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For global companies, Africas promise has long been tempered by a persistent operational myth: that the continent is not ready for complex business. The reality is different, however. The barrier isn’t a lack of demand, but the inability of traditional global systems to handle Africas unique financial landscape. Nearly 400 million African adults remain on the fringes of the formal financial system, yet digital adoption is exploding. The conversation has decisively shifted from basic financial access to a more critical question: How can multinationals efficiently manage their core operations like paying suppliers, collecting revenue, and moving money across borders, in such a complex environment? WHY AFRICAN FINTECH IS THE SOLUTION Global payment giants are built for standardized, mature markets. African fintech companies have grown from basic payment services into essential partners. Their key strength is building the specialized digital backbone that businesses need to operate. The most important work of African fintech isn’t consumer-facing. Today, it’s happening behind the scenes, where it solves two fundamental problems at once: domestic fragmentation and global isolation. Internally, their platforms help large companies easily pay hundreds of suppliers across different African countries at once, in local currencies. Externally, they are building the rails for African businesses to trade with the world. For instance, they provide a secure infrastructure for African merchants to pay or receive payments from a partner in East Asia. This dual capability avoids the delays, high fees, and headaches of old systems, keeping supply chains running smooth. African fintech systems are crucial for global money transfer companies, allowing them to send payments directly to people anywhere, even remote areas, not just major cities. This same technology is also built into key industries like agriculture and logistics. It provides instant payments to farmers and handles complex freight payments, solving critical cash flow problems for businesses. This is not e-commerce, this is the essential financial plumbing for Africa’s real economy. The role of regulators has also evolved. Its no longer just about enabling data sharing. Progressive regulators are now collaborating with fintechs to design cross-border payment frameworks and digital identity systems that secure high-value B2B transactions. This proactive engagement is creating a more stable and predictable environment for large-scale investment. Similarly, deep integration with telcos goes beyond consumer mobile money. It’s about leveraging vast agent networks and mobile penetration to create secure, corporate-grade channels for business operations, from distributing payroll to settling invoices with small-scale retailers. The data underscores this shift. According to the GSMA’s 2025 report, Africa processed $1.1 trillion in mobile money value in 2024, accounting for 66% of the global total. Digital payments in Africa are growing rapidly, with transaction values expected to continue their strong upward trajectory. But the real story is in the nature of these transactions: Increasingly, they are sophisticated, high-value B2B flows. Multinationals must now strategically partner with African fintechs to succeed. This is crucial for their proven pan-African networks and deep understanding of local rules and markets. The future of business on the continent will be built on this connected infrastructure. By working with these fintechs, global companies aren’t just overcoming a barrier; they are plugging into Africa’s most powerful driver for growth. Olugbenga GB Agboola is founder and CEO of Flutterwave.
Category:
E-Commerce
Massachusetts’ highest court heard oral arguments Friday in the state’s lawsuit arguing that Meta designed features on Facebook and Instagram to make them addictive to young users. The lawsuit, filed in 2024 by Attorney General Andrea Campbell, alleges that Meta did this to make a profit and that its actions affected hundreds of thousands of teenagers in Massachusetts who use the social media platforms. We are making claims based only on the tools that Meta has developed because its own research shows they encourage addiction to the platform in a variety of ways, said State Solicitor David Kravitz, adding that the state’s claim has nothing to do the company’s algorithms or failure to moderate content. Meta said Friday that it strongly disagrees with the allegations and is confident the evidence will show our longstanding commitment to supporting young people. Its attorney, Mark Mosier, argued in court that the lawsuit would impose liabilities for performing traditional publishing functions and that its actions are protected by the First Amendment. The Commonwealth would have a better chance of getting around the First Amendment if they alleged that the speech was false or fraudulent, Mosier said. But when they acknowledge that its truthful that brings it in the heart of the First Amendment. Several of the judges, though, seem to be more concerned about Meta’s functions, such as notifications, than the content on its platforms. I didn’t understand the claims to be that Meta is relaying false information vis-a-vis the notifications but that it has created an algorithm of incessant notifications … designed so as to feed into the fear of missing out, fomo, that teenagers generally have, Justice Dalila Wendlandt said. That is the basis of the claim. Justice Scott Kafker challenged the notion that this was all about a choice to publish certain information by Meta. It’s not how to publish but how to attract you to the information, he said. It’s about how to attract the eyeballs. It’s indifferent the content, right. It doesn’t care if it’s Thomas Paine’s Common Sense or nonsense. It’s totally focused on getting you to look at it.” Meta is facing federal and state lawsuits claiming it knowingly designed featuressuch as constant notifications and the ability to scroll endlesslythat addict children. In 2023, 33 states filed a joint lawsuit against the Menlo Park, California-based tech giant, claiming that Meta routinely collects data on children under 13 without their parents consent, in violation of federal law. In addition, states, including Massachusetts, filed their own lawsuits in state courts over addictive features and other harms to children. Newspaper reports, first by The Wall Street Journal in the fall of 2021, found that the company knew about the harms Instagram can cause teenagers especially teen girls when it comes to mental health and body image issues. One internal study cited 13.5% of teen girls saying Instagram makes thoughts of suicide worse and 17% of teen girls saying it makes eating disorders worse. Critics say Meta hasn’t done enough to address concerns about teen safety and mental health on its platforms. A report from former employee and whistleblower Arturo Bejar and four nonprofit groups this year said Meta has chosen not to take real steps to address safety concerns, opting instead for splashy headlines about new tools for parents and Instagram Teen Accounts for underage users. Meta said the report misrepresented its efforts on teen safety. ___ This story has been corrected to show one of the justices is called Justice Dalila Wendlandt, not Wendland. Michael Casey, Associated Press Associated Press reporter Barbara Ortutay contributed to this report.
Category:
E-Commerce
President Donald Trump is planning a $12 billion farm aid package, according to a White House official a boost to farmers who have struggled to sell their crops while getting hit by rising costs after the president raised tariffs on China as part of a broader trade war. According to the official, who was granted anonymity to speak ahead of a planned announcement, Trump will unveil the plan Monday afternoon at a White House roundtable with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, lawmakers, and farmers who grow corn, cotton, sorghum, soybeans, rice, cattle, wheat, and potatoes. Farmers have backed Trump politically, but his aggressive trade policies and frequently changing tariff rates have come under increasing scrutiny because of the impact on the agricultural sector and because of broader consumer worries. The aid is the administrations latest effort to defend Trumps economic stewardship and answer voter angst about rising costseven as the president has dismissed concerns about affordability as a Democratic hoax. Upwards of $11 billion is set aside for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farmer Bridge Assistance program, which the White House says will offer one-time payments to farmers for row crops. Soybeans and sorghum were hit the hardest by the trade dispute with China because more than half of those crops are exported each year with most of the harvest going to China. The aid is meant to help farmers who have suffered from trade wars with other nations, inflation, and other market disruptions. The rest of the money will be for farmers who grow crops not covered under the bridge assistance program, according to the White House official. The money is intended to offer certainty to farmers as they market the current harvest, as well as plan for next year’s harvest. China purchases have been slow In October, after Trump met Chinese leader Xi Jinping in South Korea, the White House said Beijing had promised to buy at least 12 million metric tons of U.S. soybeans by the end of the calendar year, plus 25 million metric tons a year in each of the next three years. Soybean farmers have been hit especially hard by Trumps trade war with China, which is the worlds largest buyer of soybeans. China has purchased more than 2.8 million metric tons of soybeans since Trump announced the agreement at the end of October. Thats only about one quarter of what administration officials said China had promised, but Bessent has said China is on track to meet its goal by the end of February. These prices havent come in, because the Chinese actually used our soybean farmers as pawns in the trade negotiations, Bessent said on CBS Face the Nation, explaining why a bridge payment to farmers was needed. During his first presidency, Trump also provided aid to farmers amid his trade wars. He gave them more than $22 billion in 2019 and nearly $46 billion in 2020, though that year also included aid related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Trump has also been under pressure to address soaring beef prices, which have hit records for a number of reasons. Demand for beef has been strong at a time when drought has cut U.S. herds and imports from Mexico are down due to a resurgence in a parasite. Trump has said he would allow for more imports of Argentine beef. He also had asked the Department of Justice to investigate foreign-owned meat packers he accused of driving up the price of beef, although he has not provided evidence to back his claims. On Saturday, Trump signed an executive order directing the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission to look at anti-competitive behavior in food supply chains including seed, fertilizer and equipment and consider taking enforcement actions or developing new regulations. ___ An earlier version of this story incorrectly attributed the connection to tariffs to a White House official. Seung Min Kim, Josh Funk, and Didi Tang, Associated Press Associated Press writers Michelle L. Price, Bill Barrow, and Jack Dura contributed to this report.
Category:
E-Commerce
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