All our stories, in order, Dakar time (GMT).
Friday 23 October
Owning an electronic wallet is not enough to join the financial system. A white paper relayed by CIO Mag puts a number on the gap between accounts opened and accounts in use, and proposes four workstreams to make mobile money an everyday tool.
Wednesday 21 October
West Africa’s central bank is doubling the maximum balance a customer can hold in electronic money and raising the monthly top-up limit to 15 million CFA francs. On the same day, transfers between providers must run through its PI-SPI platform, and will be free up to 8,000 CFA francs a day. What changes for users in 12 days, and what the rules leave unsaid.
Tuesday 20 October
Bank accounts, mobile money, digital payments: in three years Nigeria has beaten its financial inclusion target. Yet according to EFInA’s 2026 survey, only 11.9 million adults borrow from a bank or a fintech, and many of them do so just to get through the month.
Monday 19 October
The Ivorian fintech is preparing a $40 million Series C, the largest in its history if it closes. Its founders want to lock in profitability in Abidjan first, then push across Francophone West Africa, where Wave is waiting. No investors have been named yet.
Thursday 15 October
Senegal’s police are warning about fake streaming apps, spread over WhatsApp, that steal mobile money PINs and then empty accounts from the victims’ own phones. How these programs work, the warning signs, and the Android settings worth checking tonight.
Wednesday 14 October
Between January and August 2026, Nigerian networks carried 11.94 million terabytes of data, against 13.25 million for the whole of 2025, according to the regulator. Demand keeps climbing even though data bundles rose by more than 50% last year.
Tuesday 13 October
Staff at Microsoft’s Africa Development Centre in Nairobi learned on Monday that their jobs are going. The company talks of “proposed changes” and says it is staying in Kenya. After Lagos in 2024, little is left of the African bet it made in 2019.
Monday 12 October
Senegal and Mali have interconnected their national fibre-optic networks at Kidira and Diboli. Beyond the technical link, this infrastructure is intended to diversify the connectivity routes between the two countries and strengthen the resilience of their digital networks.
Friday 9 October
Founded in 2024, NeoFleet Capital doesn’t lend to drivers but to the people who run fleets. It has just closed a $4 million first round and wants to grow from 650 to 5,000 vehicles by the end of 2027.
Six years after putting its first 76 cars on Lagos roads, the mobility unicorn is shutting its Nigerian business and leaving drivers vehicles valued at ₦35 billion. A generous gesture, and an admission that a model built on a single partner, Uber, no longer worked.
Solar power, electric motorbikes, online payments: African startups raised $260.3 million in September. That is twice as much as a year earlier, but 85% of it went to ten companies. Senegal got just $1.3 million.
Thursday 8 October
Since 6 October, First National Bank customers have been able to buy and sell five cryptocurrencies from as little as 10 rand via their app. It’s a simple, regulated entry point, but with a significant catch: you cannot withdraw your coins from the platform.
Wednesday 7 October
The Dakar-based refurbisher of professional printers has secured $1.36 million from Saviu Ventures and its own managers. It is a first for this Francophone Africa-focused fund, which is backing an industrial business rather than an app, with Côte d’Ivoire next in its sights.
Tuesday 6 October
While installing Senegal’s Youth Advisory Council, the president urged young people to drop TikTok, Telegram and Instagram when they only serve to kill time, and to behave better online. The message drew strong reactions… mostly on social media.
Monday 5 October
In Kinshasa, digital technology is starting to play a bigger part in thinking about the city’s future. The Congolese government and the organisers of Expo Béton want to explore how technology can improve mobility, public services and urban planning.