Technology
Collaboration and Investment Key to Strengthening Africa’s Digital Payments Cybersecurity
By Omotayo Ogunlade
As the digital payments landscape in Africa expands, the need for robust cybersecurity measures becomes increasingly urgent. Trust and security are foundational to financial services, and as cybercriminals continue to become more aggressive and sophisticated, addressing any vulnerabilities is key to safeguarding the integrity of Africa’s digital financial ecosystem. In fact, Africa experienced the highest average number of cyberattacks per week per organisation in 2023 with a 23% increase compared to the previous year.
Africa’s digital financial ecosystem is still maturing, and as digital payments become more integrated across countries, and regions, and more interoperable across payment platforms, this increasingly complex environment can introduce new cybersecurity vulnerabilities.
And, as in an interconnected landscape, a single weak link can jeopardise the entire network, the continent’s financial institutions, governments and decision-makers must come together to collectively work towards establishing and maintaining baseline security standards across the industry. This requires building meaningful partnerships with relevant stakeholders, substantial investment and greater harmonisation of regulations and policies across the continent.
The imperative for investment and standardised regulations
Several challenges hinder the attainment of robust cybersecurity in Africa. One of the primary issues is the lag in regulatory frameworks, while a lack of significant investment in security would lead to vulnerabilities within the continent’s financial sector being exploited.
Fortunately, investment in cybersecurity has seen a notable increase over the past five years, reflecting a growing recognition of its importance. The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and sophisticated cyber threats has driven firms to allocate more resources towards cybersecurity. And digital payment networks like Onafriq have strengthened their security posture by investing in intelligent tools that predict and proactively address potential threats.
Despite these advancements, there remains a disparity in investment levels across the continent. Ensuring that all financial institutions can meet necessary security standards requires coordinated efforts and substantial capital. This includes investing in state-of-the-art technology and continuous monitoring systems to detect and prevent malicious activities.
Additionally, regulators play a crucial role in setting and enforcing security standards. And yet the pace of regulatory development often falls behind the speed of innovation in the fintech space. Harmonising regulations across different African countries is essential to create a consistent and secure environment for digital payments by adopting best practices and global standards. This is necessary to avoid fragmentation of the digital payments landscape while effective enforcement of these standards is vital to maintaining a secure financial ecosystem.
A need for cybersecurity skills and a security-first culture
A truly secure payment environment requires buy-in from every part of the ecosystem’s value chain, including the end user. Not only must financial institutions adopt a security-first approach, embedding robust security measures into every aspect of their operations, but educating users about security practices is just as crucial.
As digital payments become more prevalent, financial institutions must design products with built-in security features and continuously educate users on safe practices. This includes secure PIN usage, recognizing phishing attempts, and safeguarding personal information.
For example, Onafriq exemplifies this approach by ensuring that security is a priority from the design stage. By securing networks, protecting sensitive data, and conducting regular third-party audits, we have been able to maintain a strong security record. This proactive stance is essential for preventing breaches and ensuring customer trust.
More than this, there is a growing need to build the cybersecurity capacity needed to sustain the digital payments landscape. Africa faces a shortage of skilled cybersecurity professionals, which hampers the ability to address emerging threats effectively. A cybersecurity assessment conducted by the African Union Commission and the United Nations Development Programme found that African countries had a cybersecurity competence of 0.21 out of 1 with more than 70% of African nations requiring additional cybersecurity infrastructure.
Financial institutions and governments must invest in training programs, internships, and continuous education to develop a skilled workforce capable of managing cybersecurity challenges. But, retaining talent within Africa also remains a significant issue. Many trained professionals seek opportunities abroad, exacerbating the skills gap. Addressing this requires creating conducive environments that offer competitive opportunities and career growth within the continent.
Cybersecurity is a cornerstone of Africa’s digital payments landscape. To achieve a secure and resilient financial sector, Africa must invest in robust cybersecurity infrastructure, foster regulatory harmonisation, and prioritise collaborative efforts among financial institutions. By addressing these challenges, Africa can build a secure digital payments ecosystem that supports economic growth and instils trust among users.
Omotayo Ogunlade is the Chief Technology Officer at Onafriq
By Dipo Olowookere
The Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer for MTN Nigeria, Mr Babalola Oyeleye, has disclosed that the telecommunications company intends to expand its infrastructure to give its customers quality service.
The demand for connectivity in Nigeria is growing, and with a new forecast predicting the Internet of Things (IoT) market to reach $38.7 billion by 2030, stakeholders, especially operators, are already positioning themselves to dominate the space
Government and private sector investments in digital transformation have created an ecosystem that includes system integrators and security specialists. Industries such as utilities and agriculture are leading the charge, adopting IoT to solve localised problems like power theft and low crop yields.
Currently, 4G coverage has reached approximately 80 per cent of Nigeria’s population, with 5G services already in major cities like Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, and Kano. This connectivity backbone is essential for the low-latency communication required by millions of connected devices.
“Reaching the $38.7 billion mark isn’t just about the numbers; it’s about the millions of data points helping Nigerian SMEs and large corporations make smarter decisions every day. Our goal is to ensure the connectivity is there to meet this soaring demand,” Mr Oyeleye noted.
As the ecosystem matures, the focus is shifting toward all-in-one solutions that simplify the user experience. With ongoing investments in NB-IoT (Narrowband IoT) and other low-power connectivity options, the next five years are set to see an explosion in smart city and smart home applications across the country.
By Adedapo Adesanya
South African-founded Refiant AI has raised $5 million to slash the energy footprint of artificial intelligence (AI) in a seed round led by VoLo Earth Ventures, a top climate technology fund.
The startup uses nature-inspired algorithms to radically compress AI models, slashing the hardware and energy required to run them. The new fund will be used to scale Refiant’s team – which already includes a former Google Cloud architect, a Cambridge PhD researcher, and an engineer with NASA experience – to build out a platform and to accelerate enterprise partnerships.
According to a statement shared with Business Post, the company is in active conversations with several multinational technology firms exploring how Refiant’s approach could reduce their AI compute costs while maintaining data and energy sovereignty.
“AI’s growing energy footprint is one of the most urgent and underappreciated challenges in the climate space,” said Mr Sid Gutta, the company’s co-founder. “The industry’s default answer is to build more data centres and consume more power. Ours is to make the AI itself dramatically more efficient.”
The company said it has already successfully demonstrated it can compress a 120 billion parameter AI model to run on a standard laptop, reducing energy requirements by over 80 per cent while preserving near-identical quality. It achieved this to run on a MacBook Pro with just 12GB of RAM. The same model would normally require hardware with at least 80GB of memory. The model retained 95-99 per cent of its fidelity, ran alongside a second AI model on the same machine, and the entire process took four hours with no cloud computing required.
For Refiant, its approach will help businesses reduce their carbon footprint and adopt AI to stay competitive. The energy required to process a single AI prompt on standard infrastructure could power roughly 100 equivalent prompts using Refiant’s approach.
The current breakthrough results were attained at the end of last year, and since then, the team have been gearing up to demonstrate successfully exceeding these results with further compression, longer context windows and model traceability.
“The AI industry is spending hundreds of billions scaling infrastructure when the real breakthrough is the ability to do more with radically less,” said Mr Viroshan Naicker, co-Founder and a mathematician with published research in networks and quantum systems. “Nature doesn’t build by brute force. Evolution optimises. We’ve applied that principle to AI – and the results speak for themselves.”
“AI’s biggest constraint isn’t demand – it’s energy,” added Mr Joseph Goodman, Managing Partner, VoLo Earth. “What’s been missing is a fundamentally more efficient way to compute. Refiant’s architecture replaces brute-force scaling with a far more efficient, nature-inspired approach that lowers energy use while increasing capability. That’s the kind of breakthrough needed to make AI sustainable on a global scale.”
By Adedapo Adesanya
Google and UpSkill Universe, Sub-Saharan Africa’s leading AI and business skills training partner, have announced a major redesign of the Google Hustle Academy programme. For the first time, the free training initiative is open to everyone, not just business owners.
The new curriculum is focused on equipping individuals and entrepreneurs with practical AI skills and comes at a time when small businesses have become the engine of Africa’s economy, creating over 80 per cent of jobs on the continent. To help them grow, the Hustle Academy was launched in 2022, providing bootcamp-style training on business strategy, digital skills, AI, and leadership. The program has since trained over 18,000 SMEs, with many reporting increased revenue and job creation.
Now, as AI reshapes the job market, the program is evolving. The 2026 edition is built for anyone in Sub-Saharan Africa, including employees, students, and job seekers, who want to use AI to advance their careers. To meet the needs of a diverse audience, the new format includes short, 60-minute webinars and more immersive, high-impact bootcamps. These sessions are laser-focused on putting AI to work immediately in areas like digital commerce, marketing, and growth strategy.
Speaking about the academy, Mr Gori Yahaya, Founder & CEO of UpSkill Universe, said, “The 2026 Hustle Academy is designed to close the AI Skills gap with hands-on training that is short, focused, and immediately useful. AI is reshaping how businesses win and how careers are built, right across this continent. We’re excited to renew our partnership, now in its fifth year with Google, combining their global AI leadership with our deep regional AI expertise. The next wave of AI leaders will come from this continent. We are making sure they are ready.”
The Hustle Academy initiative has strengthened digital competitiveness across emerging African economies by enabling SMEs to move beyond AI awareness to practical implementation, positioning them for sustained growth in an increasingly AI-driven business environment.
“We believe that the future of Africa’s digital economy lies in the hands of individuals and entrepreneurs alike. Our new strategy focuses on scaling reach by training individuals in the latest AI-centred tools and techniques,” said a Google representative.
Applications for the 2026 cohort are now open. Interested participants can apply at: https://rsvp.withgoogle.com/events/hustle-academy
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