Author: John Nyabuto

The East African submarine cable landscape reached a defining milestone today as LuLu, the Kenyan coast’s first fully protected coastal cable system, was announced at ITW Africa 2026. The LuLu Coastal Cable System is a submarine cable designed to strengthen connectivity along Kenya’s 500km Indian Ocean coast, linking five strategic landing points from Mombasa to Lamu, including Vipingo SEZ, Kilifi and Malindi. It is an integrated system combining a submarine cable running along the Indian Ocean seabed with a parallel, protected terrestrial pathway -engineered to deliver the highest levels of resilience, redundancy, and availability that mission-critical industries, governments, and international…

Visa has announced an enhanced version of A2A Protect, delivering real-time risk insights that help banks stop account-to-account fraud before money leaves customer accounts. The expanded solution introduces a new unified fraud score—Visa’s first in-market integration of Featurespace technology—giving financial institutions faster, clearer signals to detect more fraud while reducing unnecessary alerts. As account-to-account (A2A) payments accelerate globally, A2A transactions are projected to surpass 5.8 trillion by 2028, a 160% increase from 2024. A2A Protect leverages advanced AI and sophisticated transfer learning and gives banks immediate access to critical global risk insights on A2A transactions, without waiting months for models…

Africa skipped fixed-line telephony for mobile and skipped branch banking for mobile money. Binance says agentic AI could be the next technology the continent leapfrogs into rather than simply catches up on, and that the businesses moving fastest right now are the ones starting with a clear sense of what they want an agent to do. The momentum is real. Industry research projects that more than 40% of enterprise applications will include task-specific AI agents by the end of 2026, up from under 5% in 2025, while separate surveys of enterprise leaders indicate that 72% are already using or testing agents…

Within the GITEX Nigeria Expo, taking place on September 2-3 in Lagos, Kaspersky, a global cybersecurity and digital privacy company, announces the update in its flagship Kaspersky Next product line. Kaspersky Next Optimum tier now enables small and medium‑sized businesses to augment their defences with purpose‑built Security Modules – Security Awareness, Email Security, Workload Security, Threat Lookup & Analysis and Vulnerability Management – extending protection without redesigning the existing technology stack.   As small and medium‑sized businesses (SMBs) grow, they encounter increasingly diverse types of threats. A recent survey conducted by Kaspersky’s internal research center shows that over the past year the most common external incidents…

Doage has today announced the launch of its strategic advisory and commercialisation platform. This platform will help InsurTech startups, insurers, investors and technology companies turn their ideas and innovation to commercial growth. Speaking on this, Dominic Agesa Kavugwi, the founder of Doage said, “Africa does not have a shortage of innovation. What we still have is a commercialisation gap.” The platform will partner with InsurTech startups, insurance companies, investors, venture capital firms, accelerators and international technology businesses. This is strategic and will be key as these partners develop and scale insurance and technology products across Africa. Doage will also cover…

Samsung has today officially launched the Galaxy S26 FE in Kenya. The phone will be available for KES 103,100 for the 8GB RAM model with 256GB of storage.  It will be available through select retail stores from September 4, 2026. The S26 FE comes with a 6.7-inch Dynamic AMOLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate and a 4,900mAh battery. Samsung says the battery can be charged to 69% in just 30 minutes when using a 45W adapter. Manish Jangra, Head of Mobile Experience at Samsung, said, “With the Galaxy S26 FE, our objective is to lower the barrier to premium…

National Bank of Kenya (NBK) has reported a strong financial performance for the six months ended June 30, 2026. The bank’s Profit After Tax rose by 61% to KSh 1.72 billion from KSh 1.07 billion recorded during the same period in 2025. NBK says this growth is as a result of high net interest income, a sharp reduction in credit impairment charges and continued cost management as the bank advances its transformation strategy. Loans and deposits drive balance sheet growth NBK’s net interest income rose by 11% to KSh 5.40 billion from KSh 4.87 billion recorded in H1 2025. Non-interest…

Samsung Electronics East Africa, in partnership with Megahub Connect Limited, has opened a second official Samsung Experience Store in Nairobi’s Central Business District (CBD). The new store is located at Cameo Building along Kenyatta Avenue and follows the opening of Samsung’s first Experience Store at Hilton in 2024. The outlet is designed as an interactive retail space where customers can see, test and experience Samsung products before making a purchase. It features Galaxy smartphones and tablets alongside wearables, Galaxy Buds and other connected devices within the wider Galaxy ecosystem. Store brings Galaxy AI closer to Nairobi consumers A key focus…

LG Electronics (LG) is expanding its built-in appliance portfolio in Kenya with the introduction of its 2026 lineup of ovens, hoods and hobs, as rising investment in modern homes drives demand for integrated kitchen solutions. The country’s household cooking appliances market is projected to record USD 19.1 million (KES2.5 b) in incremental gains between 2026 and 2031, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.69 percent over the period. The broader household appliance market is meanwhile projected to increase from approximately USD 49 million (KES6.3B) in 2025 to more than USD 73 million (KES9.5 b) by 2029, reflecting…

ESET Research has released its latest Threat Report summarising how the threat environment has changed since December 2025, drawing on ESET telemetry and the analysis of its threat detection and research teams. Globally, the report describes a period in which artificial intelligence has become both a target for attackers and how they carry out attacks, with ESET analysing around 900,000 AI skills and finding more than 3,000 to be outright malicious. For Kenyan organisations, however, the more useful reading of the data is that the local threats are not exotic. They are the same techniques seen elsewhere, applied locally, and…