African markets and business updates

The Executive Secretary of the West Africa Telecommunications Regulators Assembly (WATRA), Aliyu Yusuf Aboki, has urged Nigeria to build on the gains of its telecommunications reforms by focusing on economy-wide digital transformation as the next phase of development.

Payaza Africa Limited has secured upgraded credit ratings from four...

The Group Managing Director of Zedcrest, parent company of Zedvance, Adedayo Amzat, has announced a strategic shift in the firm’s asset deployment, committing 100 per cent of its active loan portfolio to small and medium enterprises and critical ecosystem enablers. This is in a major move to address the financing constraints plaguing Nigeria’s mid-market enterprises. […]

The Catholic Bishops of Africa have received with profound shock, sorrow, and indignation the news of the violent killing of Bishop Osório Afonso in his episcopal residence in Quelimane, Mozambique. This heinous act, perpetrated against a shepherd of God’s people, constitutes not only an attack on the life and dignity of a devoted servant of the Gospel but also an assault on the values of peace, justice, human dignity, and religious freedom that are essential for the flourishing of every society.…

Blnk , an Egyptian fintech that enables consumers to request loans during point-of-sale (PoS) checkouts, has raised $37.1 million in equity and debt financing to expand its lending to consumers with little or no formal access to credit. The raise includes a $12.5 million Series A equity round led by Algebra Ventures, with participation from SANAD Fund for MSME, Endeavor Catalyst, and existing investor Emirates International Investment Company. Blnk also secured $24.…

This is Follow the Money , our weekly series that unpacks the earnings, business, and scaling strategies of African fintechs, financial institutions, companies, and governments. A new edition drops every Monday. Deposits at the Kenyan subsidiaries of three of Nigeria’s biggest banks have more than doubled over the past five years, signalling growing customer uptake as the lenders expand their East African footprint through acquisitions and organic growth.…

Nearly nine years after the killing of two United Nations experts in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the country's High Military Court has delivered its final verdict.

The Journal of Public Health in Africa (JPHIA) ( ), owned by the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) ( ), has launched three new article categories to accelerate the sharing of public health evidence, policy insights and news from across the continent. These new categories complement the journal’s existing article types, which include original research, reviews, opinions, implementation articles and case reports. The new categories – ‘Rapid Communications’…

Central African Republic is the latest African nation to agree to accept third-country deportees from the United States, according to a report from Reuters.

Contaminated land is rarely a contained technical problem. A site may have a defined boundary on a map, but its risks can change as groundwater moves, land use shifts, climate conditions become less predictable, and surrounding land uses change over time. Regulators, landowners, communities, and developers may also have different expectations and different ideas of …