The Nation Newspaper

Category: e-Business

  • Signal Alliance pushes holdco structure

    Signal Alliance pushes holdco structure

    A technology firm, Signal Alliance, is beginning a new phase as it is on the verge of completing a holding company (holdco) structure that will see it become a bigger player in the information technology (IT) sector.

    The proposed holdco structure would have three subsidiaries – one focused on cloud business, another on technology consulting while the third, Sasware, which is already operating as a venturing company, would harmonise current investments and further invest in tech start-ups and tech-enabled businesses.

    Signal Alliance, which will be 25 years soon, intends to make an emphatic statement in local tech ecosystem. Foreign investors have dominated the venture activities in Nigeria and Africa and they are increasing their positions in the local tech market.

    Last year, Stripe, the second-largest payment company in the world, acquired Nigerian-based payment gateway company, Paystack.

    Nigerian startups also dominated the venture capital in Africa in 2019 only to fall behind South Africa in 2020 due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

    There are also local venture capital firms and equity funds that are springing up and positioning for the market. In January, founder and Chief Executive Officer CEO) of Future Africa, a new venture capital that launched last year, Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, said it has returned $3.7 million to some of the firm’s limited partners and invested over $1 million in 16 startups.

    Its Executive Vice Chairman, Collins Onuegbu,  said: “There is a need to consolidate and grow our investments in technology-enabled start-ups. Diversification of our business portfolio is imperative, and we believe that these activities, in line with our medium to long term strategy would produce compelling returns. Size and efficiency are key factors for our new outlook.”

    He also believes the local tech market is still evolving despite the strides it has made in recent years. There is still a lot of room for growth and the company is being positioned to be part of that growth process. In the coming months, it will be looking to either acquire a majority stake in promising ventures or minority interest.

    “There is no more sitting on the fence while the good deals get done. We need to gain a foothold in the tech space venturing in Nigeria and are targeting 50 tech and tech-enabled companies within a three-year horizon,” he said. He is also a director at the Lagos Angels Network, a group of well-connected and highly knowledgeable individuals who invest in early-stage entrepreneurs.

    Signal Alliance would also be looking to grow its cloud market position. It is a market Signal Alliance knows very well given its partnership with Microsoft.

    Microsoft is the second-largest cloud provider in the world behind Amazon and leads the Software as a Service (SaaS) segment of the market with a 17 per cent market share and an impressive annual growth of 34 percent. The cloud market in Africa is growing and in 2019 rose to an estimated $1.7 billion valuation with players like Microsoft maintaining market dominance.

    Signal Alliance is a Gold LSP Partner of Microsoft; among the other three partners in Nigeria and intends to use this partnership for its cloud business focus. The company expects that the holding company structure would give it the latitude to capture a significant share of the market despite tough competition.

    “Despite handling much of Microsoft’s Azure cloud business in Nigeria, we are determined to grow the cloud business significantly, extending outside the shores of Nigeria,” Onuegbu said.

    Beyond venture capital and cloud, Signal Alliance is also eyeing the intellectual property market, IT security, and managed services. The third subsidiary of Signal Alliance will focus on these segments. Its future trajectory is to grow technology and technology-enabled businesses, taking advantage of opportunities in the diversifying Nigerian economy.

    “The world is adopting cloud services; consumption has grown tremendously in the past few years. It is important we segregate our cloud business to effectively push growth northwards. Value-added services are the driving force of our technology consulting,” Onuegbu said.

    In 1996, as a small group of technology executives were giving the world the term “cloud computing”, in Nigeria a small technology company was opening its doors for the first time.

    In hindsight, coming into the cloud market and information technology (IT) industry at the time it did was a great decision given that it gave an opportunity to get into a market that has come to be a major contributor to the Nigerian economy.

     

  • A guide to starting an online jewelry business

    A guide to starting an online jewelry business

    Aisha Ochuwa is the founder and CEO of the ‘Everything Beautiful by Aisha Ochuwa (EBAO)’ brand; one of the fastest growing jewelry brands in Nigeria. She has spent over a decade in the business and is indeed a typical new generation entrepreneur.

    When she started her jewelry business, she did it in the conventionally by moving from door to door. Her sales depended entirely on the distance she was able to cover per time. However, in 2017, she explored the online platform which aided her sales tremendously and grew her customer base both nationally and internationally.

    Ever since, she has continued to develop and grow the business. Now, she has gathered a great amount of knowledge over the years, which has contributed to the growth of the business. These practical experiences are what she shared in her book “A Guide to Starting an Online Jewelry Business” for upcoming African entrepreneurs.

    In the book, she shared secrets on how to successfully sell jewelry online from dreaming the business to setting it up and running it legally and profitably. Her first emphasis in the book was creating a business plan. Although not compulsory, it is necessary to give clarity and show seriousness. She went ahead to explain the need to study the already existing websites on jewelry business to serve as a precedence.

    As a starter in the business, you can access demand for jewelry by conducting keyword search through Google’s Adwords site. The next important thing is finding a supplier. You can either choose to be the designer of your own accessories or outsource the jewelries from a wholesaler.

    After establishing the supplier, you need to forecast the likely cost you will incur in starting the business. You will need to consider the cost of a good internet connection, computers, packaging of goods, shipping etc.

    According to Aisha, in creating a workable plan, you need to provide a detailed description of what makes your business unique. You also need to answer these questions:

    • Who are your target customers?

    • Who are your competitors?

    • Who and who would be in your management team?

    • What is your won marketing strategy?

    • What are the likely potential problems you might encounter?

    After answering these questions, it is time to talk about branding. Branding is what distinguishes your products from those of others. This is what Aisha has to say about it: “I will advise that you have an ‘own’ brand.” What she meant by ‘own’ brand is that it should be private; either bears your name, initials or something you are associated with.

    One of the important decisions you need to make when starting out your business concerns funding. One advantage of an online business is that it does not require a lot of money to start. There are several ways you can fund a small scale business. A few of them are: bootstrapping, loans, local competitions etc.

    Since your ‘outlet’ or ‘shop’ is the online space, you need a solid technical frame work. The technical frame work starts from creating a Domain name. A Domain name is an online location or address of your shop. Your domain should show the personality of your brand and make it easy for your customers to find you.

    One of the things to consider when designing a retail website is the user experience on the page. The users of your website should be able to easily navigate the pages, view images, search for items needed and review products and services offered.

    Web hosting is the technology responsible for housing and publishing your website online, ensuring your website or application is readily accessible to the public on the web. The Hosting companies are commonly referred to as ‘servers.’ The major web hosting services available are: Shared hosting, VPS (Virtual Private Server) hosting, dedicated server hosting, and cloud hosting.

    As a qualified lawyer, Aisha has this to say: “Although laws differ from state to state, there are certain legal requirements that you should not avoid whether the business is offline or online; you have to ensure that you carry out all the legal requirements necessary for your business.”

    Although you can start out without putting the entire legal framework in place especially if you are utilizing the social media as your retail point; however, once the business has grown, it is strongly advised that the legal framework is in place.

    Once you get online and start operations, you need to build credibility. A few helpful tips includes: posting your business registration certificates or any other certification you have acquired related to the business in the About Us page of your website; asking for testimonials, uploading pictures etc.

    Once your customers place orders and the payment is confirmed, you need to handle the packaging and shipping of orders carefully. Ensure that the goods you post as available are available before you accept payments from customers.

    For small scale businesses, Aisha advised that you should handle the delivery yourself because this will allow you control the quality of the packaging and follow up the delivery till the customer gets it. Other shipping options available are postal services, DHL, FedEx, UPS etc.

    You can also secure your business online by backing up your data regularly, changing passwords regularly, performing routine system maintenance and software updates etc.

    There are several ways one can create opportunities online and increase profits. You can do this by creating a niche which is targeted towards a particular set of people in the population. Social media handles like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, WhatsApp, etc. are other avenues to create opportunities online. You only need to be consistent, active and deliberate.

    The internet has become an integral part of our lives and daily business transactions. It is important to acquire the right knowledge from experienced entrepreneurs who have walked the road and making most of the internet to grow their business and brands. This is the focus of Aisha’s book.

  • Subscribers seek end to exploitative data regime

    Subscribers seek end to exploitative data regime

    To run a digital economy and learn virtually, affordable access to the internet is a sine qua non but over the last few months, the rate at which subscribers have been experiencing data depletion has been alarming. Subscribers want urgent fix to the problem, reports LUCAS AJANAKU.

     

    Timileyin Kolade, a student, is frustrated with his mobile network operator (MNO).

    According to the 18-year-old undergrad, when he first got the line a few years ago, he had no issue with running his data cost. But over the last three months, the story has changed. “When I got my smartphone, my monthly subscription was N1000. That gave me 1gigabyte of data. Since I don’t watch videos or download pictures, it takes me through the month.

    “But it has since changed. That same gigabyte that was taking me through the month hardly lasts for three days now,” he said.

    Another subscriber, Dele Ojo, said when he got tired of spending N2000 every two days, he was advised to do the N3, 500 subscription that would give him 10gigabyte, among other promises.

    “I took the advice. I don’t like watching videos, so essentially, what I do are checking my social media accounts and reading newspapers online. The gigabytes disappeared after nine days. I was left with other night stuffs,” he said.

    These are but few subscribers suffering in silence over a regime of inexplicable fast data depletion.

    The President, Association of Telecoms Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), Ikechukwu Nnamani, said most services that subscribers have access to utilise more data. The quality of the video services is also higher and that means more data consumption. “There are a lot of applications that run in the background that if the subscribers are not aware of and disable when they are not using it, their data will continue to run and deplete. The regulator has a policy in place to check how subscribers are charged and the regulator ensures (that) subscribers are not cheated by the operators,” he said.

    But significantly expanding internet access is vital for ensuring that children and young people are learning and acquiring the knowledge and skills they need to support a sustainable future.

    According to report, at the height of nationwide lockdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic, up to 1.6 billion children were affected by school closures, causing the largest mass disruption of education in modern history. Yet, even before schools shut their doors, one in five school-age children (three to 17) was out of school, and even children in schools were not necessarily learning, with 617 million children and adolescents worldwide failing to reach minimum proficiency levels in reading and mathematics.

    To address these gaps, more than 90 per cent of the world’s education ministries have adopted some type of remote learning policy, and stakeholders have sought to “reimagine education” by harnessing technology.

    The Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC) appears well aware of the importance of affordable data to promote learning.

    Its Chairman, Prof. Adeolu Akande, who delivered a lecture in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, said cost reduction would aid e-learning in the country.

    Speaking on:“Religion, education and national development” at the Foundation Day of Precious Corner Stone University, Ibadan, he said e-learning has become part of the new normal, no thanks to COVID-19 pandemic.

    Akande said the provision of broadband infrastructure by the Federal Government is one step to achieving lower data cost.

    He said the COVID-19 experience has shown that e-learning must be an integral part of the nation’s education system, implying a total overhaul of the education system.

    Akande said: “Certain percentage of intruction ought to have been given through visual learning process.

    “We have improved the backbone infrastructure like InfraCo (infrastructure providers), and licensing of private organisations to provide broadband infrastructure across the country.”

    The Commission too appears not to be turning deaf ears to the complaints of the subscribers as it said it has instituted a forensic audit into the reasons customers’data disappear with lightening speed.

    He said: “NCC has instituted a forensic audit on the cost of data, just like we did with cost of Short Message Service (SMS) on a particular mobile operator, where we discovered that the operator unlawfully surcharged its subscribers to the tune of over N100 million and we have asked the particular operator to make refunds immediately and the operator has commenced refund to the affected subscribers.

     

    This could have gone unnoticed, if not for the quick intervention of NCC. We have plans to even extend the forensic audit on SMS to other telecoms operators.

    “So like we did for SMS, we are doing same for data to find out the reason for fast data depletion and it will be carried out across all Mobile Network Operators (MNOs). By the time the audit is completed and the result is out, perhaps we will have better information of what is happening in the data segment, as it relates to fast data depletion.”

    He said the Commission did its benchmarking recently and discovered that the cost of 1 Gigabyte of data had come down below N500, which represents 50 per cent reduction from what it used to be. He said there is however a target to reduce data cost to N390/Gigabyte by the year 2025, adding that Commission is almost there.

    “The target, as enshrined in the National Broadband Plan (2020-2025) is to achieve N390/Gigabyte in the cost of data by the end of 2025, but the recent benchmarking that the NCC did, showed that the cost of data has reduced to more than 50 per cent from what it used to be at the beginning of 2020. For us as industry regulator, this is a good sign that data cost is coming down and that the issue of data depletion as experienced by subscribers, is gradually been addressed.

    “Although the reduction in the cost of data may not completely address the issue of fast data depletion as currently being experienced by subscribers, but that NCC is considering a new measure that will completely address the issue of data depletion,” he said.

    Prof Akande said the more the availability of these infrastructures, the more the prices of data will keep crashing. “As soon as most of these initiatives mature, the price of data will reduce to the bearest minimum,” he said. But many subscribers say while the grass grows the steed (horse) starves.

     

  • How I abandoned accounting for blogging, by Oriyomi

    How I abandoned accounting for blogging, by Oriyomi

    Entrepreneur Ipadeola Abiodun Oriyomi has opened up on how he left accounting for blogging.

    The founder of the blog, swag_omoluabi said he left accounting, which he said was good for him because he needed a new challenge in life.

    “Calculating figures and doing lots of statistics were becoming cumbersome, and I was not enjoying it anymore because I observed that the passion was gradually weaning off

    “With the growing population among youths and drive for something that they could relish the moments with, I advised myself that I could succeed in blogging if others were succeeding,” Oriyomi said.

    Ten years down the lane, he is thankful he left accounting.

    Read Also: EU, Germany, AFDEC train women entrepreneurs

     

    ” I have always looked back to be thankful for the decision I took to found a blog,” he reiterated.

    “I advise people that if you no longer find what you are doing suitable, you can alternate and pursue what you love.

    “Passion is key in every job, and once you get the passion right, everything will fall in place.

    “We encourage people to live their lives in the best professions or practices that they desire, so they can excel,” he shared.

  • ‘Leverage tech to fight terrorism, others’

    ‘Leverage tech to fight terrorism, others’

    The government has rejigged the security personnel to inject fresh vision into the fight against terrorism, banditry and other heinous crimes. Infrastructure such as emergency communications centres and other digital devices could reduce/mitigate the impacts of criminalities, LUCAS AJANAKU writes.

    Terrorism, banditry and other criminal activities have assumed a rather frightening dimension in the country.

    Terrorists have become skilled at manipulating the internet and other new technologies, but artificial intelligence (AI) is a powerful tool in the fight against them, Under Secretary-General, UN Counter-Terrorism Office (UNOCT), Vladimir Voronkov, said during a conference.

    Aside the deployment of modern technologies, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) said infrastructure such as the Emergency Communications Centres (ECCs) it is building across the country have been having far-reaching greater impacts in enhancing the Federal Government’s drive to improve security of lives and property.

    Its Chief Executive Officer/Executive Vice Chairman, Prof Garba Danbatta said then that the country was  faced with insecurity issues such as insurgency, banditry, kidnappings, armed robberies and more life-threatening issues such as the  pandemic, the ECCs has proved useful.

    Already in 18 states and Abuja, he said the infrastructure have served as an information hub for emergency responders  such as the Nigerian Police Force, the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), Fire and Ambulance Services, National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and so on by dialing 112 from any network.

    “The ECC has transformed lives and helped many in handling emergencies and today, it is having positive impacts on lives, improving security and providing jobs for the youths,” he said.

    He said it was in recognition of the important role ECC is playing in states where they have been activated that many others are asking the NCC to come and activate theirs. “Serious work is ongoing in this regard, as we know that this important life-saving facility supports security architecture in the country for improving security in our nation,”he assured.

    The ECCs were activated as a one-stop shop for receiving distress calls from the public and dispatching same to appropriate Emergency Response Agencies (ERAs) for timely response and resolution of the distress.

    The ECC project had been in limbo until a new management under the leadership of Danbatta, embarked on the construction and operationalisation of the ECCs across the states and the FCT in a bid to enhance President Muhammadu Buhari’s ongoing efforts at improving insecurity.

    During the lockdown occasioned by the pandemic, the ECCs played a key role by providing a platform for the public to seek information or report COVID-19 related cases by dialling ‘112’ from any of the networks. Over 1,500 COVID-19-related calls were received and processed in the peak of COVID-19 pandemic.

     

    Equipment

    Each of the ECC has 11 workstations,10 for call taking and one for the supervision); a server that receives and processes 112-calls from  the public before the calls are dispatched to the appropriate response agency to attend to the specific emergency; power supply mix consisting of the national grid, two units of 100 KVA generators, two units of 20KVA UPS and a 10KVa UPS; and six dispatch workstations for the response agencies.

    Constraint

    Lack of awareness among the populace, however, stands out as one major challenge confronting the initiative.

    But the NCC said members of the public do not have to memorise several 11-digit numbers from different response agencies, as was the case before.

    It said the 112 Emergency Number is totally toll-free – even when the caller has zero credit on the phone.

    Aside Abuja, ECCs have been activated in 19 states including Katsina, Kaduna, Kano, Kwara, Ogun, Plateau, Enugu, Benue, Akwa-Ibom, Cross-River, Oyo, Edo, Ondo, Ekiti, Adamawa, Kogi, Anambra and Imo states.

     

     

     

     

  • AFR-IX opens PoP at Rack Centre

    AFR-IX opens PoP at Rack Centre

    Internet Service Provider (ISP) AFR-IX has established its major Point of Presence (PoP) in Rack Centre, West Africa’s carrier neutral Tier III data centre.

    Founder/Chief Executive, Mr Norman Albi, said: “We needed a top-notch carrier neutral data centre facility for our services and connectivity solutions. Rack Centre satisfied our requirements for providing world-class Tier III certified data centre and data centre interconnection to our clients, especially in the West Africa subregion.

    “We offer an international high quality and personalised internet and data services to corporates and telecoms in the African continent and our extensive  pan African network covered with terrestrial and submarine cables makes AFR-IX one of the leading telecom operating service providers in Africa, and the most reliable and largest metro-ethernet network with multiprotocol label switching (MPLS).”

    Managing Director of Rack Centre, Dr Ayotunde Coker,  said the firm welcomes “AFR-IX to the array of local and global clients hosting in Rack Centre carrier neutral data centre. We will do our utmost as we do with all ourclients to deliver outstanding services for AFR-IX to serve its customers in Africa and beyond.

    “Since inception in 2013, Rack Centre has maintained a 100 per cent uptime and offers its customers, open access and uncapped interconnect capacities. Its non-affiliation with any telecoms carrier or ISPs unlocks access to multiple connectivity providers- over 40 carriers, ISPs and content distribution networks to choose from”.

    AFR-IX telecom group ranked  number 344 in the Financial Times 1000 and recognised in the 2020 annual list of Europe’s fastest growing companies.

    Albi said the recognition had helped the company build trust in the global markets, especially in Africa.

    Rack Centre recently announced a $100 million expansion plan, as part of the $250million that Actis, the UK based equity firm set aside for data centre investments in Africa.

    Actis recently took a majority stake in Rack Centre. The investment, Dr Coker explained has immensely impacted and reinforced Rack Centre’s global brand and enabled its rapid expansion to realise the market potential for high quality data centres in the region.

     

     

     

     

     

  • Ekiti, Coderina take coding, robotics, others to youths

    Ekiti, Coderina take coding, robotics, others to youths

    Ekiti State government has unveiled coding, robotics and Artificial Intelligence (AI) education in public schools to prepare youths for survival skills in the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR).

    Twelve schools from urban and underserved communities were selected by the government to participate in training on coding, robotics, AI and Machine Learning (ML).

    The programme was delivered by the team from Coderina Education and Technology Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation that leverages technology as an enabler for gender, social and economic change.

    The organisation also donated 12 robotics kits to the 12 schools through sponsorship from partners, including SAP, DOW, Ford, FIRST and the LEGO Foundation.

    Nominated teachers and students from the selected schools came together in Ado Ekiti for two days to partake in the inaugural training.

    A community of practice was also created for the teachers to continue the learning and sharin.

    The schools under the pilot phase are expected to ramp up to participate in the regional FIRST LEGO League Challenge; an experiential hands-on learning programme that inspires young learners to pursue a career in Science, Technology Engineering, Arts and Mathematics (STEAM).

    Ekiti State Governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi, through the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, Mr. James Owolabi, emphasised the importance of skills such as creative thinking, coding and AI as being important in the future of work as well as for entrepreneurship.

    He pledged support for the initiative and promised to ensure that the programme is scaled to schools across the state to ensure that no child was left behind.

    The state Commissioner for Education, Science, and Technology Emmanuel, Dr.  Olabimpe Aderiye, said the government is determined to position the state to ensure “our youth and society benefit from ICT advancement; the future is digital. This is the way to go”.

    Chairman, Coderina, Femi Niyi, lauded the state’s resolve to equip the youth with digital skills relevant for the 21st century knowledge economy.

    He said: “Coderina is quite happy that the Ekiti State government understands that when you foster creativity by teaching digital skills to students or young learners, it improves them not only academically, but helps also to improve their critical and creative reasoning and problem solving skills.

    He assured that Coderina will continue to support other states willing to equip their students for the future of work.

  • MultiChoice rules out pay-as-go subscription option

    MultiChoice rules out pay-as-go subscription option

    MultiChoice Nigeria has ruled out the possibility of implementing pay-as-go in the pay television industry in the country.

    It said such a subscription model would neither work for its DStv nor its GOtv services. It explained, however, that the pay-per-view option is very expensive.

    Its Chief Customer Officer, Martin Mabutho, who spoke while announcing price slash on its DStv and GOtv decoders starting today, said the billing model has no empirical practice anywhere, adding that it is not only technically impracticable, but also contractually cumbersome.

    Mabutho said it is not a question of wanting to implement it, but also its workability. He likened it to playing a football match and one team scoring and people asking for refund because some 45,000 supporters of the losing club would exit the stadium and dared anybody with information about where the subscription model is working in the world to say it.

    Speaking on the price slash, he said it would see the DStv HD decoder, dish kit with Compact package subscription drop from N18,600 to N9,900 on Confam package, while GOtv decoder, GOtennae with GOtv Jolli package subscription will go down from N8,400 to N6,900.

    DStv Confam is one of two recently-improved DStv packages specially designed for the Nigerian family. With over 120 channels, DStv Confam offers the best of family time with international entertainment, kids, news and sports boasting of a range of channels including SuperSport La Liga, CBS Reality, FOX, BET and Cartoon Network.

    GOtv Jolli, also a recently-improved package on the DTT offering, offers a broad selection of over 68 local and international channels to choose from. Some of the channels available include SuperSport Football, ROK 2, Telemundo, FOX, Davinci Learning and Africa News.

    Mabutho said the price slash was part of MultiChoice’s efforts to lessening the economic impact of COVID on customers and a reflection of its commitment to making quality entertainment more accessible to Nigerians.

    “With this discount, we are lowering the entry barrier for new customers to get a DStv or GOtv decoder as staying connected to credible information and other quality programming can be comforting for many families during these trying times.

    “In addition to the discount we are running our DStv Step Up offer which gives our customers on lower packages an opportunity to experience programming on higher packages, and a GOtv Max offer, which sees customers on Jolli and Jinja enjoy a special discount of N2,999 instead of N3,600 per month,” Mabutho added.

    The discounted DStv and GOtv bundle offer will be available from Monday, February 1, 2021 for a limited time only.

    Government respectively, N400 million to the creative industry, whose professionals experienced disruptions in productions; donation of 30,000 Personal Protective Equipment and 30,000 face masks to hospitals and Non-Governmental Organisations as well as an approved inventory worth over N550million highlighting NCDC’s COVID-19 helplines and PSA materials on over 10 channels on DStv and GOtv.

     

     

  • Cybercrooks in virtual ‘scramble for Africa’

    Cybercrooks in virtual ‘scramble for Africa’

    The global pandemic has necessitated lockdowns, which have impacted the global economy.  Cybercrooks are expected to up their games in mobile fraud, writes LUCAS AJANAKU.

     

     

    Africa’s mobile fraud losses will continue to rise above last year’s $4billion to peak at a record $5billion by the end of this year, Paris-based anti-fraud campaigner, David Lotfi has warned.

    He said something had to be done to prevent global cybercriminals from looting the continent’s wealth in a new, virtual ‘scramble for Africa’.

    Lotfi, who is also the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Evina, said: “In Africa, we have the perfect storm of a youthful population using almost a billion mobile money accounts coupled with the Coronavirus-related one-third increase in internet traffic.”

    Evina said professional cybercriminals from around the world are costing Africa billions every year that could be spent on infrastructure and social services.

    Last November, the company identified the top five African and Middle Eastern countries where mobile fraud is most prevalent as Cameroon, Kenya, South Africa, Jordan and Oman.

    The percentage of mobile-based billing transactions in each country that have been identified as suspect by Evina’s network of fraud sensors are 51 per cent, 30 per cent, 20 per cent, 18 per cent and 10 per cent.

    Lotfi explained that mobile payment is being impacted by two primary forms of mobile fraud.

    He said: “Today, clickjacking and malicious app are the two most common forms of mobile fraud. Through the clickjacking technique, a fraudster intercepts a legitimate click and unknowingly directs the user to a website where sensitive financial and other details can be stolen. Malicious apps are trickier, these apps have been injected with malware during a disguised app update or right from the start when the user unwittingly downloads the app from the app store, with the same purpose of defrauding the user.”

    Evina said in the Middle Eastern and African regions, the fraud rate is 27 per cent and of these fraudulent attacks, 60 per cent are clickjacking and 19per cent malicious apps.

    While embedding malware in malicious apps can be a more refined fraudulent technique, clickjacking is a very basic type of fraud that has been around for at least five years and mostly eradicated in large parts of the mobile world, the company added.

    “It’s easy to combat and there really is no excuse for the fact that one in three mobile subscriptions in South Africa, for example, is fraudulent. Evina has repeatedly communicated  that the fraudsters who continue to loot Africa’s wealth can be beaten with the right tools that we already use to protect millions of mobile transactions worldwide every day,”  Lotfi said.

    Evina said it protects up to 90 per cent of mobile transaction in Ivory Coast, Morocco and Senegal, and also secures traffic in Mali, Ghana, Congo, Kenya, Botswana, Angola and countries in the Middle East, including Algeria, Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya.

    “Africa is a strategic region of huge importance to Evina and the greater mobile industry because this is where strong double-digit growth is coming from. We cannot allow mobile fraudsters to gain a beachhead on this pivotal continent key to the future fortunes of so many telcos, aggregators and digital merchants,” Lotfi continued.

    “Evina has already taken on mobile fraudsters in other markets and contributed to a dramatic drop in fraud in those markets. African firms need to act now if they want to ensure the future of the continent’s entire mobile content and applications market.”

     

  • Smile upgrades network

    Smile upgrades network

    4G LTE Broadband service provider, Smile Nigeria has completed the upgrade of its Core Network Expansion (CNE).

    This upgrade is significant in its far-reaching modernisation of the network for increased capacity to enable the firm serve more customers and improve the experience of existing customers.

    Its Chief Technical Officer Akinola Alayoku, said the Radio Network Expansion started in last month, adding that the expansion would improve the internet experience of customers on the network giving them SuperFastinternet experience.

    Acting Managing Director of the firm, Abhulime Ehiagwina, said the upgrade was strategically timed to coincide with the period of high traffic on the network.

    He said the CNE aligns with Smile’s global vision and mission to be the mobile broadband provider of choice in all markets, whilst enabling its customers to do and achieve more.

    He further said having the best network in its class “is something we have a passion for, and we are excited about this latest upgrade as it will enable us to redouble efforts towards providing continued access to SuperFast, SuperReliable and affordable 4G LTE services to all Nigerians”.

    Its Chief Marketing Officer Abdul Hafeez, said the upgrade reaffirmred Smile’s commitment to creating opportunities that would enable the customers  enjoy the best broadband internet experience by providing differentiating solutions that will enrich their lives.

    He said the upgrade was done to enhance   service quality,  extend internet connectivity and access to  more Nigerians, make quality access more affordable and empower the customers to do more and succeed in their respective endeavors.

     

    A cross section of Smile subscribers have confirmed remarkable improvement that the upgrade has engendered. John Okosun, a Lagos-based Company Executive, said he is pleased by the upgrade. He confirmed being on the Smile Network for about five years and applauded the company for “lots of new ideas and new ways to deliver what customers really need, super-fast internet that you can manage and use to improve your business or your experiences at home”.  For Hassan Umaru, an Abuja-based Civil Servant is happy with the “fast pace and reliability of the Smile network”. To Dagogo Whyte, an entrepreneur in Port Harcourt, Smile’s constant upgrade of the network continues to set it apart from the others. To him, “it is thumbs up for Smile for always thinking right and doing the right thing”.

    Acclaimed as the pioneer of 4G LTE technology in West Africa, Smile Nigeria is famous for continuously enhancing services to beat the existing industry benchmark and expand on the existing market offers in a bid to provide real value adding products and services.