South Africa’s newest bank, Bank Zero has revealed plans for a steady move from its current beta testing to a public launch with people who supplied their details on the Bank Zero website next year. Speaking to MyBroadband, the Bank Zero founder, Michael Jordaan revealed the details of the bank’s plans. In May he said Bank Zero planned to launch a controlled public beta early in the second half of 2020. The new digital bank published its pricing guide for individual and business customers in October, but a public launch has been pushed out to 2021. Bank Zero CEO Yatin…
Author: Malama Mulenga
Introducing MoMo International Airtime, MTN South Africa has officially launched cross-border airtime which allows users to purchase airtime for recipients in other countries, and this applies to foreign nationals living in South Africa and South Africans with friends and family living overseas. MoMo (MTN Mobile Money) users that are registered, will be able to access the service on the MoMo app or via the MoMo USSD menu. Users do not have to be MTN customers to take advantage of the service. Users will be charged for the airtime in South African rand and it will reflect in the relevant local…
Now that the lockdown restrictions have increased again, the video conferencing platform, Zoom, has increased the amount of call time for the holidays. Since South Africans can’t really go to beaches or exceed 100 people in a restaurant, it might be a good idea to explore a digital holiday. Internationally dispersed families have been doing it for years, and it may be the perfect excuse not to deal with your aunt that got drunk and fell over the braai again. Just do a video-call Christmas. Zoom is lifting its 40-minute meeting limit for free accounts across the globe for this…
Africa’s leading private education provider, ADvTECH, has announced the launch of a premium dynamic digital learning platform aimed at upskilling individuals and corporate teams, MindSharp. A couple of the MindSharp courses are authorised by The Independent Institute of Education (IIE), SA’s largest and most accredited private higher education provider, whose well-respected brands include Vega, Varsity College, IIE MSA and Rosebank College. Endorsement by the IIE means that all the aspects of the courses have been thoroughly evaluated on multiple dimensions. The company revealed that the online courses offered by MindSharp are designed by industry experts, range between 10 and 16…
The American company, Uber has sold its flying taxi enterprise Elevate in order to focus on its core business and reach profitability. It was the last of several of its outlandish research and development projects it hoped would pay off significantly in the future. The move will allow Joby to use Uber’s app to offer air taxi rides when the company’s aircraft eventually enters service, which could be as soon as 2023. While terms of the transaction were not released, Uber has agreed to invest $75 million in Joby Aviation. Earlier this year, Uber invested $50 million in Joby as…
The recruitment company, Workforce Holdings has bought software, OpenSource Intelligent Solutions and OpenSource International, with effect from 1 January 2021. The maximum purchase consideration is R24 208 875, subject to OpenSource achieving certain performance targets over three years. OpenSource is a South African and Mauritius-based business established in 1993. The company places skilled SAP resources on both a contract and permanent basis at clients utilising SAP’s enterprise resource planning system. In addition, OpenSource provides SAP training and other services, including SAP site maintenance and payroll outsourcing. The company is an accredited SAP partner and resources consultant across all SAP modules…
Lenovo launched the world’s first foldable laptop a couple of months ago, and now the company has introduced the laptop to South Africa. The foldable computer is now available for pre-order from Lenovo’s South African website for the retail launch early in the new year. The ThinkPad X1 Fold converts from a big, powerful tablet into a small compact laptop with beefy specs. It has a 13.1-inch OLED display, that folds nearly flat. The gap in the fold is smartly filled by the Bluetooth Mini Fold Keyboard, clipping on with magnets, meaning there is no gap where dust and moisture…
Computer electronics companies are currently looking at a possibility of sales being improved going into year 2021, although according to analysts, these tailwinds could be tempered by stock prices that are near all-time highs. The Philadelphia Semiconductor index rose 1.2% on Monday, bringing its year-to-date advance to nearly 50%. The industry benchmark has easily outperformed the 13% gain of the S&P 500, as well as the 36% rise of the S&P 500 information technology index. Bloomberg said this rally sets high expectations for sales and EPS momentum through 2021. With that being said though, barring severe Covid-19 impediments, chipmakers can…
Samsung Group has revealed that you can now use its contactless payment solution, Samsung Pay, at any Gautrain station. Samsung Pay allows you use the NFC chip of your Galaxy smartphone or smartwatch to complete contactless payments on card machines, and this new update means that users can also use the payment solution at Gautrain ticket readers. Previously, only contactless bank cards and Gautrain cards could be used. In a statement released by the company, Samsung said the system allows users to load their bank cards and store loyalty cards and adds even more convenience with the ability to use…
The American multinational technology company, Amazon is set to generate its own electricity to run through the grid of South Africa’s struggling state-owned power utility Eskom, and it has emerged that it will source the power from a giant solar farm to be built in the Northern Cape. The project has already been approved by energy regulator Nersa and it is being led by energy experts, The SOLA Group. It will supply 28GWh of solar power, “wheeled” via Eskom’s grid, to Amazon facilities each year, including the recently launched data centres in Cape Town built by Amazon’s cloud computing subsidiary,…
