SBM Bank Kenya has announced a strong start to 2026, reporting a profit before tax (PBT) of KShs. 246 million for the first quarter up from KShs. 12 million in Q1 2025 reinforcing the Bank’s shift from turnaround stabilisation to sustainable, scalable performance. The quarter’s results reflect disciplined execution of a CEO-led transformation agenda focused on balance sheet optimisation, customer growth, and transaction-led banking supported by targeted investment in technology, digital journeys and payments capabilities. SBM Bank Kenya delivered a strong start to 2026, with profit before tax rising to KShs. 246 million in Q1 2026 from KShs. 12 million…
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The Hashgraph Association (THA), the Swiss-based non-profit advancing digital enablement, innovation, and education across the Hedera ecosystem, together with Exponential Science (ES), a global non-profit dedicated to accelerating emerging technologies through research, education, and ecosystem building, today announced the winners of the 2025 Hedera Africa Hackathon. The announcement marks the conclusion of the world’s largest Web3 hackathon to date, which brought together more than 13,000 developers, produced over 1,300 project submissions, and onboarded more than 45,000 participants into its education and certification pipeline across 20+ major African hubs and online. The winning projects reflect a more mature and pragmatic vision…
Canada is implementing a federal framework for payment service providers under the Retail Payment Activities Act, overseen by the Bank of Canada. Under this framework, registered providers are subject to requirements for operational risk management, safeguarding end-user funds, and incident reporting. The cross-border payment platform, Grey, has now been registered under the RPAA as part of this framework. Grey’s registration under the RPAA allows the company to offer payment services to customers in Canada in alignment with these regulatory requirements. The company supports transfers to Canadian bank accounts, including payments facilitated through domestic transfer systems such as Interac, via its…
Visa announced a new suite of six dispute resolution tools to help address the growing cost, complexity and inefficiencies of payment disputes across the global ecosystem. These tools use artificial intelligence and automation to simplify dispute handling, reduce fraud-related losses and improve operational efficiency. The new & enhanced dispute resolution tools for merchants focus on: Visa is also targeting issuers and acquirers with AI-driven tools designed to improve decision-making and efficiency: According to Andrew Torre, President of Value-Added Services at Visa, disputes have become a major strain across the payments ecosystem. “Disputes put strain on every part of the payments…
Jiji has seen a significant rise in demand for pre-owned goods. Search results in Q1 2026 showed a 70% increase in used-item searches versus the same period in 2025. This represents over 14.7 million unique searches in Q1 alone. Thus, reflecting a sustained shift in consumer purchasing behaviour. This growth outpaces interest in new items, signalling a structural change in how consumers approach value, affordability, and utility in their purchasing decisions. Across categories such as electronics, vehicles, and home essentials, buyers are increasingly prioritizing functionality and cost-effectiveness. This shift comes amid continued pressure on household budgets. According to the Kenya…
Cross Switch has announced the appointment of Gillian Koinange as Head of Business Development, East Africa. This exciting appointment reinforces the company’s commitment to accelerating growth and deepening its presence across the region. Gillian brings over two decades of experience driving revenue growth and building strategic partnerships across Africa, with a strong focus on the IT, telecommunications, fintech, and SaaS sectors. She is recognized for her ability to scale pan-African portfolios, lead high-performing teams, and deliver impressive commercial outcomes in complex markets. In her new role, Gillian will be responsible for expanding Cross Switch’s footprint in East Africa, strengthening relationships with…
NTT DATA has announced the launch of NTT DATA Software Defined Infrastructure (SDI) Services Agent, a conversational agentic service experience for enterprise infrastructure. Embedded within NTT DATA’s SDI Services, this multi-agent system is redefining how enterprises operate, optimize and govern AI infrastructure at scale. The SDI Services agent acts as an orchestrator selectively triggering the appropriate agents in the background. This multi-agent system continuously senses, reasons and acts across networking, hybrid data center, cybersecurity and digital workplace environments – delivering predictive intelligence, faster resolutions and measurable outcomes across availability, utilization and business value. This marks a significant evolution of NTT DATA’s SDI Services. Acting as…
The Stellar Development Foundation (SDF), the nonprofit behind Stellar, the high-performance network for near-instant, low-cost cross-border payments and asset tokenisation, which consistently holds a top-30 position by market capitalization, has announced the Stellar x CV Labs Accelerator. The Stellar x CV Labs Accelerator comes as the Stellar network is seeing measurable growth across both usage and institutional adoption. In 2025, real-world assets on Stellar grew by 158%, while total value locked increased by 127%. More than 800 active projects are now building across payments, savings, lending, and liquidity use cases, and the network has surpassed 10 million active accounts and more than 21.5…
Binance, the global blockchain ecosystem behind the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, today highlighted the continued scaling of the Binance Card into Africa. Binance Card is a payment solution designed to enable everyday transactions using digital asset balances. The initiative represents a step forward in enabling users to seamlessly integrate digital assets into everyday transactions, reinforcing Binance’s commitment to advancing accessible and practical crypto payment solutions globally. The Binance Card allows users to make purchases and access funds using cryptocurrencies at hundreds of millions of merchants that accept Mastercard worldwide. By automatically converting supported digital assets into local…
Axis Communications has shared details of its partnership with iXAfrica, East Africa’s largest hyperscale, carrier-neutral data centre, through the brand’s latest customer success story. The story explores how iXAfrica set out to build a secure, trusted environment for enterprises, cloud service providers and connectivity providers at NBOX1, the firm’s flagship data centre in Nairobi. It highlights how a reliable security environment that leverages Axis devices and technologies ensures operational visibility and control while unlocking intelligent insights that enable proactive security and enhanced efficiency. “Our work with iXAfrica embodies how Axis has evolved its product offering to help the world secure…