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Visa Launches Africa Fintech Accelerator Programme

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visa fintech accelerator program

By Adedapo Adesanya

Visa has announced the launch of the new Visa Africa Fintech Accelerator program to help enable the continent’s expanding start-up community through expertise, connections, technology, and investment funding.

In a statement shared with Business Post, it was disclosed that the initiative was introduced by Visa Executive Chairman, Mr Alfred F. Kelly Jr., at Bloomberg New Economy Gateway Africa in Marrakech, Morocco.

The Visa Africa Fintech Accelerator will enable up to 40 start-ups each year to accelerate and grow through a three-month intensive learning program focused on business growth and mentoring.

Following the programme completion, Visa intends to further support fintech growth with capital investment in select participating businesses while accelerating their commercial launch through access to Visa technology and capabilities.

The launch of the Africa Fintech Accelerator program follows Visa’s recent pledge to invest $1 billion in Africa’s digital transformation and its long-term commitment to advancing Africa’s economies and driving inclusive growth.

Fintech startups throughout Africa can apply to be part of the program through two application phases each year, starting from July 2023. With more than 1,000 Africa Fintech start-ups taking part in the Visa Everywhere Initiative (VEI) competition in 2022, finalists from African country editions this year will be invited to join the accelerator program.

Speaking on this, Mr Kelly Jr., Executive Chairman of Visa, said, “Africa has one of the most exciting and admired fintech ecosystems in the world, bringing outstanding entrepreneurial talent to a young digital-first population that is growing fast.

“Visa has been increasing our investments in Africa for decades and strengthening partnerships throughout the continent to support the next wave of innovation and growth.  Our new Fintech Accelerator will bring expertise, connections, and investment to Africa’s best fintech start-ups so they can grow at scale.”

The support for participating fintechs will help further strengthen the payment ecosystem by fast-tracking new innovations and technologies that provide solutions to challenges that are unique to the African continent and which can further advance Africa’s digitization.

This, the company said, is in line with Visa’s corporate purpose to uplift everyone, everywhere, by being the best way to pay and be paid and supports Africa’s fintechs to facilitate additional opportunities to expand financial inclusion.

According to Mr Otto Williams, Head of Partnerships, Products, and Solutions, Central Europe, Middle East and Africa, Visa, “Africa’s fintech community is at the forefront of payments innovation and connecting more of the unbanked with access to the digital economy.

“Visa has been working with this innovative community to create new programs and solutions to help fintechs scale while giving access to Visa’s technology and partner ecosystem.  Through the new Visa Africa Fintech Accelerator, we are looking forward to working with more brilliant entrepreneurs and companies to shape the future of money.”

In addition to its $1 billion pledge to Africa, Visa has recently introduced several business initiatives and programs to further advance the payments ecosystem in Africa.

These include the establishment of local operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, and Sudan to help support and strengthen the local financial ecosystem. Visa has 10 offices across Africa from which it supports payments in all 54 countries.

It also unveiled the first dedicated Visa Sub-Saharan Africa Innovation Studio in Nairobi, Kenya, to provide a state-of-the-art environment to bring together clients and partners to co-create future-ready payment and commerce solutions as well as the introduction and expansion of new technologies that help African consumers and merchants make and receive digital payments, such as Tap to Phone to turn a simple mobile phone into a point-of-sale terminal, as well as lowering remittance costs through innovative solutions like Visa Direct.

The firm also established Visa as the fintech partner of choice, working with innovators and entrepreneurs, including through the Visa Everywhere Initiative program, with dedicated country programmes in South Africa, Kenya, and Egypt.

It has launched new programmes to support women’s empowerment together with financial partners, including She’s Next, which is bringing funding, mentoring, and networking opportunities to female entrepreneurs leading growing SMBs in Egypt, Kenya, Morocco, and South Africa and collaborated with partners, to advance financial literacy in several languages, including localized versions of Practical Money Skills in Egypt and Morocco for the first time.

Adedapo Adesanya is a journalist, polymath, and connoisseur of everything art. When he is not writing, he has his nose buried in one of the many books or articles he has bookmarked or simply listening to good music with a bottle of beer or wine. He supports the greatest club in the world, Manchester United F.C.

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Facebook Offers New Tools to Report Impersonation, Removes 20 million Accounts

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Facebook Original content creators

By Modupe Gbadeyanka

As part of its commitment to celebrating and rewarding creativity, Facebook has updated its guidance, with clear definitions of what counts as original and unoriginal content.

In a message on Monday, the social media platform said it was offering content creators new tools to report impersonation.

Launched last year, the content protection tool is expanding beyond detecting reel matches across Meta platforms to now also flag potential impersonation.

Creators can take action on content theft and easily submit impersonation reports all in one place.

Facebook, in the statement received by Business Post, said creators can check for access to content protection in their professional dashboard or apply for access here.

The platform also disclosed that in 2025, it removed over 20 million accounts impersonating large content creators, and impersonation reports related to large content creators dropped by 33 per cent.

Further, Facebook is deprioritising unoriginal content by making sure they do not perform well on its platform.

It noted that content that is duplicated from other sources or makes low-value changes to someone else’s content may see significantly reduced reach, and accounts that primarily post unoriginal content may lose eligibility for recommendations and monetisation.

It was emphasised that “these changes provide creators who post original content with greater reach and monetisation opportunities, provide stronger protections for their work, and reduce the reach of unoriginal content.”

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Genetec Sets New Standard for Enterprise Physical Security with Cloudlink 2210

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Genetec Cloudlink 2210

By Dipo Olowookere

A new high-density appliance that enables enterprises to scale cloud-managed physical security without forcing cloud-only storage or infrastructure replacement has been launched by a global leader in enterprise physical security software, Genetec.

The product, Cloudlink 2210, was designed for complex, enterprise-scale deployments and supports multiple workloads, including video management, access control, and intrusion detection, in a single appliance. By consolidating these workloads into one appliance, it reduces system sprawl, simplifies management in large-scale environments, and lowers operational overhead.

Unlike solutions that separate workloads across multiple proprietary systems, Genetec Cloudlink 2210 is built on an open architecture that supports a wide range of third-party devices, including cameras, access control systems, and intrusion panels. This enables organisations to modernise at scale within a unified, cloud-managed model designed to preserve architectural flexibility, while securely integrating existing hardware, maintaining business continuity, and reducing migration risks.

The company disclosed that Cloudlink 2210 also supports hundreds of connected devices per appliance and provides up to 240 TB of local storage per unit, making it well-suited for deployments with high device density and long retention policies. The Cloudlink 2210 is ideal for enterprise environments where uptime and local retention requirements are operational priorities because its design minimises dependence on cloud storage, helping organisations control long-term storage costs while maintaining the performance and availability required in enterprise environments.

The new product also incorporates hardware-level resiliency to support strict uptime and retention requirements. RAID-protected storage and redundant system components help ensure data protection and OS availability. Security workloads continue operating locally, independent of cloud connectivity, allowing deployments to maintain continuity even during network disruptions. Dual network interfaces provide redundancy and support network isolation to strengthen cybersecurity.

It scales by adding units as requirements grow, enabling organisations to increase device counts and storage capacity without redesigning their infrastructure. Centralised cloud management maintains visibility and control across deployments.

Genetec Cloudlink 2210 is part of the broader Genetec approach to deployment flexibility.  The cloud-managed appliance portfolio enables organisations to operate on premises, in the cloud, or across hybrid environments based on their operational and regulatory requirements. By combining high-performance local processing and storage with centralised cloud operations and management, Cloudlink 2210 supports scalable, cloud-managed deployments without compromising control or performance.

The Product Director for Unified Solutions at Genetec Incorporated, Mr Christian Chenard Lemire, said, “Enterprises don’t want to choose between innovation and operational certainty.

“With Cloudlink 2210, we’re redefining what cloud-managed physical security looks like at scale by giving organisations the freedom to modernise on their own terms, control long-term costs, and maintain the resiliency and continuity their most critical environments demand.”

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TikTok Invests Fresh $200K in AI Media Literacy in Africa

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TikTok AI Media Literacy Tokunbo Ibrahim

By Modupe Gbadeyanka

An additional $200,000 will be invested in Artificial Intelligence (AI) media literacy initiatives across Sub-Saharan Africa, TikTok announced during its third annual Sub-Saharan Africa Safer Internet Summit in Nairobi, Kenya.

The platform hosted government officials, regulators, online safety partners and industry leaders for the event, reinforcing its commitment to collaborative approaches to online safety.

The funds will be provided in ad credits to help support local organisations in the region to expand AI media literacy.

This investment builds on the company’s initial $2 million AI Literacy Fund, launched in November 2025, which awarded 20 global non-profits to create content that boosts public understanding of AI.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, TikTok initially supported three organisations to advance digital literacy and combat misinformation.

“With the rapid advancement of AI, we are committed to educating our community online, so they feel empowered to have responsible experiences with AI, whether that’s as viewers or creators.

“We are partnering with trusted local organisations that communities already know and rely on, because their expertise and deep local connections are essential to making AI literacy programs truly impactful,” the Global Head of Partnerships, Elections and Market Integrity at TikTok, Mr Valiant Richey, stated.

Earlier, the Head of Government Relations and Public Policy for Sub-Saharan Africa at TikTok, Ms Tokunbo Ibrahim, said, “As we host the 3rd Annual Safer Internet Summit here in Kenya, our mission is clear: to share learnings, insights, tackle common challenges and collaboratively advance actionable solutions that protect citizens online.

“By bringing together a diverse coalition of policymakers, tech innovators, and creators, we are ensuring that the conversations we have at this Summit are all-inclusive and lead to a more resilient digital landscape.”

The summit featured expert panels and discussions on critical topics, including TikTok’s Trust and Safety efforts, protecting young people online, and policy frameworks for responsible AI governance.

A key highlight of the event was showcasing how TikTok uses AI to transform how people share their creativity and discover new passions, while ensuring the community remains safe through transparent and responsible AI practices.

The platform also shared more about how recent advancements in AI are helping the platform moderate content faster and more consistently at scale, by improving automated moderation and empowering human teams with better moderation tools.

With over 100 million pieces of content uploaded daily to TikTok, these advances, which work alongside human moderation teams, are helping get violative content down faster, reducing the likelihood of the community seeing it.

According to the latest Community Guidelines Enforcement Q3 2025, TikTok removed over 14 million videos across Sub-Saharan Africa, with 96.7 per cent detected and removed proactively using automated technology, underscoring TikTok’s commitment to proactive moderation and swift action.

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