Category: e-Business

With just eight more years left to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the burden of ending poverty, responding to climate change and achieving equality for all signals the urgency of clearly-focused solutions in addressing these crises through technology.

These are global problems that will take coordination, time and diligence from all over the world to solve. In Africa – home to some of the world’s fastest growing economies – startups and creators are leading a digital revolution that can have a positive impact across the globe. By working to develop technology that can one day shape the metaverse, leaders in Africa have an opportunity to help the world move toward satisfying those SDGs, Public Policy Director, sub-Saharan Africa, Balkissa Idé Siddo, said.

This year’s UNGA theme – ”A watershed moment: transformative solutions to interlocking challenges” – is a stark reminder of the journey ahead in ensuring that no one is left behind as we strive towards a sustainable future. The technological efforts throughout Africa may help develop those transformative solutions needed.

The next chapter of the internet is changing fast and transforming development at quite an enormous scale impacting the world’s economy.

Although the metaverse will take years to build, Siddo said the world is already seeing its potential to advance SDGs.

Virtual and augmented realities can support a variety of global goals, from remotely training medics to advance health and well-being (SDG 3), to helping local leaders champion climate action to mitigate the effects of climate change (SDG 13). The metaverse’s potential across the African continent could contribute to these goals by promoting strategies that will improve health, reduce inequality and spur economic growth needed to enhance quality of life.

We believe Africa can and will play an integral part in the metaverse, by creating new ways for African brands to tell unique stories, export culture and new immersive experiences for consumers. This reality is no longer a fantasy, as Africa’s population is predicted to become the largest workforce in the world by 2035.

Digitalisation is taking center stage across the continent and shifting the way we conduct business, create jobs, catch up with friends and family and access public services. The flourishing startup ecosystem in Africa has been a prime example of this budding growth, inspiring a wave of innovation across the continent.

This startup ecosystem continues to bolster a digital community and signals Africa’s potential for the next chapter of the internet, the metaverse.

A recent study produced for Meta by the independent economic consultancy Analysis Group estimates that if adoption of the metaverse were to begin today and grow in a similar way as mobile technology in sub-Saharan Africa, after 10 years it could be associated with a 1.8 per cent contribution to regional Gross Domestic Product (GDP), or $40 billion, in 2031.

In many ways, the metaverse will be a natural evolution of the internet. We have moved from primarily text-based web services, to speech and video-based ones. The metaverse is the next generation – a more immersive, 3D experience defined by a feeling of presence, like you are right there with another person or in another place. It will be more human than the way we experience the internet today – more physical, interactive, and speech-based than flat screens filled with text and images. And it has the potential to open up worlds of opportunity for people across Africa.

While our vision of the metaverse is still fairly faraway, we’re seeing African companies and innovators already starting to build for this future, with an ongoing appetite and desire to continue to bring this to life here in Africa.

Just a quick glimpse into the current reality – the continent is already buzzing with creative talent and occupying its seat at the metaverse table. Nigeria’s Mosope Olaosebikan, founder of Africa’s first digital museum is shaping the narrative of culture and people using immersive and innovative methods of curation such as AR and VR. Pixel Chefs, a South African innovative creative agency is using emerging digital tech to create immersive impactful experiences for both its local and global clients. And, Kenya’s Black Rhino VR – a virtual reality production – in Nairobi is creating bespoke VR and AR solutions and content that are adaptable and relevant to the African and global market.

While tech companies such as Meta are building for the metaverse on the continent by investing in programs such as 2Africa that will accelerate fast and reliable internet, much more needs to be done to build fruitful collaborations that will last for the metaverse in Africa.

The move from paper to action will take formidable allyship across companies, developers, creators and policymakers. We need to work together to build an inclusive metaverse for Africa that will bridge the digital divide and ensure equal representation globally, and across the continent.

Africa’s diversity and dynamism is fostering creativity, agility, innovation and the freedom it takes in building a metaverse that can weave itself in sustainable development.

A multinational computer and electronics company, ASUS, has said it will continue to defend its proud tradition of creating innovative technologies for everyone to enjoy in Nigeria.

Country Manager for ASUS English Speaking Africa, Simplice Zaongo, spoke during the maiden edition of the ASUS Media Gathering Event in Ikeja, Lagos.

He spoke about the ASUS brand, its accomplishments and unveiled the latest technologies from ASUS. He introduced the ASUS Zenbook 14X OLED (UX3402) and Zenbook 17-Fold (UX9702) to the Media.

On the journey so far, ASUS has earned a total of 57,156 awards from some of the world’s most prestigious international organisations and media groups. ”Each award is a testament to our relentless quest to create solutions designed for the benefit of everyone,” Simplice said.

Besides being the first consumer notebook brand in Asia-Pacific and East Europe, ASUS gaming notebooks account for the highest market share globally.

ASUS Nigeria Marketing Manager, Adeola Odeleye, said the forum would subsequently hold twice a year. “ASUS is driven by innovation and passionate about technology. We dream, dare, and strive to create an effortless and joyful digital life for everyone. We’re always in search of incredible ideas and experiences, and we aspire to deliver the incredible in everything we do,” she said.

ASUS has three distributors in Nigeria, namely Coscharis Technologies, Mitsumi Distribution and TD Africa. There are five service centres in Lagos, Abuja, and Port Harcourt.

The foreign exchange (forex) squeeze has grinded local and international trade in the country. As the IT sector is essentially dollar-denominated, experts are pushing for a cross-border trade without forex as an intermediary. LUCAS AJANAKU reports.

In the technology space, while the growing maturity of Africa’s payment systems infrastructure has improved financial access, interoperability and cross-border money exchange remain big challenges.

Head of Growth, Brand Strategy, and Marketing at Paga, a mobile money operator, Daniel Oparison, said: “Making a cross-border payment is still a hurdle in Africa; it remains difficult to carry out those transactions in a low-cost way, and such transactions tend to be peer-to-peer (P2P) transactions.

“As technology advances, with more partnerships among companies and the use of central switches, such as the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System, interoperability and cross-border activity will be significantly improved,” Oparison said.

According to Finance and Development reports, trade among Africa’s 55 countries amounts to only about 15 per cent of their total imports and exports. By contrast, an estimated 60 per cent of Asian trade takes place within the continent. In the European Union (EU), the proportion is about 70 per cent.

But Cellulant, an innovative fintech firm driving financial inclusion in Africa believes cross-border payments on the continent will grow bigger, better, and faster without the US Dollar in the middle.

Its Chief Executive Officer, Akshay Grover, said doing so will be a game changer for the continent.

Grover explained that having to first convert African currencies into dollars to trade is inefficient and a disincentive to trade.

He said: “When I want to change Ghanaian Cedi to Naira, I first need to change Cedi to US dollar then US dollar to Naira. That’s the most inefficient way of converting our currencies. What we could do is enable trade without converting to the US dollar. This is a huge opportunity for cross-border trade.”

Grover added that getting rid of dollars for trade will also help tackle the “dollar liquidity problem. Why is there so much demand for dollars? Why do I need to convert to the dollar to do business?”

He noted that though unfortunate, the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war has led to the benefit of using local currencies for items previously traded in dollars.

“People are now buying oil in local currencies, which never happened, but it is happening because of the Russia-Ukraine war,” Grover said.

The Cellulant chief said it was time financial regulators in Africa, particularly central banks, moved to resolve the problem of dollar dependence to boost cross-border payment on the continent.

“For this, you need a little cooperation. Everyone needs to come to the table. And this has to happen at the central bank or the government level, not Cellulant’s. Maybe it might not happen soon for all of Africa, but we can start building bridges. To some extent, Francophone African countries have tried to do that by trying to create one currency- the CFA – and it’s helped them quite a bit. So, I think the move has started, but how quickly we get onto that road will determine how big this could be in the next two, three years,” he said.

Grover explained that Cellulant was already playing in the cross-border payment space by hosting a lot of intra-Africa traffic through its self-built infrastructure.

Speaking further on the business, which helps SMEs and large local enterprises to resolve their payment and collection issues by directly providing solutions that enable them to collect payments or payout to their customers, disclosed that Nigeria might overtake Kenya as the biggest revenue contributor for Cellulant in six months.

Cross-border payments are just one of the many, barriers to trade in Africa. Others range from high tariffs and cumbersome border procedures to divergent commercial regulations and congested roads.

The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) that went into effect in 2021 was designed to lower some of those hurdles and create a vast trading area from Casablanca to Cape Town, encompassing 1.3 billion people. In its first phase, AfCFTA  would gradually eliminate tariffs on 90 per cent of goods and reduce barriers to trade in services. In later stages, it would harmonize policies on investment, competition, e-commerce, and intellectual property rights.

The AfCFTA’s backers say lowering trade barriers will supercharge commerce, attract foreign direct investment, and boost economic growth. A recent World Bank study estimates that the deal, if carried out in full, would raise real income by nine per cent and lift 50 million people out of extreme poverty by 2035.

Working in tandem with the agreement will be the Pan African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS), a project of the AfCFTA secretariat and Cairo-based Afreximbank, which specializes in trade finance. The system aims to link African central banks, commercial banks, and fintechs into a network that would enable quick and inexpensive transactions among any of the continent’s 42 currencies.

As of 2017, only about 12 per cent of intra-African payments were cleared within the continent, according to the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT). The rest are routed through overseas banks, mostly in Europe and North America. As a result, an African currency must first be exchanged for dollars, pounds, or euros and then swapped a second time for a different African currency. That adds an estimated $5 billion a year to the cost of intra-African currency transactions.

Founded in 2003, Cellulant has more than 18 years of experience providing locally relevant payment solutions for businesses and their consumers. Its evolution over the years, from a digital content business to mobile banking and now to payments, has allowed the company to build an expansive network, strong relationships, and partnerships.

Oparison is also hopeful that the implementation of the PAPPS will help alleviate pressure and address hurdles including currency exchange on the continent.

PAPPS, launched in January 2022, is designed to enable inter-Africa trade by the use of local currencies, reducing exchange rate costs for traders.

“Cross-border activity around foreign exchange is a major challenge, so whatever we can do to keep the transfers between Africa and in African currencies will help a lot. The regulators have a role to play to clear the hurdles and make it a viable business opportunity cost-wise and regulation-wise,” Oparison said.

Africa’s fintech industry remains on a growth trajectory and, according to Financial and economic online publisher PYMNTS, raised $1.8 billion by half-year 2022, almost matching the funds raised in the whole of last year.

But will the variety of standards and technologies fragment the industry further?

Oparison doesn’t think so. “The variety of fintech tools available means consumers have more choice, and different tools meet the needs of different consumer segments. Some apps focus on local payments, some on savings, some on cross-border payments, and some on investments. It also means customers use fewer clicks to make their preferred selections rather than a generalised app with many tabs,” he told ITWeb Africa.

Paga has claimed it is on track to provide 40-50-million Nigerian adult users in the next five years with access to financial services through a hybrid approach (both online and offline channels).

“We processed a record N1 trillion in transaction values in 2021 and surpassed this total in 2022 by the end of May – recording 1.2 trillion Naira ($2.9+ million),” Oparison said.

The faith-driven entrepreneur and Investor conference is slated to hold on September 28 and 29 in Lagos.

A statement by the host, Mrs. Oluremi Odunsi, CEO, Eridan Group and founder, Deepspace Africa, explained they will be a watch party at Eridan space, Oluwalogbon House, Plot A Obafemi Awolowo Way, Alausa, Ikeja.

Explaining further, Odunsi said the conference is an annual gathering of Faith-driven entrepreneurs and investors streaming to 300 cities around the globe.

The event, an initiative of faith-driven entrepreneur and Investor Ministries led by US based Henry Kaestner, who is a managing principal at Sovereign’s Capital.

The statement added: “Sovereign’s Capital is a private equity and venture capital management company that invests in faith-driven entrepreneurs in Southeast Asia and the US from its offices in Silicon Valley, Washington DC, and Jakarta, Indonesia.

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“Through the conference, kingdom-minded entrepreneurs and investors, will be privileged to learn from thought leaders, network and also pitch their business and ideas to potential investors.

“For the last few years, we streamed the conference from Dallas. This year, we will be streaming the conference from Nairobi, Kenya.

You don’t have to go through the hassle of travelling to Kenya before you can join the conference. There is an opportunity to join a Watch Party from Lagos, Nigeria for free however, registration is required.”

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has reiterated its commitment to bridging growing gender digital divide to accelerate inclusive economic prosperity for Nigerians.

Its Executive Vice Chairman, Prof. Umar Danbatta, who stated this in Lagos at the Nigerian Women Entrepreneurs and Executives in Tech Summit (WEETS), where he was conferred with the ‘Icon of Digital Revolution Award’ for his role in stimulating digital connectivity in Nigeria, said promotion of gender equality is a major component of ICT development.

He said the gender dimensions of ICT, manifests in access and use; capacity-building opportunities; employment and potential for empowerment, and that these dimensions need to be identified and addressed, to leverage on technology and communication as powerful catalysts for political, economic, and social empowerment of women, and the promotion of gender equality.

Speaking to the theme of the event, “Reskilling Women and Girls to Thrive in the Digital Economy”, Danbatta, who was represented by NCC’s Head, Digital Media Management, Nafisa Usman Rugga, said the theme resonated with the drive by the Federal Government to ensure an all-inclusive digital economy that drives the strategic vision plan of the Commission.

He expressed his appreciation to organisers, Techlife Media and Communications Limited, a Lagos-based media organisation, for the iconic recognition for his contribution to Nigeria’s digital progression which is an encouragement that he would dedicate to the entire NCC team of professionals that are dedicated to the digital revolution in the country.

Danbatta commended the organisation for holding forth its annual gathering that pivots discussions on promotion of digital access, skills and knowledge among the women and girls in Nigeria.

Danbatta indicated that one of the ways through which the Commission strives to achieve an inclusive growth, is through increased digital connectivity to all, regardless of gender and other accidental circumstances, and that the Commission has continued to play a front-seat role in driving the implementation of the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy (NDEPS), 2020-2030; the Nigerian National Broadband Plan (NNBP), 2020-2025; and related policies aimed at deepening connectivity for all citizens, thereby bridging digital gender disparity.

“The NCC has put in the front burner the need to expose girls and young women to more opportunities in the digital ecosystem, in line with the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) Resolution 70, which advocates gender mainstreaming and promotion of gender equality, as well as the empowerment of women through information and communications technology (ICT), and we are fully committed to this,” Danbatta said.

With ever-shrinking oil revenue and increasing cash from the Information Communication Technology (ICT) sector, a PwC report shows that Nigerians may earn $50 billion from ‘brain export’. LUCAS AJANAKU reports that indigenous online platforms are necessary to provide the springboard for local expertise.

Available data have show strong positive signal to the inevitability of harnessing the Information Communication Technology (ICT) sector to grow the economy.

For example, the last statistics from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) provided impressive insight into the contribution of the ICT sector to the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP).

Report indicated that the ICT sector contributed 18.44 per cent to the GDP in Q2 2022 the highest and marked the third consecutive time the sector is doing.

The oil sector contributed 6.33 per cent to the GDP during the period under review, which was lower than the contribution in Q2 ‘2021 and Q1 ‘2022, where it contributed 7.42per cent and 6.63 per cent.  The non-oil sector’s contribution grew by 4.77per cent in real terms, resulting in a 93.67per cent contribution to the GDP in the Q2 ‘2022, higher than Q2 ‘2021 and Q2 ‘2022, where it contributed 92.58 per cent and 93.37per cent.

Also, a PwC report entitled: “Nigerian Brain Exports: The Optimal Path to Growing the Nigerian Economy,” saw Nigerians in high-end Global Value Chains (GVCs) in brain capital export, adding that with case studies of India and Kenya and others already exporting Brain Capital, participating in the GVC’s, Nigeria captures 17 per cent of the global programming and software development jobs. The earnings that will accrue to Nigerians performing these jobs are about $50 billion.

Participants at #BeyondWork platform organised by Terawork in Lagos, including the Executive Secretary, Lagos State Employment Trust Fund (LSETF), Tejumola Abisoye, CEO at Terawork, Femi Taiwo, and Salem King believe the future of work is flexibility enhanced by technology.

Abisayoe said Terawork is bridging the gap between supply and demand. She said the world is now global, adding that one could stay anywhere and work with the advantage of paying little or no tax at all.

She said skills exportation (brain export) will continue, stressing that the mission of LSETF is to ensure that a million young people are supported to be job creators. LSETF is about skilling people and talent development, she added.

“The future of work is democratic. Anything that anybody knows, they learned it, and if they learned it, it means you can also learn it. Even when we think about work, we need to think about preserving our humanity. The healthier you are – mentally, physically, or emotionally – the more of an impact you can actually make,” King said.

Taiwo agrees no less with PwC and the others about the future of work and the need to create a platform where buyers and sellers can meet and if need be engage in brain export for economic development.

With this vison, he said he started Terawork in 2018 from his personal experience when he was looking for someone to help him fix a problem which he couldn’t handle. “I went online looking for solution because there was no Terawork then. I went searching online and I stumbled on a company in Ikeja and I spoke to the guy because I was in a hurry to get a project I engaged the guy and then he requested for an advance payment of N350,000 for him to mobilise him to start a job,’’ he said.

Fortification of the nation’s Information Communication Technology (ICT) readiness and foster strong market competitiveness on the continent, enhanced industry collaborations across sectors are imperative for national development, Phase3 Telecom has said.

Its Chief Executive Officer, Stanley Jegede, spoke at a conference on next-generation telecommunications technology and systems, adding that it is also a key objective of the subsequent phase of network investments which will see the company expand its footprint across new routes in the coming months.

A statement from the firm recalled that the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) indicated in its Q2 report on Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) that the ICT sector contributed 18.44 per cent of the total real GDP.

Thus, establishing an upward sector growth trajectory for the third time in three years with Q1 2020 and Q2 2021 being the two other instances.

“it cannot be overstated that ICT is both an enabler and service structure with a multiplier economic and social effect, especially in consideration of its immense capabilities. It serves as a major distribution platform for providing public and private services to the citizenry in urban, rural, and underserved areas, as well as the enterprise framework propelling innovation and the connectivity demand for access to market information, financial education, or even health services,” Jegede said.

Consequently, “active collaborations between the Federal Government, industry regulators, service providers, stakeholders, and end-users are required to stimulate innovative and consistent ICT infrastructure development across the country for an economically and socially sustainable future”.

Nigeria’s fifth generation (5G) telecoms service provider, MTN and an original equipment manufacturer (OEM), Vivo are collaborating to make available to the local market, affordable high quality mobile phones so that many subscribers will take advantage of the super–fast speed offered by the technology in the country.

The OEM which said it has eight manufacturing plants across the world, including China, India, Indonesia and Egypt, failed to justify the preference of the North African country to Nigeria bristling with a huge market and youthful demography that are technology-savvy.

National Channel Manager, Vivo, Vignesh K who spoke in Lagos during the unveiling of two devices, V25 5G and V25e said the collaboration with MTN will assure that more 5g devices are brought into the hands of many subscribers at pocket-friendly prices.

He said the brand is committed to building a bridge between human beings and technology through building local talents to deliver excellence supported by a network of research and development (R&D) centres in Shenzhen, Dongguan, Nanjing, Beijin, Hangzhou, Shanghai, and Xi’an.

The channel manager said with over 400 million users across the world, he said the brand is hoping to improve on its fourth global ranking and getting more customers in the country.

Also, Country Manager, Vivo Nigeria, Woody Liu, said the vivo V series has always been about being innovative and technologically advanced while exuding style and encouraging users to create, have fun, and explore. “The new V25 5G continues to embody this concept and provide users with fresh tools and features,” Liu said.

He said the brand understood that users want a smartphone that is aesthetically pleasing and has excellent functional attributes. With the carefully designed new devices, users can capture the best moments in life with their family and friends anywhere, any time with intuitive camera technologies, while expressing their creativity and emotions through the smartphones’ chameleon-like design.

Equipped with a 64MP OIS ultra-sensing rear camera that boasts of upgraded OIS and EIS capabilities and an 8MP wide-angle camera, V25 5G delivers an excellent imaging experience and allows users to capture high-quality, super-wide shots and 4K videos with ease.

Clarity is a key consideration and an ever-growing demand for users when it comes to taking great seines and videos. Therefore, V25 5G has a 50MP front camera with eye autofocus capabilities, enabling users to take clear images and videos any time of the day or night. In addition, the front camera is equipped with an AI HD Algorithm that optimises sharpness.

The front camera of V25 SG has the Hybrid Image Stabilisation (OIS+EIS) feature which makes video shooting clearer and more stable. Furthermore, the Natural Portrait video mode enhances overall skin texture and clarity.

Financial technology companies (fintechs) are helping to drive the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN’s) financial inclusion drive through technology and digital banking innovations.

Players such as Carbon Finance, Flutterwave, Piggyvest, Paystack, Bankly, Remita/SystemSpecs, TeamApt, Lidya, Kuda Bank, Risevest, Trove App and many others are doing great things, deepening the digital banking space.

Carbon Finance, which kicked off celebrations to mark its 10th anniversary with a promise to transform the banking experience, making banking more accessible and flexible for consumers, promised to expand its foot prints across the continent.

A credit-led, it is pan-African digital bank with headquarters in Lagos and operations in Nigeria and Ghana with over 150 employees.

Originally set up as a lending company, Carbon has established itself as one of the continent’s leading and fastest-growing digital banks, with over a million users across the federation and operations in two African countries.

Co-founder/CEO Chijioke Dozie said the company is very proud of what it has built, “thanks to our customers and the humans at Carbon. When we look at the last 10 years and the future ahead, we want to focus more on our customer’s needs and ensure we are adapting to the market demands  and changing the way Nigerians make payments”.

Another co-founder, Ngozi Dozie,  said with the newly launched buy- now-pay-later’ product “Carbon Zero”, which gives the flexibility to shop what you want, when you want, without breaking the bank at a zero per cent interest rate. As humans, time is our most valuable asset and by using Carbon Zero, our customers can be more flexible with their funds and improve their quality of life significantly.

It began operations in 2012 as One Credit, a brick-and-mortar consumer lender focused on the local market, the company then pivoted in 2016 to become a digital lender via its Paylater App and was focused on providing access to consumer credit services.

With a refreshed intention to develop into a fully-functioning digital financial service platform that offers cost-effective bill payments, free fund transfers, and high yield savings and investments options in addition to loans, the company in 2019 rebranded itself as Carbon and was granted a microfinance banking license by the Central Bank of Nigeria.

A variety of rewards, including free data vouchers, movie tickets, discounts in select stores, and cash rewards, will be offered to customers as part of the Carbon Anniversary, which begins on September 12th, 2022.

“Carbon’s 10th anniversary is a testament to the fact that 10 years is remarkable for a neo-bank! Celebrating a decade of value and trust; Carbon has been expanding possibilities not only for its clients and partners but also empowering employees all through its commendable journey,” he added.

As of 2020, phishing was by far the most-common attack performed by cybercriminals as shown by the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI’s) Internet Crime Complaint Centre, which recorded as many incidents than any other type of computer crimes. Lucas Ajanaku writes that Nigeria and Kenya have become the epicentre of phishing attacks, according to the latest report on phishing.

Phishing scams have continued to target Africa, with Kenya and Nigeria both experiencing a high number of incidents, according to Kaspersky’s Digital Payment survey.

According to Wikipedia, phishing is a type of social engineering where an attacker sends a fraudulent (such as spoofed, fake, or otherwise deceptive) message designed to trick a person into revealing sensitive information to the attacker or to deploy malicious software on the victim’s infrastructure like ransomware. Phishing attacks have become increasingly sophisticated and often transparently mirror the site being targeted, allowing the attacker to observe everything while the victim is navigating the site, and transverse any additional security boundaries with the victim.

According to the survey, 61per cent of respondents from Nigeria faced phishing scams when using online banking or mobile wallet services. Another 67 per cent said they have personally encountered fake websites, and a staggering 82 per cent experienced scams (via texts or calls) using social engineering.

When asked about awareness of threats against digital payment methods, the majority of respondents from Nigeria reported that they are aware of both the financial phishing attacks (95 per cent) and online scams (97 per cent);  78 per cent also stated that they are informed about banking malware on personal computers (PCs) and on mobile. This type of malicious software steals money from users’ bank accounts.

However, 98 per cent think that banks and payment companies should educate users more about the threats online.

When it comes to a list of security features that consumers would like to see more on banking apps and mobile wallets, according to the survey results, here’s what matters most to them: the implementation of one-time-passwords (OTPs) via SMS for every transaction (76 per cent); biometric security features like facial or fingerprint recognition (75 per cent); requiring two-factor authentication (64 per cent); automated detection and intervention for fraudulent transactions (39 per cent); and  point-to-point encryption (22 per cent)

Enterprise Sales Manager at Kaspersky in Africa, Bethwel Opil, said: “Whether we talk about the proliferation of phishing scams or mobile malware, it is important to establish some basic cybersecurity standards. Advanced security solutions, which are able to filter out most of the generic attack vectors, supplemented with other preventive measures such as good cybersecurity awareness and regular password changes can help to keep your financial transactions secure.” Kaspersky said attacks related to data loss, such as phishing and social engineering, rose phenomenally in Africa in Q2 2022, growing by 234 per cent in comparison with the previous quarter.

The company’s security solutions detected 10 722 886 phishing attacks across the continent in Q2. “Kenyan users have been affected the most by this type of threat – there were 5 098 534 phishing attacks detected in three months, a growth of 438 per cent when compared to the previous quarter. It was followed by SA with 4 578 216 detections and a growth of 144 per cent, and Nigeria with 1 046 136 detections, or a growth of 174per cent,” according to ITWeb.