Tech News
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey visits CcHub, discloses return date
Twitter CEO @jack visited CcHub on Friday
Twitter boss, Jack Dorsey, visited CcHub early on Friday, about 24 hours after he landed on Nigerian soil.
During his visit to one of Nigeria’s leading tech hub, which was covered by Nairametrics, Jack only took photographs with owners of the facility and other tech innovators at the venue before he left for another undisclosed venue.
According to Siera, head, Logistics, Twitter, the visit is a low key event and that he was not meant to make any official statement.
She said, “He only came to learn a few things and leave for his base. But he will be back next year.”
But the question is what he came to learn. Watch out for that details on Nairametrics shortly.
[Read Also: CcHUB unveils Nyota, showcases Africa’s top tech pioneers ]
Meanwhile, the Twitter boss has already learnt a Yoruba sentence, ‘Bawo ni’, which means, How are You? That was how he greeted some twitter influencers at the welcome dinner organized for him in Lagos on Thursday.
Back story: Jack had announced in October where he would be in Africa for the whole of November, visiting four African countries. Nigeria and Ghana in West Africa, Ethiopia in East Africa and South Africa.
He is expected to meet with leaders in the local technology and business world, in his words “entrepreneurs”- however, the reason for this meeting is not yet known.
[Read Also: United Kingdom to deepen fintech partnership in Nigeria ]
This will not be the first known developer to be in Nigeria, three years, there was a similar visit to Nigeria by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. After jogging through the streets of Lagos and meeting with developers, he traveled to Abuja where he met with President Buhari at the presidency.
Business
CBN reportedly suspends Paystack and other non-bank financial institutions from offering BVN validation services
Non-banks may have to look for alternative ways to carry out identity verification for their users, following new CBN regulation.
The Central Bank of Nigeria has reportedly suspended finTechs and other third-party partners from offering BVN validation service.
This was made known in an email from Paystack to customers which stated, “We’ve recently been made aware of a regulatory directive from the primary custodian of Nigeria’s BVN service to all their partners to suspend the provision of the BVN validation service to their third-party partners. This directive affects every non-bank in Nigeria that offers BVN Validation services. In light of this news, we’re hereby informing you that the BVN Resolve service will be temporarily unavailable starting at midnight, April 8, 2021.”
READ: How scammers use SIM cards to rob your bank accounts
READ: CBN instruct banks to close accounts related to Crypto
What this means
This suspension could mean that non-banks will have to look for alternative ways to carry out identity verification (KYC) for their users through NIN, Voters ID, Driver’s license etc.
Details soon…
Business
MTN USSD dispute: Meetings with banks, others still inconclusive
MTN has confirmed in a statement that the issue with banks regarding USSD services is yet to be resolved.
Series of meetings held among MTN, commercial banks and FinTechs to align on longer-term pricing structures on USSD services appeared inconclusive.
This was confirmed by the Telco giant in a statement issued by its spokesperson, Funso Aina on Thursday.
According to the statement, which was seen by Nairametrics, MTN stated that the streamlining it undertook is international standard and best practice as scale is built along distribution channels.
It stated, “We will provide a further market update once these discussions have been concluded. The streamlining MTN undertook is international standard and best practice as scale is built along distribution channels. We are confident that partners in the banking sector will work with us to ensure this process concludes as quickly as possible to the benefit of the entire industry.”
READ: FG stops telecom firms from withdrawing USSD services as minister intervenes
Full statement below
Update on banking channel partners’ dispute and expansion of channel network.
Following the temporary suspension of sales of MTN products through our banking channel partners on April 2, 2021, services were restored on Sunday, April 4, 2021 with customers able to access all services.
This was agreed on the basis that MTN would revert to its previous cost of sales structures with banking partners until a new long-term agreement can be reached on a sustainable pricing structure going forward.
Consequent on the intervention of the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, the Nigeria Communication Commission and the Central Bank of Nigeria, since April 6, 2021, MTN has been participating in a series of meetings to align on longer-term pricing structures.
READ: NIPOST reclaim stamp duty collection from FIRS after years of dispute
We will provide a further market update once these discussions have been concluded. The streamlining MTN undertook is international standard and best practice as scale is built along distribution channels. We are confident that partners in the banking sector will work with us to ensure this process concludes as quickly as possible to the benefit of the entire industry.
MTN would like to thank our customers for their patience, and express our regret at the inconvenience imposed on them while banking channels were offline. In order to further expand the range of channels available to customers, MTN has activated a number of new channel partnerships with fintech partners and these will remain in place, significantly expanding the channels available to our customers and increasing our sales and distribution network.
READ: CBN freezes 11 bank accounts of companies, individual
The new channel partners include Sparkle, Konga Pay, Barter By Flutterwave, Jumia Pay, OPay, Kuda, Carbon, BillsnPay, MTN On-Demand, MTN Xtratime airtime loans (*606#), myMTN Web http://mymtn.com.ng and Momo agent *223#.
We would also like to thank the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy, the Nigeria Communication Commission and the Central Bank of Nigeria for their rapid intervention and we look forward to a mutually acceptable solution that empowers all ecosystem participants.
READ: CBN: Over N3 trillion (72%) of Intervention Funds remain outstanding
What you should know
- Banks lifted the ban placed on MTN subscribers from recharging their lines or data plan via Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD), according to Nairametrics.
- This was confirmed by our analyst, who recharged his line using the USSD code of GTBank last Sunday.
