Author: Staff Writer

South Africa’s Internet Service Providers’ Association is warning the country’s 11 million gamers to minimise their chances of being targeted for vindictive hacking by being respectful online. The global gaming industry has exploded under lockdown when it was already the third most popular entertainment genre in the world after books and gambling. Unfortunately, more people playing games professionally or for leisure online has exposed the ease with which gaming consoles can be hacked, especially by fellow gamers with an axe to grind. Online games are played on PCs, mobile phones and dedicated gaming consoles. When it comes to the latter,…

Showmax has introduced a subscription-free streaming service in South Africa. Showmax Free features a hand-picked content slate that gives customers an opportunity to sample some of Showmax’s award-winning entertainment. At launch, titles on the service include local movies, series and sports shows. Users will be able stream movies and binge-watch the first few episodes of available series for free. Expect early episodes and some full seasons of many of South Africa’s most-loved series, including telenovelas like International Emmy nominee The River; Gomora, recently named Most Popular Soapie at the 2020 Royalty Soapie Awards; record-breaking reality shows like the Showmax Originals…

Telkom and the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) today announced a partnership to launch a new streaming channel, TelkomONE. The mobile operator channel will house the public broadcaster’s free-to-air radio and TV channels. The five-year partnership, a first-of-its-kind digital carriage agreement for the SABC, will showcase South Africa’s most-watched TV programmes and most listened to radio platforms, on one online platform. TelkomONE will stream live SABC’s television channels 1, 2, Sport and Education as well as all 19 SABC radio stations. “We are excited about the opportunity to provide South Africans with free access to watch their favourite SABC content,…

The Nedbank Digital Team has been vital in the bank’s digital transformation journey, enabling the group to offer clients cutting-edge digital banking solutions to meet their unique needs. Despite COVID-19 making the job market unpredictable, a total of 29 digital design roles are available in specialized fields ranging from design research, product design, to design ops and UI and UX design. “Design at Nedbank is embraced as strategic capability and engages with all aspects of the value chain from business modeling, design research, Digital Customer Value Proposition development, design systems, UI & UX and design ops,” Head of Design Strategy…

South Africa’s first Mara Experience Store today opened its doors exactly one year since the opening by Mara Phones of the country’s first smartphone manufacturing facility.  Eager shoppers at Soweto’s landmark Maponya Mall practised social distancing as they waited in line ready to snap up opening specials at the franchise owned by well-known broadcaster, philanthropist and businesswoman, Chante Jantjies. The opening of two Mara Phones facilities – one retail and one manufacturing – within a short space of time represents bold steps for Africa’s most established home-grown smartphone brand in a challenging but promising environment. An impressive 50 Mara Experience Stores,…

Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula says a recently unveiled multifaceted security plan, anchored on insourcing capacity, will make an invaluable contribution to the fight against theft and vandalism of rail infrastructure. Mbalula on Tuesday participated in a debate in the National Assembly, which focused on the impact that the ongoing damage to public rail infrastructure has on the economic lives of the most vulnerable and poor commuters. Security-related incidents in the rail environment increased by 20% between 2017/18 and 2018/19 from 7 737 to 9 268. Since 2012/13, security-related incidents per million train kilometres increased by 175% per million train kilometres.…

Internet of Things (IoT) innovator IoT.nxt has beefed up its management team to handle global growth as the roll-out of its solutions picks up pace across different territories. IoT.nxt has offices in South Africa, The Netherlands and USA. South African telecoms company Vodacom, a subsidiary of Vodafone, acquired a majority stake in IoT.nxt in 2019 which will drive the companies’ global roll-out of IoT solutions. “Our partnership with IoT.nxt majority shareholder Vodacom and its parent company Vodafone has fast-tracked access to markets globally, as both companies have added our advanced IoT offerings to their enterprise solutions for customers across a…

EasyEquities has partnered with Synatic to create data aggregation and data integration components for all the systems it uses to track clients current lifecycle, trading and investment history. The solution gives a comprehensive view of all client activities. The investment platform, aimed at making share trading accessible for all, needed to make sense of the data of its more than 500 000 clients. The challenge was to give the same level of customer experience to all its clients, regardless of the investment size. EasyEquities caters for all investors regardless of their wealth. It attracts investors big and small, young and old,…

South Africa’s largest digital bank, Capitec, has partnered with SA Home Loans to launch its first full home loan offering. Built on the principles of simplicity and affordability, the product has one of the fastest application processes in the country – allowing consumers to initiate an application in under 5 minutes – alongside highly competitive linked interest rates from 6%. Francois Viviers, Executive of Marketing and Communications at Capitec, says the offering was developed in response to strong demand for a simple and efficient, digitally-led home loan option. “We’ve continually received requests from both clients and the public asking us…

South African ICT students came out tops in the networking track of the Huawei Sub-Saharan Africa ICT Competition, earning themselves a place in the global final which takes place online from 6-9 November. Team SA stood out from more than 40 African teams during the fierce regional competition. This year, more than 50,000 students from 14 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa participated in the Huawei ICT Competition, the biggest attendance so far. The move to online also allowed more students to be part of this event. In South Africa, over 10 000 students from 25 universities and colleges participated in the national…

Nthoese Developments hosted a sod-turning ceremony to mark the commencement of the redevelopment and expansion of Bushbuckridge shopping centre to address social-economic challenges in the area. Despite the ongoing global pandemic and tough property market this year, Nthoese is forging ahead with the expansion and redevelopment of the existing Bushbuckridge shopping centre that will be rebranded to become Bushbuckridge mall. The shopping centre is located at the corner of R40 and R533 in Bushbuckridge CBD which is portion 8 (a portion of portion 5) of the farm Maviljan 252 measuring 7,4608 hectares. The R40 is the main north-south road through…

Teraco Data Environments (Pty) Ltd., Africa’s largest interconnection hub and vendor-neutral data centre provider, today announced that construction has commenced on a new hyperscale data centre with 38 megawatts (MW) of critical power load in Ekurhuleni, east of Johannesburg, South Africa. The facility, known as JB4, is scheduled for completion in Q1 2022 and as a stand-alone building, will be the largest data centre in Africa. CEO of Teraco, Jan Hnizdo, said that the company is poised for significant growth as hyperscale requirements continue to expand as a result of increased demand for cloud services in Africa. “South Africa is…

bidorbuy, one of South Africa’s largest online shopping and auction marketplaces, has strengthened its shipping offering with an easy-to-use facility that will source quotes from leading courier companies and offer the most competitive rate at the time of shipping. The platform, called bidorbuy Shipping, is made possible through a partnership with uAfrica.com, a technology company that assists online merchants with omni-channel solutions, streamlining their order-fulfilment and shipping processes. bidorbuy Shipping will generate electronic shipping labels at the click of a button, while payments for the service are made through a bidorbuy account, meaning simpler, safer shipping all around. This comes…

Rand Merchant Bank (RMB) has announced an investment in its brand – recently valued at R4 billion by Brand Finance – to align with its evolved business strategy and a rapidly advancing digital business environment. “A lot has happened since our last brand refresh in 2006, both in terms of our operating strategy and the business environment in general,” says RMB Chief Executive Officer James Formby. “The latest investment in our brand reflects these changes, ensuring that the RMB brand remains relevant, modern and distinctive in the broader African market and with our growing client base.” Watch the…

Paxful, the global crypto marketplace powered by people announced adding Uhuru Wallet as a payment method to their platform. The company, known for its goal of financial inclusion, is helping the underbanked around the world to gain financial independence using peer-to-peer transactions. The partnership with Uhuru will help encompass this vision and provide easy access to the crypto economy for users in Southern Africa. Acting as a fiat on and off-ramp on the Paxful platform, which already hosts over 300 different payment options, Uhuru Wallet will enable users to buy and sell Bitcoin (BTC) and Tether (USDT) with ease. Uhuru…

Educational apps are changing the future of classrooms. The Best Educational Solution, awarded at last week’s MTN Business App of the Year awards, goes to an app that best breaks through the barriers to learning, a solution that focuses on solving the education challenges in Africa. The 2020 Fundi Best Educational App winner is Xitsonga Dictionary, an app developed by Mukondleteri Dumela from Kraaifontein in Cape Town that provides users with thousands of words translated from Xitsonga to English. Designed to help learn in a fun and intuitive way, users are able to simply take a picture using the Xitsonga…

An app that takes away the notion that investing is hard and expensive has been adjudged the overall winner of the MTN Business App of the Year Awards. EasyEquities was announced as the overall winner in Johannesburg on Thursday evening. EasyEquities makes the purchase of shares safe, easy and fun, helping new and existing investors to stay on top of their investment portfolios, with detailed account overviews and personalised reporting. EasyEquities, which also placed first in the Best Consumer Solution category, walks away with the overall grand prize of an international trip to a tech-related destination valued at R200,000. The…

South Africa’s largest digital bank, Capitec, has partnered with popular music streaming service, JOOX, to provide its clients with a Live Better benefit of 30% off of the app’s monthly subscription fee. From 28 October 2020, Capitec clients can enjoy a number of VIP benefits at a discounted monthly subscription fee (usually R59.99 per month, now R41.99) when paying with a Capitec Card and registering on joox.com. Once subscribed to JOOX, clients will have access to all their favourite top local and international artists. In addition to having no audio ad disturbances, in-app features include live streaming concerts, karaoke functions,…

Mobile phone operator MTN is launching a full mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) service in South Africa. MTN said the aim to launch MVNO service is to bring the digital world closer to more people and communities. With its extensive national network that covers rural areas, MTN said it will offer MVNO partners a high-quality network experience and opportunity to deliver innovative solutions that reach even more South Africans. “We expect MVNO subscribers across the country to double over the next five years, with several large players introducing offerings. MTN is excited to be an enabler of this further growth…

Yoco announced today that its customer base of small businesses had crossed the 100,000 milestone and to further grow its customer base the South African FinTech firm is launching its first ‘standalone’ card machine. The ‘standalone’ card machine is known as the Yoco Neo. This device does not require a smart device or bluetooth to enable payments. Speaking from the Yoco Next, a virtual launch event, Yoco’s founders summarised the product development journey that the FinTech company has been on since the launch of South Africa’s most affordable card machine – the Yoco Go – late last year.  Yoco Go is…

Pick n Pay’s Smart Shoppers can now have their till receipts sent directly to their email instead of receiving a printed receipt. These will also be loaded onto customer’s PnP mobile app profile for 90 days so that they are conveniently saved in one place for easy access and review. Pick n Pay’s new Digital Receipts will be sent to a customer’s email or PnP app within minutes of completing their purchase at any Pick n Pay store, including Clothing, Liquor, and Express stores. This is another step in the retailer’s efforts to reduce unnecessary waste. Many till receipts land…

AURA, South Africa’s security and safety platform, has appointed Alon Lits as its Chairman with immediate effect. Previously General Manager for Uber sub-Saharan Africa, Lits brings with him decades of experience and aims to assist Aura CEO, Warren Myers, to maximise the opportunities that exist for the growing platform business. “In my seven-year tenure at Uber I have learnt some valuable lessons and I hope to share these with the Aura team, while helping them continue on their important journey of democratising access to security solutions and medical response across South Africa,” says Lits. With a career that began in…

President Cyril Ramaphosa and Finance Minister, Tito Mboweni, have retreated from their commitment to the “active scenario”, which lasted just 3 months, according to Geordin Hill-Lewis MP, DA Shadow Minister of Finance. Lewis was reacting to Mboweni’s Medium Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS) the Minister delivered in Parliament on Wednesday. Debt will not stabilise by 2023. In fact, it will continue to balloon to a massive 95% of GDP and will now only stabilise in 2025/26, with an extra R1 trillion in additional debt. “The ANC government has chosen to cut essential services to the public – like education and policing…

In an effort to stabilise the spiraling public sector wage bill, Finance Minister Tito Mboweni has announced that National Treasury will propose a three-year wage freeze. The proposal is contained in the Medium Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS) the Minister delivered in Parliament on Wednesday. About R36.5 billion has been reduced from the compensation of employees, mainly from a freeze in salary increases. In supporting documents, Treasury said government proposes growth in the public service wage bill of 1.8% in the current year and average annual growth of 0.8% over the 2021 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) period. “To achieve…

Stabilising government’s debt will come with difficult decisions, and the public sector wage bill is the main area where government will impose reductions aimed at returning public finances to a stable position. The National Treasury said this in its Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS) on Wednesday, in which it proposes steps to reduce the fiscal deficit and stabilise the debt-to-GDP ratio over a five-year period. This as National Treasury looks to make spending reductions of R60 billion in 2021/22, R90 billion in 2022/23 and R150 billion in 2023/24 – mostly falling on compensation. “Large fiscal adjustments and an improving economic…