technology even more than we do, and they have different needs.”

Nigeria’s CcHub is holding it’s Breakfast Chat this month with Ndidi Okonkwo Nwuneli. She is the co-founder of AACE Food Processing & Distribution, the managing partner of Sahel Consulting Agriculture & Nutrition Ltd and the founder of LEAP Africa. It’s open to tech entrepreneurs and seats are limited so if you are in Nigeria, register here for an invite now.

You are invited to TC Townhall, Fintech 2.0, holding in partnership with Softcom on November 30. The forum will take a look at the next generation of financial technologies in Nigeria. Speakers include Adia Sowho (MD, Mines.io), Gbenga Agboola (CEO, Flutterwave), Titi Odunfa (MD, Sankore Investments), Dr. Yinka David West (Academic Director, LBS), Yvonne Johnson (fintech angel investor) and Yomi Adedeji (CEO, Softcom). Registration is now live, and seats are limited. See you there!

CcHub is looking to hire a Monitoring and Evaluation Manager with a background in research to join its re:learn team. Apply here if you’re interested.

Harvard Business School’s Africa Business Club is accepting applications for the New Venture Competition for early-stage ventures focused on serving African markets. Learn more and apply here.

From TechCabal

GIGM Is Nigeria’s Most Technologically Advanced Road Transport Company

What it’s like to buy something online from China (in Nigeria)

All Done.

Have a great week ahead! We’ll see you tomorrow 
 
– Akindare.

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