Author: Staff Writer
Planet42, an Estonian car subscription company that helps individuals ignored by banks to get access to a personal vehicle, has announced a $10 million (R152 million) raise from US-based Lendable Inc, an institutional debt investor. To date, Planet 42 has bought and delivered over 2,000 second-hand cars in South Africa, its primary market. “Our ambition is to make mobility accessible to everyone who can afford it, including the people that banks deem ‘blacklisted’, which comprise more than 90% of our clientele,” says Eerik Oja, the CEO and co-founder of Planet42. “We’ve already signed up over 300 car dealerships across South…
African micro-insurance FinTech aYo Holdings has broken through the 10 million customer mark in under four years after starting operations. aYo’s new CEO Marius Botha says the milestone is set to trigger a period of further growth. MTN, Africa’s largest mobile phone group, has increased its shareholding in aYo through acquisition of additional shares. MTN now owns 75% of aYo, it was disclosed last week Monday. For more read: MTN INCREASES STAKE IN MOBILE MICRO-INSURANCE FIRM AYO In 2017, South Africa’s third-biggest insurer Momentum Metropolitan and MTN launched aYo. aYo provides you with a fast, convenient, and easy to use insurance right on your…
Telkom today announced the launch of a digital wallet officially dubbed Telkom Pay Digital Wallet or Telkom Pay. The company said Telkom Pay allows users to pay others and get paid themselves using their mobile phone through the WhatsApp messaging app to anyone on their contacts list. It also serves as a cashless Point of Sale (POS) payment option for businesses. “We are launching financial services solutions that cater to everyone and that are easy to access through one’s phone 24/7 at an affordable price for consumers and businesses. Our device insurance has been in the market for a number…
2020 marks the end of the UN Decade for Road Safety. South Africa joined other nations a decade ago as a part of the United Nations Decade of Action for Road Safety to reduce road fatalities and injuries by 50% by 2020 due to the fact that it is a major public health threat across the globe, claiming 1.3 million lives every year and injuring about 20 to 50 million people more. Unfortunately, little progress has been made and South Africa’s road death statistics are unacceptably high. The number or road deaths peak during the Festive Season. Earlier this year…
Digital payments FinTech Ozow says it processed in excess of R1 billion in transactions in a month, for the first time in November 2020. This is thanks to a Black Friday surge where the single biggest transaction was more than R500,000 on a popular ecommerce site. After being founded in 2014, it took the company two years and nine months to process its first R1 billion. Since then, the growth has been exponential, says Ozow’s CEO and co-founder, Thomas Pays. “It’s astounding to see how popular instant payment solutions have become. A growing number of South Africans are using instant…
LocumBase, the independent online platform that brings medical practices and locum practitioners together through a simplified locum booking process, has secured funding from E ² Investments and Jozi Angels. Zulé Vuuren, LocumBase founder and Chief Energy Officer, says that as a market-first the platform is in a constant state of evolution as it aims to meet the needs of South Africa’s medical fraternity. “A product and service like LocumBase has not been done before on the African continent. There was a lot of learning to do before our product could address the needs of the market, which is why we…
The University of Pretoria (UP) officially opened its state-of-the-art Engineering 4.0 facility, which focuses on research on smart transport, cities and infrastructure. Situated on the Innovation Africa at UP campus in Hillcrest, Engineering 4.0 is a first for Africa. It is a collaboration with the South African National Roads Agency (SANRAL), the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) – an entity of the Department of Science and Innovation and York Timbers. “Through its focus on the development of integrated transportation and infrastructure systems, Engineering 4.0’s research is concentrating on the reduction of energy consumption levels in transportation, maximising productivity in industry…
Huawei Pay, a payments system for Huawei smartphone users, will be launched in South Africa later this week. In partnership with local payments company Zapper, Huawei Pay be launched in South Africa on 3 December. “We are proud to launch Huawei Pay in South Africa in partnership with Zapper,” Likun Zhao, Vice President at Huawei Consumer Business Group for Southern Africa, says. “With Huawei Pay, you add your bank cards to the app and then pay in stores simply by scanning the Zapper QR Payment Code on the bill when you check out. “All local debit and credit…
What’s the one thing that people carry with them all the time? If you said a phone, you’d be correct. Whether it’s checking a shopping list in a supermarket, passing the time while waiting for takeaways or walking from the kitchen to the lounge in our own homes, there are few occasions when your smartphone is not with you. Understanding consumer behaviour like smartphone habits is vital for the survival of any industry. Aviation is no different and has evolved with its customers’ needs with a mobile-first approach – something that is proving to be vital in a world fundamentally…
South African tech startup LetMeIn.to has raised R2.2 million in funding from an impact investor to scale up and expand their visitor and access management platform. The seed fund provides capital and support to value-aligned entrepreneurs that build and scale responsible businesses with a positive impact on society. In March 2020, the team at LetMeIn.to launched CoronaFighter, a chatbot and web-enabled app that assists large organisations to screen and track symptoms of COVID-19 in the workforce through a simple self-monitoring process. Created and developed by Doctors Jarrad Van Zuydam and Rick Diesel, Paul Van Zyl of Sigma Digital and Daniel…
The second annual CHRO Awards celebrated the best and brightest of SA’s HR leaders and the overall winner was Discovery’s Tswelo Kodisang. Kodisang, Discovery chief people officer, has been named South Africa’s CHRO of the Year at the second annual CHRO Awards. This was announced on Thursday 26 November 2020 at the end of a gala event for HR executives, held at Inanda Club in Johannesburg Kodisang scooped three of the eight accolades awarded on the night, also winning the Strategy & Leadership Award, and the HR & Technology Award. Another big winner at the prestigious event, the largest gathering…
National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) students will now only receive their laptops next year owing to the delays in the tendering process. Higher Education, Science and Innovation Minister, Dr Blade Nzimande, profusely apologised to those who have been affected by the hold-up following the re-advertisement of the tender to supply and deliver laptops in September. The portable personal computers are aimed for the NSFAS students registered at universities and the Technical, and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) colleges for the 2020 academic year. Speaking during a media briefing on Thursday, Nzimande, said by the closing date of the tender…
The Vodacom Foundation has announced the launch of a free application designed to aid in the fight against Gender Based Violence (GBV). As South Africans retreated inside their homes due to the lockdown measures introduced by government to curb the COVID-19 pandemic earlier this year, reports showed an alarming increase in the number of GBV cases. President Cyril Ramaphosa has declared this scourge of violence as the ‘second pandemic’. The launch of the Bright Sky app coincides with the United Nations 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence, an annual international campaign that kicks off on 25 November, the International…
Pan-African telecoms group Liquid Telecom is activating 82 km of fibre in a cross-border network into Botswana. This implementation gives more people in Botswana access to Liquid Telecom’s footprint of over 73,000km of Pan African fibre, and increased access to the global digital economy. This expansion connects the Lobatse Border to Gaborone with intent to create efficient mobility and connectivity in Botswana, providing millions of citizens and thousands of businesses access to Liquid Telecom’s world-class One Africa broadband network. “At Liquid Telecom, we have a proven track record of investing in and deploying technology designed to grow, strengthen and build…
Forge Academy, powered by Nokia, has launched a fully inclusive artificial intelligence laboratory in Fourways at The Gantry. The academy will prepare students from all walks of life with theoretical, laboratory and on-the-job training for their participation in the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the global digital economy. “This is more than a dream come true for us, but a lifelong calling to forge people of purpose. We are humbled and immensely proud to launch this academic institution and incubation hub at a time when many youths need to know there is an open door for them to participate in creating…
Jason Quinn, the group finance director at Absa, has been named South Africa’s CFO of the Year at the 2020 CFO Awards. This was announced on Wednesday 25 November at the conclusion of the annual gala event for finance executives, held at the spectacular Polo Room at the Inanda Club in Sandton, Johannesburg. Jason was the big winner during the “Oscars for finance executives”, which celebrated its seventh edition this year. He scooped up three of the ten prizes, also winning the Strategy Execution Award and Moving into Africa Award. Jason has been Absa’s group financial director for the past…
OPPO South Africa is committed to delivering cutting edge computing performance to a wide audience and the A53s is a symbol of that promise. More mobile gamers across South Africa now have access to premium features like a buttery 90Hz high refresh rate screen, fast charging and high-end graphics at an affordable price. This paradigm shift in budget-friendly performance begins with the brand new Qualcomm Snapdragon 460 processor which is the first 400-series CPU to gain the power of Kryo high-performance cores. This improves raw computing power by 70 percent over existing devices in its class. Graphics performance is also…
Capitec, South Africa’s largest digital bank, has launched its QR code payment functionality in their new app. The ‘Scan to Pay’ offering can be used across all major QR code-based payment providers including SnapScan and Zapper. The new addition was fast tracked during the pandemic as it allows clients to pay without touching any surface other than their own phone. Payments can be made at till points, restaurants, for parking and for online shopping – as vendors across the country adopt the technology, offering their clients a safer way to pay. With multiple QR payment providers available to vendors, consumers…
Safaricom’s mobile money service M-Pesa, Nigeria’s e-commerce sites Jumia and South Africa’s Takealot.com are picked as 100 tech challengers by global management firm Boston Consulting Group (BCG). BCG identifies 100 “tech challengers” that have already grown into powerful forces in technology and other industries. Their impact is being felt in their home markets, regionally, and internationally. They have generally weathered the COVID-19 crisis well, with many showing increases in both customers and frequency of usage. While previous emerging markets tech leaders came predominantly from China, the current generation is much more geographically diverse, encompassing Africa, Asia, Israel, Latin America, Russia,…
A total of 50 companies, including Google and Telkom, have pledged R109.6 billion at the third annual South Africa Investment Conference. Today’s collective pledge brings the total amount of investment pledges to R773.6 billion worth of investments in the last three years. With this total amount, South Africa has now reached 64% of its total target of R1.2 trillion. “The world is still very much in the throes of a devastating pandemic that has thrown global markets into disarray. Tough decisions have had to be made on investments, on expansion and on entry into new markets. “It is therefore significant…
Vodacom Business has worked with Amazon Web Services (AWS) Professional Services, to develop the Vodacom Business Cloud Acceleration Suite for organisations who are looking to begin their digital transformation journey. Digital transformation within South Africa has accelerated as organisations of all sizes have embraced the remote workforce model to ensure their employee safety and remain productive during the COVID-19 pandemic.. “As a trusted digital partner to businesses, we’ve always believed that with the right technology and digital processes, South African businesses will be more competitive, resilient and capable of not only surviving, but thriving, despite external challenges,” says Kabelo Makwane,…
Simpli Connect, an Internet Service Provider, and SMTAX, a digital accounting firm primarily for SME’s, have partnered to provide qualifying small businesses with discounted rates on internet access packages. The partnership will officially commence on 16 November 2020 with SMTAX offering the range of SimpliLTE solutions as part of their onboarding process for new company registrations. “In today’s digital economy, it is imperative for any small business to ensure that they are always accessible to their customers, no matter where they are. With our plug & play SimpliLTE solution customers benefit from the widest network coverage in the country and internet access…
Pick n Pay has confirmed the launch of its own mobile virtual network operator (MVNO). Techcentral reported on Tuesday that Pick n Pay will be the first MVNO to use MTN South Africa’s newly launched platform to support these types of virtual providers. PnP Mobile will join Pick n Pay’s growing list of value-added and financial services offered in store to save customers time and money. This includes the ability to do their banking with our Deposits at till points service or TymeBank. Linked to Pick n Pay’s loyalty programme, Smart Shoppers can earn up to 2.5GB in free data…
BMW Group has unveiled the Mini Vision Urbanaut, which is a concept car that provides an interior space that can be used in many ways and offers a whole new ease of movement inside the car. The German carmaker said in a statement on Tuesday that this digital vision vehicle offers more interior space and versatility than ever before, but still on a minimal footprint. “The Mini brand has always stood for ‘Clever Use of Space’. In the Mini Vision Urbanaut, we extend private space far into the public realm, creating completely new and enriching experiences,” explains Adrian van Hooydonk,…
Mianzo Asset Management today launched two affordable unit trust products that will enable ordinary South Africans to invest in financial markets. It has introduced two affordable unit trusts products aimed at helping low-to-middle-income earners access financial markets. While the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) has fully recovered from the COVID-19 induced market crash, the market still provides opportunities for bargain-hunters to buy under-valued shares that are poised for strong growth. The main purpose of these unit trusts is to generate significant real returns for investors who are looking to expand their investment product universe beyond the traditional savings bank accounts. Investors are…