This is Follow the Money, our weekly series that unpacks the earnings, business, and scaling strategies of African fintechs and financial institutions. A new edition drops every Monday.   The first time Adepeju Adenuga, an English PhD student, heard about Opay was during Nigeria’s cash crunch in 2023. “I was trying to make a transfer

On July 23, 2025, Visa opened its first African data centre in Johannesburg, South Africa. For the global payments giant, this is more than an infrastructure play—it’s part of a $1 billion bet on financial inclusion, digital innovation, and Africa’s fast-growing cashless economy. “Africa makes a very important part of our strategy globally,” Michael Berner

The wildfires that swept through Los Angeles County in January 2025 left an...

Lebara Nigeria, a subsidiary of the London-based global telecom operator Lebara Group, has launched its Number Reservation Portal, enabling customers to secure their preferred mobile numbers ahead of its official launch in Q3 2025. The system, built around the carrier’s 0724 prefix, allows users to lock in combinations with personal significance such as birthdays, lucky

In Nigeria, the vibrant holiday season often comes with an unusual problem: wasted gift cards. A cousin in London might buy an Apple Store voucher and send it to a loved one in Lagos, but with no official Apple store, that card becomes little more than a shiny piece of plastic that sits unused until

When you ask Michael Ekeagbara, CEO of Microware Solutions Limited, about the origins of his company, he describes it as nothing less than “a journey of hope.” Ekeagbara, the subject of today’s edition of the Day 1–1000 column, began humbly, repairing computers in Kaduna. From that modest start, he pieced together a career that would

MTN Nigeria has suffered more than 5,400 fibre optic cable cuts between January and July 2025, with road construction and vandalism emerging as the biggest threats to its infrastructure. The company recorded 760 fibre cuts in July alone, bringing the seven-month total to 5,478 and causing widespread network disruptions. June saw the worst impact, with 1,016

In 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic  almost ground the world to a halt, Samuel Ajiboyede’s entrepreneurial journey was just getting started.  After spotting a gap in the infrastructure-heavy logistics sector, he wanted to digitise it and  built Zido, a digital supply chain procurement and logistics platform. A few months after it launched, he signed a

By 2050, nearly one in four people on Earth will be African. Whether this demographic shift becomes a source of global prosperity or instability may depend on something seemingly intangible: the stories being told about the continent today. These narratives will determine whether Africa will sit at the table where decisions are made or find

The National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) must register at least 3.3 million Nigerians every month until December 2026 to meet the World Bank’s new target of 180 million National Identification Numbers (NINs), marking the biggest test in its 15-year history.  NIN is Nigeria’s version of the US Social Security Number, linking demographic data with fingerprints

This is today's edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose...

In tech-forward cities, from Joburg to Cape Town, daily digital habits are data-intensive. Whether it’s streaming, video calls, gaming, or endless scrolling on socials, staying connected means choosing the right data plans in South Africa. To understand how urban users navigate this, we surveyed 28 users—60% based in Gauteng—about their data habits, network preferences, and