The banking industry is in the midst of a profound transformation driven mostly via evolving digital technologies. With consumers demanding more and more convenience, transparency, and personalized services, the banking industry is faced with the urgent need to re-invent, innovate, and also reshaping the way in which banking is imagined. Major Banking Landscape Revolution This evolution is nothing short of revolutionary, and with more digital banking services emerging each year,it holds the prospect of a completely new banking landscape to appear in a short space of time. Digital Bank Revolut, has confirmed to Business Tech Africa that it is in…
Author: Greg Stewart
Building on the success of the 2024 edition of the Hustle academy, Google has announced the opening of applications for the 2025 edition. The Hustle Academy program, is a free online development program, aimed at empowering small and medium-sized enterprises (SME’s or SMB’s) across South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria, and will continue to emphasize AI-powered business training, alongside the launch of a new season of the popular “Hustle Academy Brings You” speaker series. SME’s across the African continent often face multiple hurdles in establishing themselves with limited access to funding, inadequate business resources, and a lack of specialized skills hindering…
Business & Tech News Japan’s Government Bond Surges Japan’s 10-year government bond yield saw a surge of almost 1.6% this morning, reaching its best level in more than 16 years. The growth was driven by investors’ confidence that the Bank of Japan will continue raising interest rates this year. Last week, BOJ Deputy Governor Shinichi Uchida indicated that the BOJ is likely to hike rates further if economic forecasts align with expectations. The announcement emphasizing that Japan’s exit from ultra-loose monetary policy is only beginning. Uchida also highlighted that monetary conditions remain highly accommodative, with the BOJ’s reduction in JGB…
Côte d’Ivoire’s Ecobank, a subsidiary of Ecobank Transnational Incorporated has issued the first Gender focused bond in West Africa taking a big step forward in its commitment to supporting financial inclusion for women-owned and led businesses in the region. This groundbreaking bond issuance, amounting to $16,5 million, aims to mobilize further funding specifically for women-owned businesses, reducing financing inequalities and fostering inclusive economic growth. Tangible impact on Women-Led Business The fund is named “Ellever Gender Bond 6.5% 2024-2029,” and has been structured and arranged by EDC Investissement Corporation (EIC), Ecobank’s Brokerage and Asset Management subsidiary. The issuance marking Ecobank Côte d’Ivoire’s…
Here are a few key facts you should know about the shifting threat landscape Outlined in the Crowdstrike 2025 Global Threat Report: GenAI Aiding Cyber Attacks Generative artificial intelligence (genAI), for instance has become completely integrated within the cyber attackers arsenal. And it is proving to be highly effective in the hands of security adversaries across all major categories — nation-state, eCrime, and hacktivist, they have all become early and avid adopters. According to the report, the “force multiplier” impact of off-the-shelf chat-bots has made genAI a popular addition to the global hacker toolbox, along with legitimate organizations, easy access…
According to the latest Lenovo CIO Playbook 2025 Report, There is a growing adoption of Artificial Intelligence across a wide range of enterprise sectors at an unprecedented scale. The study, conducted in partnership with IDC, provides insights from over 620 Information Technology and business leaders across the CEMEA region, providing a perspective on organizational ambitions, the maturation of GenAI use cases, key areas for deeper AI adoption, and the challenges in realizing the full benefits of the technology. The limitation of the study however is that according to the methodology and scope of the study, it focused predominantly on the…
Microsoft’s Vice Chair and President, Brad Smith, was in Johannesburg yesterday, (6 March) to announce an expanded investment plan, with Microsoft to spend an additional ZAR 5.4bn ($297 Million) within the next two years. This additional investment will be utilised in the expansion of the Microsoft cloud and AI infrastructure, that will see the first enterprise-grade datacentres being built in Johannesburg and Cape Town in South Africa. These developments are aimed at meeting the growing demand for Azure services in the Southern African region. According to Smith, “For more than 30 years, Microsoft has been a committed partner to…
With ever increasing political turmoil across the globe, there is a real need for democratic principles to be re-established and for stability to return to the African continent. There has been a deluge of ongoing talk of “economic revolution” across the continent for decades now without any real progress towards sustainable, and stable development, that could take the continent from one where there is constant reliance on other nations, some with seriously questionable intents and ethics, to self-grown independent development. One of the increasingly vexing issues across Africa is the growing number of conflicts and lack of peaceful resolutions and…
The latest gross domestic product (GDP) number for South Africa, saw an increase in GDP of 0,6% in the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2024, following a contraction of -0,1% in the third quarter of 2024. This is good news for the South African market being the highest GDP growth in some time. It is still way behind the average GDP across the African continent of over 3% but it is a movement in the right direction after the contraction seen last year in Q3. There is a clear indication however that despite this GDP growth, manufacturing facing increasing pressure driven…
Business & Tech News Google Launches Experimental AI Search Engine Google has launched an experimental version of its search engine that completely utilises an AI-generated summary of search results. The new feature, available to subscribers of Google One AI Premium, can be accessed via the results page for any search query by clicking on a tab labelled “AI Mode” to the side of existing options like Images and Maps. Google search, currently displays AI Overviews, summaries that appear above regular search results and the normal hyperlinks to relevant webpages in more than 100 countries. Google also started adding advertisements to AI Overviews in…
