The BNPL provider bought South Africa-based Payflex to establish a presence in the region, which remains largely untapped and where point-of-sale financing solutions have strong growth potential.

Equiano’s higher capacity and network speeds will lead to a 21% drop in internet prices  per Gajria, as well as a five-fold increase in Internet speed in Nigeria and triple in South Africa. Gajria added that between 2022 and 2025, Equiano will indirectly create 1.7 million jobs in Nigeria and South Africa.

Fidelity led the round, underscoring the US appetite to extend capital to the fast-growing fintech ecosystem.

Who’s winning the sprint to become a financial services super app: At Money20/20 USA, Insider Intelligence gave financial services executives an advance look at our upcoming matrix compiling some of the industry’s most comprehensive data about global financial services super apps.

That was also true in Egypt, South Africa, and Turkey. Across most of Europe, though, social media occupied fewer than 2 hours per day. This is a small sample of the granular information the report provides.

The company connects consumer brands with retailers and has a presence in Ghana, Nigeria, and South Africa. TradeDepot’s B2B BNPL product is available through its Shop TopUp platform, which offers merchants a variety of financial services, including digital wallets and loans. The company plans to use the new funds to bring more retail stores onto its platform and expand its BNPL product across Africa.

We also think Nigeria, South Africa, and Kenya will be the focus of deals since they have the largest GDPs in the region. These tie-ups should support micro-, small-, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) by bringing them into the digital payments ecosystem so they don’t lose business to larger, more established firms that already offer digital solutions.

The subsea cable will connect South Africa, Namibia, and Nigeria, and St. Helena will serve as a conduit between Europe and Africa when it’s completed in five years. Google most recently landed the final leg of “Grace Hopper,” an internet cable covering 3,900 miles of transatlantic territory connecting the US, the UK, and Spain.

Covid is (still) a thing: Those NRF projections were made before Omicron, the troubling new Covid-19 variant detected in South Africa, sent markets tumbling on Friday in their largest plunge of the year. Sensormatic found that, on the whole, consumers were more likely to flock to stores in regions less concerned with Covid-19.

The focus of partnerships, mergers, and acquisitions will be on Nigeria, South Africa, and Kenya—sub-Saharan countries with the largest GDPs. The biggest beneficiaries will be micro-, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs)—more than 40 million operate in Nigeria alone, per PwC. These heavily cash-dependent merchants lack the payments infrastructure required to connect to consumers.

The bigger picture: Zip’s announcement comes on the heels of its acquisition of South Africa-based BNPL startup Payflex. Like its crypto ambitions, moving Africa is not something other major BNPL providers have done—and both represent the company’s hunt for growth opportunities through unique pathways.