Equity Bank and online shopping service,PayPal, have announced that merchants in Kenya will now be able to sell to PayPal’s global customer base of more than 137 million active accounts in 193 markets around the world and move the proceeds to their Equity Bank accounts. This new service allows PayPal users to withdraw funds to their qualifying Equity Bank accounts from their PayPal accounts.

“PayPal is trusted throughout the world to enable millions of consumers to shop safely and conveniently online and through their mobile phone each day. We are pleased to make this announcement as Kenyans will be able now to join the global eCommerce marketplace. Our agreement with PayPal also enables international businesses and individuals to transact with Kenyan service providers via a secure and convenient payment service. This initiative with PayPal is part of our commitment to harness technology and strategic partnerships in ensuring that our customers continue to enjoy the freedom of modern banking,” said Dr. James Mwangi, Equity Bank Chief Executive Officer.

He added that the service will allow Kenyans to make payments and receive money internationally without sharing their financial or personal information.

If you want to use this service one will be required to simply open a PayPal account and link it to their Equity Bank account and receive PayPal payments in 26 different currencies.  Equity Bank will convert the currency to Kenyan Shilling when the money is transferred into their accounts.

Commenting on the partnership, Efi Dahan, PayPal’s Regional Director for Africa and Israel, said “Equity Bank is the leading bank in Kenya and we are truly excited by signing our second bank partnership in Africa with the Bank. Equity and PayPal have a similar focus on innovation, and this strategic partnership is a major milestone on our exciting journey in Sub-Saharan Africa to enable e-commerce across the region and integrate it into the global marketplace.”

“With Kenya’s continued economic growth at over 5% annually and its focus on building online businesses, we’re optimistic about the future of eCommerce in this market and look forward to working with Equity Bank on the opportunities ahead,” concluded Dahan.

“The launch of PayPal sees Equity Bank take another step forward as Kenya’s most innovative financial institution. It responds directly to our ‘Your Listening, Caring Partner’ brand promise,” said Dr. Mwangi.

The PayPal service will be offered in partnership with Equity Bank and has received approval from the Central Bank of Kenya.

The media campaign will be rolled out on the print, digital, electronic and outdoor media and is aimed at educating consumers on what they need to do to migrate to digital TV broadcasting.

Lined up, too, are radio activations, talk shows and interviews, billboards and demonstration clinics to be held in select urban centres within metropolitan Nairobi.

The transition to digital TV broadcasting is aimed at ensuring that Kenya complies with international agreements on the digital migration arrived at during the Regional Radiocommunications Conference in 2006.

Dr Fred Matiang’i described Nairobi analogue switch off date of 13th December 2013 as ‘the test bed for migration’ saying that the lessons learnt here will be applied in the analogue. He appealed to the close to 700,000 households who require to be connected to DVB-T2 set top boxes in the area to purchase the gadgets ahead of the switch-off deadline.

Saying there are almost 300,000 set top boxes in stock, the Cabinet Secretary urged investors to ensure they offer affordable gadget in the market.

The resignation of MultiChoice South Africa’s CEO Collins Khumalo has brought a major management rearrangement in the Pay TV business. The CEO, now former, said that he needed to take some ‘time out’ after serving the group for 17 years.

In a statement MultiChoice said: “Collins has played various roles within the PayTV environment and has been a stalwart in assisting the company to build the PayTV business across the continent. The company would like to thank Collins for his sterling service to the group and wish him well in the future.”

As a result of Khumalo’s resignation, MutiChoice South Africa will now report directly to Imtiaz Patel who is the CEO MultiChoice Group.

The group said that its DStv Mobile and DStv Online businesses had huge overlaps and should be integrated into one unit. As a result, these businesses will be merged into a single entity immediately and the combined business unit will be headed up by John Kotsaftis, current CEO of DStv Online.

The current leader of DStv Mobile, Mark Rayner will be appointed as the Chief Operating Officer of MutiChoice South Africa immediatly and will be reporting to Imatiaz Patel.

Calvo Mawela is now incharge of Stakeholder and Regulatory affairs: MultiChoice South Africa Group and will report directly to Imtiaz Patel.

“We thank Collins for his sterling service to the Group and wish him well into the future. I would like to congratulate Mark Rayner, John Kotsaftis and Calvo Mawela on their new roles within the Group,” said Imtiaz Patel.

Good news is in the South African air; Maledi Pandor  the South African Minister of Home Affairs and Pravin Gorghan the Minister of Finance are yet to decide on whether to waive the fee for new smart ID cards.

As [Pandor] has indicated in Parliament, she is in discussion with National Treasury regarding fees for certain categories of persons that may be exempted,” said spokesman Ronnie Mamoepa.

The Home Affairs Minister had the legal authority to waive fees for acquisition of enabling documents for “certain categories of persons”, if she deemed it necessary.

“In this regard, we would await the outcome of discussions between minister Pandor and minister Pravin Gordhan on the matter, which will chart the way forward and give direction on the matter,” he said.

DA spokesman Manny de Freitas said R140 was the difference between survival and starvation for many South Africans as many of them cannot afford it.

“Imposing a new ID system on South Africa’s citizens and then forcing them to pay for it puts a price on citizenship that not everyone can afford, and will exclude them from the employment market as well as electoral and social security processes once green barcoded ID books are phased out,” said Mamoepa.

The process is expected to take more than a year as they will call people to register according to their dates of birth. Citizens who will be receiving their ID’d for the first time will not pay.

One of the first people to receive the new ID card was former president Nelson Mandela, who received his on his birthday, on July 18.

South Africa’s Business Day Television (BDTV) and CNBC Africa are out to answer to plagiarism allegations after the former broadcaster, formerly known as Summit TV, accused its competitor of copying messages posted on Twitter during Wednesday’s midterm budget speech by finance minister Pravin Gordhan.

BDTV CEO Vernon Matzopolous has accused CNBC of stealing the content his company posted to Twitter. CNBC Africa head of programming Bronwyn Nielsen has admitted the copying took place and apologised for what she has called an “error in judgment” by a junior intern.

“Why bother to employ your own journalists when you can just steal the content from your rivals?” Wrote Matzopolous in a statement, in which he attached images showing CNBC Africa posting identical tweets to those issued on BDTV’s Twitter feed. “As far as I know, publishing someone’s content as your own is plagiarism. Or does the Twittersphere have a different set of rules?”

In response, Nielsen explains that CNBC Africa has a team of people managing the channel’s social media accounts.

“One of the members was a junior intern who made an error in judgment during the midterm budget by copying and pasting three Business Day Television tweets,” she said. “The channel does not condone plagiarism and extends an apology to BDTV. Strict disciplinary action will be taken against the staff member in question.”

The person responsible for the channel’s tweets failed to remove “@BusinessDayTV” from one of the tweets then produced a direct copy after retweeting the original.

Apple has announced two exquisite iPads, the iPad Air and the iPad mini with Retina  display.

The new devices feature the Apple-designed A7 chip which is 64-bit,  it is wireless with a faster in-built Wi-Fi and expanded LTE cellular connectivity as well as the iOS 7 software. The new iPads also feature the M7 motion co-processor that gathers data from the accelerometer, gyroscope and compass to offload work from the A7 for improved power efficiency.

The iPad Air is 9.7 inch is 20 percent thinner and 28 percent lighter than the previous model, while the iPad mini with Retina display is7.9 inch screen.

The A7 chip offers the iPad Air a CPU and graphics performance advancement of up to two times and to the iPad mini Retina Display the chip offers up to four times the CPU  and eight times the graphics performance. A7 chip’s 64-bit architecture and support for OpenGL ES version 3.0 unlocks game console-like visual effects.

The iPads feature two antennas to support Multiple-In-Multiple-Out (MIMO) technology,  which bring twice the Wi-Fi performance to iPad Air and iPad mini supporting a data rate up to 300 Mbps at compatible Wi-Fi hotspots. The cellular models also come with expanded LTE coverage to accommodate even more LTE networks worldwide.

How many times have you bothered to take any precautions when using Wi-Fi in public places? A Kaspersky Consumer Security Risk survey done by  B2B International and Kaspersky Lab  this year says that that free connection harbors hidden risks but apparently more than a third of the users do not take any additional precautions when logging on to public Wi-Fi.

Getting online is quite easy this days but many of this hotspots are not keen on the protection bit for the users, which even the users are either not concern or do not know the potential problems that can be caused.

In the Survey, 34 percent of users said they took no special measures to protect online activity using a hotspot, while 14 percent were happy to bank or shop online using any network that came to hand and only 13 percent take the time to check the encryption standard of any given access point.

In a Wi-Fi access point, it is possible for one to see what you are doing on your devices as it is a window to the internet for all the devices that are connected to it. Every request from a device goes through an access point, and only then reaches the sites that users want to visit.

Having no encryption of communications between users and the access point makes it ease for a cybercriminal to obstract all the data a user enters, including data sent to a bank, or an online store. This doesn’t mean that a connection with a password will make things better, Kaspersky says that cyber crimes happen to such connections as well as one with a secure https-connection between the required site and the user’s browser.

Kaspersky Lab proposes the use of secure connections to access points. They say that only this will greatly reduce the risk of the traffic being intercepted by cybercriminals. However, when users are planning to use sites which demand personal information such as usernames and passwords, this basic precaution must be joined with additional protective tools.

Free things indeed come with a price well at least to the care-free in this case. How many times have you done major transactions in a Wi-Fi area? Coming back to Kenya, is the Wi-Fi system in the matatu (public transport system) as well as the hotels secure enough to conduct business transactions?

Nigeria and the king of search engines,Google, have come together and formed the new Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI). This is a global organisation aiming to take affordable broadband access to everyone.

In the past month, the search engine giant announced that it had joined more that 30 members of A4AI, while Nigeria became the first African country to formally join the alliance.

In the 49 least developed countries, 90 percent of people are still not online, so A4I’s main aim is to challenge regulatory barriers and put in place initiatives to bring down the cost of access to the UN Broadband Commission target of entry-level broadband services priced at less than 5 percent of average monthly income.

Leading Regional East African retail chain Nakumatt Holdings Limited together with MasterCard has unveiled the Nakumatt Global Prepaid MasterCard card.

The card has been made possible by the two partnering with  Kenya Commercial Bank and Diamond Trust Bank.

The new card, which is EMV compliant, replaces the current Nakumatt Cybercash loyalty smartcard and provides a range of enhanced benefits and security features.

With the multicurrency Nakumatt Global Prepaid Mastercard card, existing Nakumatt smartcard holders will continue accumulating their smart points for all purchases made across Nakumatt outlets.

Nakumatt Holdings Managing Director Atul Shah confirmed that plans are now underway to revamp the firm’s range of financial products and services as part of a wider strategy to provide convenient retail financial solutions such as utility bill settlements, insurance products, cash back, FOREX trade and money transfer services at Nakumatt tills..

“At Nakumatt, we have managed to integrate a most advanced Payment Gateway switch linking us with other financial service providers to facilitate the robust delivery of a number of financial services and products,” said Shah.

The new card also features MasterCard contactless technology, which offers consumers a ‘tap and go’ option. Although new to Kenya, contactless payment technology is touted as the answer to those seeking fast yet secure modes of payment, and is supported by multi-level security protection.

“The card is a true reflection of Nakumatt’s and our other partners’ resolve to triumph over adversity,” said Daniel Monehin, Division President, Sub-Saharan Africa at MasterCard. “The Nakumatt Global Prepaid MasterCard card is a great win for this market and a proof that MasterCard’s vision of a world beyond cash is not only possible but is actually happening. Today, 85 percent of the world’s transactions are still carried out in cash and cheque,and  98 percent in Kenya.”

KCB Group CEO,Joshua Oigara said: “KCB is a regional Bank and therefore our customers across East Africa will enjoy more convenience and choice. The Nakumatt Global Prepaid MasterCard is one such product and we are proud to have partnered in the process of bringing it to pass. ”

Nasim Devji, Group CEO and Managing Director of Diamond Trust Bank commented: “Promoting economic development in working towards Kenya’s Vision 2030 is an extremely important driving force for DTB.  The Nakumatt Global Prepaid MasterCard card is about providing an exceptional value proposition through loyalty points, tap and go technology, savings on foreign currency, and more. All these whilst providing consumers peace of mind by embracing security features such as EMV chip which is fast becoming a global standard”

The Nakumatt Global Prepaid MasterCard card also has multicurrency capability which allows consumers to upload the prepaid card with either: Kenya Shilling (KES), U.S. Dollar (USD), Euro (EUR), British Pound (GBP), Indian Rupee (INR), South African Rand (ZAR) and the Australian Dollar (AUD). As a result, cardholders can load money for purchases at POS terminals, make cash withdrawals and online purchases as well as save on the costs incurred in multi-currency transactions.

Nakumatt plans to replace its old generation Smart Cards with the Nakumatt Global MasterCard prepaid card. The cards will be available from all Nakumatt outlets and also from selective branches of the partnering banks, beginning with Kenya before rolling out to Tanzania, Uganda and Rwanda where Nakumatt operates.

Libya is in for a treat as the TriHuman Resources Development Service of Korea will for the first time recruit industrial trainees and train them in technology in the drive to fuel economic development in Libya.

The HRD Korea signed a contract worth US$94.8 million on 21 October 2013 with the Libyan Ministry of Labout and the WAC from the office of Libya’s Prime Minister.

The new initiative comes at a time when Libya is two years later on still recovering from the late Gaddafi’s over 40 years dictatorship rule. Nevertheless, through this contract, the Korean organization would provide six months of technical training in 14 fields including automobiles, electricity, mechanics, welding, electronics and plumbing to more than 1,300 new trainees selected and sent to Korea by the Libyan Ministry of Labour, notes Korean business portal “Business Korea”.

The organization would also receive US$13.6 million from Libya to build a vocational education and training centre for 900 people in Benghazi Libya. Apart from erecting a replica of the Korean training centre, HRD Korea would be in charge of placing orders and managing the construction as well as delivering the necessary expertise for the initial operation of the centre, reports say.

Acknowledging that the development the IT society has registered considerable progress in the ICT sector, Malawi has drafted its new information and communications Technology Bill set to completely overhaul its approach to the new technology phenomenon.

The Bill entitled “Electronic Transactions and Management Bill 2013” that was rolled out in the beginning of October 2013 covers 11 issues set help control operations in Malawi’s ICT sector.

The launch comes at a time when Africa is the region with the highest growth rates in ICT compliancy over the past three years with mobile broadband penetration increasing from 2 per cent in 2010 to 11 per cent in 2013. The most significant steps of these changes are networks digitalization, components miniaturization and more recently the development of the Internet and mobile telephones, notes the bill set to offer guidelines in light of the drastic growth. ICT has thus created new legal issues which require specific legal answers which has brought about the need to roll out the new information and communications technology bill.

The main objective of the Government is to have the country benefit from a true technological leap which may speed up its economic growth by enabling the development of new economic activities due to the implementation of a secure legal framework regulating the use of ICT, reports say. Through this bill, Malawi is convinced that its agro-based economy can drastically grow and diversify through participation in the information society and that in order to fully benefit from the information revolution. Thus, plans are underway for Malawi to modernize various sectors of its economy using ICT.

The new bill tackles issues such as the Legal recognition of electronic messages; proceedings applicable to the conclusion of electronic contracts; legal responsibility of various actors; consumer protection with respect to e-commerce; taxation; online financial services; and encryption. The Bill also covers the issues of Cyber criminality; Data protection; Domain name; and E-Government.

According to reports, the bill does not recognize the ‘Legal recognition of electronic messages’ in the current legal framework in Malawi, yet it is a condition to the development of electronic transactions in the country.  However, it says that the electronic documents should have the same legal probative force as paper documents.

The ‘Domain name’ which has been a challenge in the ICT sector in Malawi has also been dealt with in the Bill and sets out rules in accordance with international principles saying the management of the registration of domain names is essential to the development of the e-economy.

The bill also observes the rules regulating the conclusion of contracts need to be specified and clarified in order to ensure security with respect to electronic transactions under the ‘Proceedings applicable to the conclusion of electronic contracts’ section.

While in respect to the internet, under the “Legal responsibility of various actors’” section regarding TV, radio or written press, the freedom of speech is expected to be limited by certain principles of public order. It also precisely defines the responsibility of technical service providers and editors of online contents.

Online purchase of goods and services would is covered by the bill under the section ‘Consumer protection with respect to e-commerce”. It tackles online purchase of services or goods which it says require the adoption of specific provisions in addition to classical consumer rules. Moreover, it provides for specific obligations lying on professionals regarding the display of information and online advertising.

Taxation is also covered in the bill, as it explains in detail the circumstances under which value added tax and customs fees can apply to e-transactions.

Under ‘Online financial services’ the Bill gives the importance and the specificity of the risks of these services which it says have driven the Government to introduce very strict provisions regulating the online provision of financial and banking services.

The Bill also looks at ‘Encryption’ where specific provisions have been laid down to ensure the security of digital economy. Generally, the Bill provides for the legal framework regulating encryption in conformity with international best practices.

Last but not least, it deals with the issue of ‘Cyber criminality’ where it sets out the principles for combating crimes in the e-environment and establishes a dedicated institution, the Malawi in full first and abbreviate Computer Emergency Response Team to fight against cyber threats and attacks.

The Bill also offers ‘Data protection’ topped with specific provisions in order to regulate online collection of personal information regarding users and imposing systematic information on the purposes of the data processing and the rights of the data subject, say reports.

E-Government has been included after being excluded in the country’s first Bill of this kind called the E-Bill.  The Bill reiterates the obligation for administrators to do their best efforts to promote the development of online public services and facilitate the use of ICT in Malawi.

Pharmacy and poisons board of Kenya (PPB) together with TradeMark East Africa (TMEA) have announced the launch of a new ePortal that will enable the pharmaceutical industry’s stakeholders to access trade and drug retention services online.

Dr. Kipkerich Koskeim Pharmacy and Poisons Board Registrar had this to say: “The PPB ePortal had been developed with the aim of integrating all regulatory services. Through the ePortal, stakeholders will be able to apply for  operational licenses,renew existing operational  licenses, make payments and register drug exports and imports.”

The development of this online portal has been facilitated by TMEA as part of its mandate to promote regional trade and economic integration. This service is expected to ease access to services provided by the regulator to the pharmaceutical industry.

The Cabinet Secretary Ministry of Health, Prof. Fred Segor said: “The  Pharmacy and Poisons Board’s ePortal will contribute towards the reduction of non-tariff trade barriers within the Pharmaceutical sector. This is inline with Kenya’s vision 2030 goal of providing equitable and affordable quality services to all Kenyans. Theses aspirations are in line with the flagship projects of vision 2030 initiatives under the National single window project.”

The PPB stakeholders can use the ePortal to access services form departments such as pharmacovigilance, drug registration, pharmaceutical manufacturing services, trade which includes import and export, inspectorate surveillance and enforcement.

Some of the benefits of the online portal includes; efficiency at the board through re-engineering of the PPB process, increased stakeholder compliance within the pharmaceutical industry, create a platform for consumers and stake holders to inform the board on issues pertaining the safety and efficiency of medicines in the public, integration between PPB and other government agencies and ease of doing business through online applications and verification.