Last updated: 26 June 2026. Fees and exchange rates change daily, and providers run promotions, so always check the live quote in each app before you send.

Key takeaways

• Compare the naira your recipient actually receives, not the headline fee. That figure combines the fee and the exchange-rate margin.
• Lemfi charges no transfer fee to Nigeria and makes its money on the rate; Wise uses the true mid-market rate plus a small upfront fee; Remitly offers a free, promotional first transfer and several payout methods.
• High-street banks are usually the most expensive and the slowest.
• Specialist apps deliver to a Nigerian bank account in minutes; banks can take several working days.
• The rates change daily, so install two apps, compare the amounts received in a minute, and send with whichever pays out more on the day.

The real cost: fee plus exchange-rate margin

Every transfer has two costs. The first is the upfront fee, which is easy to see. The second is the exchange-rate margin, the gap between the rate you are given and the real, mid-market rate that banks use between themselves. A service can advertise “zero fees” and still be expensive if it widens that margin.

That is why the only number that matters is the amount of naira that lands in the recipient’s account for a given pound amount. A £500 transfer that arrives as more naira is the cheaper one, regardless of the fee.

Comparison: the main ways to send money to Nigeria from the UK

Lemfi

Lemfi, formerly Lemonade Finance, is built specifically for diaspora transfers, and the Nigeria corridor is one of its core routes. It charges no flat transfer fee to Nigeria and earns its money through a margin on the exchange rate, so that margin is the figure to watch.

Transfers to a Nigerian bank account or mobile-money wallet typically land within minutes, though some bank routes can take a day or two. For regular senders who want one simple, low-cost option, it is often the default choice.

Wise

Wise is the most transparent on cost. It always uses the real mid-market exchange rate with no markup and shows its fee upfront, so you can see exactly what you are paying. For larger amounts, that clean rate often means more naira arrives even after the fee.

Wise sends to Nigerian bank accounts and allows up to 95 million naira per transfer. Money usually arrives on the same working day after conversion, although the conversion itself can take up to 2 working days. You will need the recipient’s full name, their bank code and their 10-digit account number.

Remitly

Remitly is the most flexible in how it collects money. Beyond bank deposits, it offers cash pickup, mobile wallet, and home delivery options, which are useful when the recipient does not use a bank. New customers get a special promotional rate and no fee on a first transfer, applied to the first £250 sent.

It offers a faster, card-funded Express option and a cheaper, slower standard option. Like Lemfi, it earns its money on the exchange-rate margin rather than a flat fee, so it is worth checking the amount of naira received once the introductory offer ends.

More apps worth comparing

Lemfi, Wise and Remitly are not the only credible options on this route. A few others are worth lining up side by side:

WorldRemit sends naira to Nigeria with no transfer fee and pays out to a bank account, for cash pickup, to a mobile money wallet, or as airtime. It says 90% of its transfers to Nigeria arrive within minutes, with bank deposits landing within about an hour, and it is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.

Sendwave is an app-first service that charges no flat fee and instead takes a small margin on the exchange rate. It delivers to Nigerian bank accounts, cash pickup by voucher and mobile wallets, and advertises transfers that arrive in seconds.

NALA, an Africa-focused app, advertises no hidden fees and transparent pricing, with bank transfers to Nigeria arriving in seconds and a mobile-money option. It operates in the UK as an agent of Modulr, a firm authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority.

TapTap Send charges a small flat fee and pays out to bank accounts, mobile money and cash pickup, with transfers arriving in minutes. It says it is licensed to transmit money in the markets where it operates.

High-street banks

Sending through a traditional UK bank is the most familiar route and usually the most expensive. Banks tend to charge a flat fee and apply a wide margin on the exchange rate, and international transfers over SWIFT, the network banks use to move money across borders, can take several working days to arrive.

For most people sending money to family in Nigeria, a specialist app will deliver noticeably more naira, faster, than a bank. The bank route makes sense mainly when you are moving very large sums and value familiarity.

A note on the naira

The naira has been volatile in recent years, and the rate you are offered moves with it. Reputable providers quote close to the prevailing market rate, but the gap between the official rate and the unofficial parallel-market rate has at times been wide, which is exactly why it is worth checking what you are actually getting. It is also why informal channels that promise a far better rate carry real risk: that margin is where fraud hides.

How to send money to Nigeria from the UK

The process is broadly the same across the specialist apps:

1. Download the app, create an account and verify your identity. UK money-transfer firms are regulated, so you will be asked for ID.
2. Enter the amount in pounds and select Nigeria and naira. The app shows the rate and the exact amount in naira the recipient will receive.
3. Compare that receive amount against a second app to see which pays out more that day.
4. Add the recipient’s details: full name, bank and 10-digit account number, or their mobile money or cash pickup details.
5. Pay from your UK bank account or card, confirm, and track the transfer in the app until it arrives.

Speed, limits and safety

On the main Nigeria corridor, specialist apps usually deliver to a bank account within minutes to a few hours, whereas banks can take days. Sending limits vary by provider and the level of identity verification, and larger transfers may require additional checks.

On safety, the established services here are authorised or registered with the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority, which sets rules on how they protect customer money. Stick to regulated providers, and be wary of informal arrangements that promise unusually good rates. The gap between the official and parallel naira rates is exactly where scams thrive. African fintech firms are increasingly building their own cross-border rails too, as seen in deals like PayAngel’s tie-up with Visa.

So, what is the cheapest way?

There is no single permanent winner, because the apps move their rates daily and run promotions against each other. As a rule of thumb: Lemfi is hard to beat for simple, fee-free transfers to a Nigerian bank account; Wise tends to win on larger amounts thanks to its clean mid-market rate; and Remitly is worth using for the free first transfer and for cash or home delivery. WorldRemit, Sendwave, NALA and TapTap Send are all worth a quick side-by-side check too.

The reliable strategy is to keep two apps installed, enter the same amount in pounds, and send with whichever shows more naira that day. That habit will save more over a year than loyalty to any single brand. The same pressure is pushing the market as a whole towards instant, low-cost settlement, including newer stablecoin-based payment platforms aimed at African businesses.

Which option suits your situation

• Small, urgent transfers: a fee-free app like Lemfi or Remitly’s faster Express option can reach a bank account or wallet within minutes.
• Larger amounts: Wise’s clean mid-market rate usually means more naira arrives, and it allows up to 95 million naira per transfer.
• Recipient has no bank account: Remitly’s cash pickup and home delivery, or a mobile-money payout, reach people outside the banking system.
• Your very first transfer: Remitly’s promotional no-fee first transfer, applied to the first £250 sent, can make it the cheapest one-off.

Frequently asked questions

What is the cheapest app to send money to Nigeria from the UK?

Lemfi is often the cheapest for fee-free transfers to a Nigerian bank account, but Wise can deliver more naira on larger amounts. Always compare the received amount on the day.

How long does a transfer to Nigeria take?

With specialist apps, money usually reaches a Nigerian bank account within minutes to a few hours. Bank transfers can take one to five working days.

Is it safe to send money to Nigeria with these apps?

The established providers are authorised or registered with the UK Financial Conduct Authority and use secure, regulated payment networks. Avoid informal money changers who offer rates that seem too good to be true.

Can I send money to a Nigerian mobile-money wallet?

Yes. Lemfi and Remitly both support mobile-money and bank payouts, and Remitly also offers cash pickup and home delivery for recipients without a bank account.

Is there a limit on how much I can send to Nigeria?

Limits vary by provider and the level of identity verification. Wise, for example, allows up to 95 million naira per transfer, while other apps set their own caps and may run extra checks on larger sums.

What details do I need to send money?

For a bank payout, you need the recipient’s full name, their bank and their 10-digit Nigerian account number. For cash pickup or mobile money, you provide the recipient’s name and phone number instead.

The country’s largest mobile operator has struck a partnership with Amazon South Africa to bundle Prime, Amazon’s membership programme, into its plans, the companies said on 25 June 2026. Vodacom called it a first-of-its-kind deal in the market.

The membership gives customers Prime Video with its films, series and Amazon Originals, free same-day and next-day delivery in major cities, member discounts, and free gaming through Amazon Luna with a Twitch subscription.

Who gets it, and what it costs

Access depends on the plan. Vodacom’s RED Core, RED Flexi and RED VIP contract customers get Prime, and from August 2026, so do Home Internet, Mobile Broadband and Fibre subscribers. All prepaid customers can sign up and pay using airtime.

RED Flexi customers receive a 3-month free trial, and RED Core customers receive a 12-month free trial, after which the subscription is billed at R59 per month. RED VIP, Home Internet and Fibre customers get free lifetime access while they remain eligible.

“This partnership marks another important milestone in our journey towards building a digital society,” said Rishaad Tayob, director of consumer business at Vodacom South Africa, adding that it positions the operator “as a holistic digital lifestyle provider, going beyond connectivity”. He noted that the launch comes as South Africans seek more value amid rising living costs.

Telcos chase the bundle

For Amazon, the deal deepens its push into a market it entered only recently. “Since launching Amazon in South Africa two years ago, we have built a store our customers love,” said Robert Koen, managing director for sub-Saharan Africa at Amazon, calling Prime “the next exciting milestone” in the country.

The tie-up extends a relationship that began when Vodacom became the first South African operator to offer Prime Video Mobile Edition in 2022. It also fits a wider pattern of African operators bundling entertainment and lifestyle perks to hold on to customers, much as MTN has done with its One TV streaming service and Vodacom itself has through its other ventures with Amazon. As connectivity margins tighten, the value increasingly sits in everything wrapped around the SIM.

The company graduated 15 startups from the 10th cohort of its Google for Startups Accelerator Africa at a Demo Day in Nairobi, Kenya, it said this week. The class was picked from nearly 2,600 applications, meaning fewer than one in 100 applicants got in.

By Google’s account, the cohort is already commercially healthy: 60% of the 15 companies are profitable, with average monthly revenue of $60,000 and average funding of $1.1 million. “AI in Africa is no longer an experiment; it is a high-yielding engine for economic growth,” wrote Folarin Aiyegbusi, Google’s head of startup ecosystem for Africa.

Eight countries, five sectors

The graduating ventures come from eight countries: Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Uganda, Tanzania, Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire and Angola. They work across fintech, mobility, healthtech, agritech and software-as-a-service.

Aiyegbusi argued that the founders are not simply attaching an “AI” label to ride a global trend, but are using machine learning to tackle local problems, processing fragmented data, and optimising markets that have long been hard to serve. The three-month programme, which ran from March to June, pairs startups with Google engineers and tools.

An equity-free bet

Google runs the accelerator on an equity-free basis, taking no stake in the companies and instead offering mentorship, technical support and product credits. It is the same model behind its other African startup programmes, including the Hustle Academy for small businesses.

Since the accelerator launched in 2018, Google says it has backed more than 190 startups across 17 African countries, with alumni going on to raise over $400 million and create more than 3,500 jobs, against $11 million in equity-free funding and credits from Google. The pitch fits a broader race to court African founders, from corporate accelerators to new pools of capital like the Flat6Labs and IFC programme in Algeria. The open question is how many of these AI ventures scale beyond their first profitable year.

This guide sets out where you can get Starlink in Africa, what it costs, how fast it actually is, and why some of the biggest markets are still waiting. The availability and pricing below come from Starlink’s own systems, checked on 16 June 2026. These figures change often.

Last updated: 16 June 2026.

Key takeaways

• Starlink is live in 26 African countries and listed as coming to 26 more. South Africa is not yet available.
• Monthly Residential plans run about $30 to $55 across the live markets; the hardware kit is the largest upfront cost.
• Median download speeds top 100 Mbps in every live market, with latency of 25 to 42 ms.
• Performance is anchored by ground gateways in Johannesburg, Lagos and Nairobi.
• South Africa remains blocked by B-BBEE ownership rules, though an investment-based workaround is now on the table.

Where Starlink is available in Africa

Starlink’s own availability data splits the continent into a few groups: live now, coming soon, and a couple of markets where the company has not committed to a timeline. Nigeria was the first African market, live since early 2023, and the list has grown steadily since.

Several large economies sit on the waiting list rather than the live one. Tanzania, Uganda, Angola and Namibia are all marked as coming during 2026, while South Africa, Ethiopia and Sudan carry no committed date at all.

Why the rollout is uneven

Starlink covers the continent from orbit, so the patchwork is not about where its satellites reach. It comes down to two things on the ground: licences and gateways. Every country has to authorise the service, and approvals move at the pace of each national regulator, which is why neighbours can sit in different groups.

The second factor is ground infrastructure. Starlink routes traffic through gateway stations, and a market served by a nearby gateway gets lower latency and more capacity than one routed to a distant one. As the company adds gateways and clears the regulatory paperwork, the live list grows, but the order is shaped by politics and plumbing as much as by demand.

How much Starlink costs in Africa

Pricing is set per country in local currency and varies widely. There are two hardware options, the full-size Standard kit and the smaller, portable Mini, and in many markets two service tiers: standard Residential and a cheaper, lower-priority Residential Lite.

In dollar terms the monthly cost clusters around $30 to $55 for the standard Residential plan: roughly $37 in Nigeria and $50 in Kenya. The markets priced directly in US dollars, Liberia, Somalia, South Sudan and Zimbabwe, are among the cheapest and clearest. Exchange rates move, so treat dollar equivalents as a guide; the local-currency prices above are what Starlink actually charges.

On the tiers: Residential Lite is cheaper but slows first during congestion, and several Central and West African markets instead sell a capped Residential 250GB plan. The Mini kit costs less up front but is built for portability rather than as a full home setup.

How fast is Starlink in Africa?

Speeds are strong across the live markets. Starlink’s own reported median figures put most African countries well above typical fixed-line broadband, with low latency to match.

Independent measurement tells a similar story. Ookla’s Speedtest Intelligence found Starlink beating local internet providers in almost every African market in early 2026, with 16 of 23 measured countries clearing 50 Mbps. The catch is routing: where traffic passes through a nearby Starlink gateway, latency drops sharply; where it does not, it climbs.

In practice those medians comfortably support video calls, 4K streaming and online gaming, the kind of use that strained older satellite services. Upload speeds are lower, typically 17 to 42 Mbps, but still ahead of much of the fixed-line competition in these markets.

The gateways behind the speeds

Starlink’s African performance is anchored by a small number of ground gateways. Public network records from PeeringDB show the company connected in three African cities, peering at the local internet exchanges:

• Johannesburg, South Africa: colocated at the Teraco campus, peering at the NAPAfrica and JINX exchanges.
• Lagos, Nigeria: at Equinix’s Lekki data centre, peering at IXPN Lagos, its largest African connection at 600 Gbps, and AMS-IX Lagos.
• Nairobi, Kenya: at the icolo.io facility, peering at KIXP and LINX Nairobi.

These gateways are why Kenya records some of the continent’s lowest latency, and why countries far from one see higher delays. There is also an irony buried in the list: Starlink’s biggest African gateway sits in Johannesburg, yet South Africans cannot legally buy the service.

What the African Starlink market tells us

The monthly price is uniform; the kit is the barrier

Across the live markets the monthly cost is strikingly consistent: roughly $30 to $60 in dollar terms for the standard Residential plan, with the cheapest options in the markets Starlink prices directly in US dollars and the Residential Lite tier dropping as low as $30. Nigeria, at about $37 a month, is among the most affordable.

The real barrier is the hardware. The Standard kit lands at roughly $380 to $390 and the Mini around $200, a one-off cost that equals several months of average income in lower-income markets such as Chad or DR Congo, and a meaningful chunk even in Nigeria or Kenya. For many households the dish, not the subscription, decides whether Starlink is within reach.

Where Starlink matters most

Starlink’s value is highest where the ground is hardest to wire. Several of its live markets are large, sparsely populated and barely served by fixed broadband: Chad, at around 13 people per square kilometre, the Central African Republic at about 8, Niger and DR Congo are exactly the places where laying fibre to every town is uneconomic. Across much of this territory Starlink is not competing with terrestrial internet; it is the first reliable high-speed option to arrive.

The picture flips in dense, better-connected markets. Rwanda, one of Africa’s most crowded countries at over 500 people per square kilometre, and the cities of Nigeria and Kenya already have fibre and mobile data, so Starlink there is a premium or backup choice rather than a lifeline.

It fills the gap that 5G does not reach

Africa’s 5G build-out, though real, is overwhelmingly urban. By the end of 2025 some 53 operators across 29 African countries had launched 5G, but coverage clusters in capitals and big cities; Nigeria, an early mover since 2022, still had a 5G coverage gap of more than half the country. GSMA Intelligence expects 5G to reach only around 17% of connections by 2030, led by South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya.

That leaves a vast rural middle where neither 5G nor fibre reaches and where mobile data is slow and capped. This is Starlink’s core African market: not the cities, where it overlaps with fast terrestrial networks, but the towns and farms beyond them.

South Africa: the big exception

South Africa is the continent’s largest internet economy and one of the most vocal Starlink markets, yet the service is unavailable there. The block is regulatory, not technical.

To hold a telecoms licence in South Africa, a company must be at least 30% owned by historically disadvantaged South Africans under the country’s Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) rules. SpaceX has resisted ceding equity, and the licence has stalled.

A path is opening. In December 2025 the government introduced an Equity Equivalent Investment Programme (EEIP) framework, which lets multinationals meet the empowerment requirement through local investment in skills, suppliers, jobs and infrastructure rather than handing over shares. SpaceX has said it intends to comply and has pledged R2.5 billion of investment, and Starlink has run a campaign urging South Africans to lobby the regulator.

The timeline remains uncertain. The regulatory process could take 12 to 18 months, pointing to a possible launch in late 2026 or 2027, and Starlink’s own availability page still lists South Africa’s service date as unknown. Our earlier analysis, Starlink in South Africa: hype or hope?, set out the stakes, and the ICASA satellite spectrum review now under way is one of the levers that could shift it.

The other markets holding out

South Africa is the most prominent holdout, but it is not alone, and the reasons fall into two broad camps: protecting incumbent or state-owned telecoms, and guarding security and sovereignty.

Ethiopia has kept low-Earth-orbit providers out almost entirely. Its regulator has said it held no licensing talks with Starlink at all, and the state has opened its long-closed telecoms market only cautiously, to a single Safaricom-led consortium.

Morocco sits in regulatory limbo: Starlink has reportedly set up a local entity, but the regulator has yet to issue a licence amid resistance from established operators who see it as a disruptive rival. Egypt goes further, with the service effectively blocked and users told it is not enabled in the country, a stance tied to its tightly controlled telecoms sector and security concerns.

Cameroon banned Starlink in 2024 on data-sovereignty and competition grounds, and customs has seized imported kits, though officials signalled in late 2025 that a concession agreement may be moving forward. In conflict-affected Sudan the service is unlicensed and used mostly on the black market, while Algeria, Libya, Djibouti and Eritrea sit in a quieter limbo with no committed date.

Tanzania is further along: Starlink has applied for a licence and the market is partly served through an Airtel Africa direct-to-device arrangement, even as the full residential service waits on approval.

How to choose, and what you need

If Starlink is live in your country, the main decisions are hardware and tier:

• Standard kit or Mini: the Standard kit is the full home dish with a Wi-Fi 6 router; the Mini is smaller, portable and cheaper, suited to travel or a single-room setup.
• Residential or Residential Lite: Residential is the full-priority home plan with unlimited data; Lite is cheaper but slows first when the network is busy. Where offered, a capped 250GB plan is cheaper still.
• Setup: Starlink is built for self-installation and works within minutes of plugging in, with no contract in most markets.

Ordering is straightforward where the service is live: check availability for your address on Starlink’s site, choose the kit and plan, pay for the hardware plus the first month, and set the dish up yourself with a clear view of the sky.

Whether it is worth it depends on what you are replacing. The kit is a real upfront cost, from around $200 for a Mini to the equivalent of several hundred dollars for the Standard dish, which is steep against local incomes. But for homes and businesses beyond fibre or reliable mobile coverage, Starlink usually delivers far faster speeds and lower latency than the alternatives, with unlimited data on the Residential plan. In cities already wired for fibre, it is rarely the cheapest option.

For anywhere not yet on Starlink’s map, or if you are in South Africa, see our guide to Starlink competitors and alternatives, several of which already serve African markets.

Starlink’s African footprint is expanding fast, but unevenly, shaped as much by regulators as by rockets. Availability, prices and the coming-soon list all change frequently, and we will keep this guide updated.

Daya, a Lagos-based fintech, has closed a $2.4 million pre-seed round led by Hivemind Capital, a New York digital-asset investment firm, the company announced on 24 June 2026. Other backers include the crypto-focused funds Alliance and Lattice.

A stablecoin neobank for businesses

Daya describes itself as a business-focused stablecoin neobank: a single platform where African companies can hold virtual US dollar accounts, send and receive instant cross-border payments, pay with cards and settle in stablecoins while managing treasury across currencies. Its products include an onramp and routing engine, a flagship business app and developer APIs.

“Daya is a B2B stablecoin neobank that enables local African businesses to access the global dollar economy via virtual USD bank accounts, instant global payments and payment cards,” said Kayla Phillips of Hivemind Capital, which led the round.

The company, which calls itself “the financial engine for African businesses”, was founded in 2025 by Aleph Lasebikan and Paul Joe, both veterans of African crypto. Lasebikan is a co-founder and former chief product officer of Helicarrier, the Y Combinator-backed Nigerian crypto company formerly known as Buycoins, where he led what Daya says was Nigeria’s first local-currency stablecoin. He later worked as a principal product manager at Circle, the issuer of the USDC stablecoin. Joe held product and research roles at Helicarrier before moving into venture investing.

A Gulf corridor, then a raise

The funding follows a partnership Daya struck earlier in the month. On 4 June 2026, the Dubai-based exchange HashKey MENA, licensed by the emirate’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority, named Daya its African payments partner in a pilot stablecoin corridor linking the Middle East and Africa, built with the Aptos Foundation.

Under the pilot, a company in the United Arab Emirates converts local currency into stablecoins via HashKey; the tokens then move across the Aptos blockchain, and Daya converts them into local African currencies for the recipient, starting with the Nigerian naira. Daya provides on- and off-ramps on the African side through its routing engine, virtual local-currency accounts, and payment APIs.

“Africa is already a frontrunner in stablecoin adoption. What has been missing is the regulated infrastructure and scalable liquidity to connect that demand to the rest of the world,” Joe said when the corridor was announced.

Riding the “digital dollarisation” wave

The rise lands in the middle of what investors call digital dollarisation: the rush by companies and savers in volatile-currency economies to hold and transact in dollars. Stablecoins, blockchain tokens pegged to the dollar, have become a fast and cheap way to move that value across borders, sidestepping correspondent banks and scarce foreign exchange.

It is a crowded and fast-moving space. Global players are pushing in, with PayPal recently extending its PYUSD stablecoin to Uganda and Malawi, while a wave of local startups builds cross-border payment rails across the continent.

The open question is regulation. Stablecoin and crypto rules remain a work in progress across most African markets, including Nigeria, and how clearly they land will shape how far platforms like Daya can scale. For now, the company has fresh capital and a bet that African businesses increasingly want to bank in dollars.

The Chinese cloud provider announced on 25 June 2026 the launch of its Model-as-a-Service (MaaS) offering in Egypt, a platform that lets companies access, customise and run large language models without setting up or managing the complex infrastructure those models usually require.

The pitch addresses a familiar gap. Interest in AI is high among enterprises, but many stall on the path from experiment to deployment, held back by infrastructure complexity, high development costs, and a shortage of specialist skills. MaaS packages the models as a service so customers can adapt them to their needs and focus on results rather than plumbing.

From pilot to production

Huawei Cloud said the platform covers the full journey, from testing and customising a model to deploying it at scale in live systems. It is aimed at sectors including financial services, telecoms, government, retail, logistics and customer service.

Typical uses pitched to those buyers include AI-powered customer service, virtual assistants, enterprise search, automated document processing, workflow automation and multilingual support, the last a notable feature in a market that works across Arabic and English.

“We aim to empower organisations to turn AI capabilities into real business value, by providing a simpler and more structured way to explore, apply, and scale AI across different scenarios,” the chief executive of Huawei Cloud Egypt said in a statement, tying the launch to “the next stage of AI growth in the Egyptian market”.

Egypt’s AI push

The launch comes as Egypt pushes a national AI and digital-transformation agenda, and as global cloud providers compete to host the models that will run on it. Huawei has been building out its Egyptian footprint, including a recent move to partner local fintech Thndr on cloud and AI.

For Egyptian enterprises, the question is less whether to adopt AI than how to do it without heavy upfront investment, the same tension that runs through the continent’s wider debate over cloud and data sovereignty. A managed model service lowers that barrier while deepening the customer’s reliance on the provider hosting it.

Africa’s largest mobile operator placed second in the 2026 Ranking Digital Rights (RDR) Index, up from sixth in the previous round, the company said on 23 June 2026.

The RDR Index is a widely used benchmark for corporate accountability in the technology and telecoms sector. It scores companies on how their policies, governance and public disclosures uphold users’ rights, including freedom of expression and privacy.

A low bar, climbed

MTN credited its jump to stronger governance disclosures, a new advertising content policy and tighter user data protection, with score gains across all three of the index’s categories.

Even in second place, MTN scored just 42 out of 100, a reminder of how poorly the sector as a whole rates on the index’s measures of transparency and rights protection.

“Our progress in the Ranking Digital Rights Index reflects the deliberate steps we have taken to strengthen governance, enhance transparency and embed respect for digital human rights across our operations,” said Nompilo Morafo, MTN Group chief sustainability and corporate affairs officer.

Why it matters in Africa

The result carries weight given MTN’s operations. The group runs networks across 19 markets, many with complex regulatory environments in which operators field government requests for user data and, at times, orders to restrict access to services.

How telecoms firms handle those demands sits at the heart of the wider debate over data governance and sovereignty on the continent. For MTN, which is building out consumer platforms from fintech to its One TV streaming service, public trust in how it manages user data is increasingly a commercial asset as well as a governance one.

Flat6Labs, the entrepreneurship platform that runs startup programmes across the Middle East and Africa, and the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private-sector arm of the World Bank Group, have launched StartAlgeria, a capacity-building programme for the country’s Entrepreneur Support Organisations (ESOs). It runs in partnership with Algeria’s Ministry of Knowledge Economy, Startups and Micro-Enterprises and the Government of the Netherlands.

ESOs are the incubators, accelerators and support bodies that select, train and fund early-stage startups. StartAlgeria targets them rather than individual founders, on the logic that stronger support organisations produce stronger companies.

What the programme involves

A first cohort will focus on incubators in Algiers, the capital. After a call for applications, the selected organisations will participate in workshops and masterclasses covering startup selection, programme design, and investment readiness.

Each will then receive 6 months of mentorship on fundraising strategy, partnership development, and financial sustainability, areas where many African support organisations struggle to move startups from early-stage ideas to investment-ready ventures.

“Algeria’s startup ecosystem is demonstrating remarkable potential and a rapidly growing level of maturity,” said Yehia Houry, chief executive of Flat6Labs. He said the opportunity lay in helping support organisations “identify and nurture high-potential startups” and build stronger links between founders and capital.

Part of a diversification push

The programme reflects a wider effort by Algeria, long dependent on oil and gas revenues, to build a knowledge economy. The government has created a dedicated ministry for the startup sector and rolled out startup-labelling and funding schemes in recent years.

“By strengthening the capabilities of Entrepreneur Support Organisations, we are investing in the long-term growth, resilience and international competitiveness of Algerian startups,” said Noureddine Ouadah, the Minister of Knowledge Economy, Startups and Micro-Enterprises.

Flat6Labs runs programmes across 15 countries, and StartAlgeria adds to a run of ecosystem-building across the continent, from fresh pools of venture capital to accelerator pushes in other markets. For Algeria, the test will be whether better-run incubators translate into more startups that can raise money and scale beyond the domestic market.

The Lagos-based payments group has struck a partnership with Temenos, a Swiss banking-software firm, to offer managed digital-banking services to banks and other financial institutions across the continent. The deal was announced on 4 June 2026.

Under the agreement, Interswitch will use Temenos technology, spanning core banking, digital banking, payments, wealth management and financial-crime tools, to run banking platforms on behalf of its clients, either in the cloud or on an institution’s own servers. The service will start in Nigeria, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire and Kenya before expanding.

From payments to the banking stack

The move takes Interswitch up the stack, from processing payments to operating the software that banks run on. For lenders, the appeal is outsourcing the cost and complexity of modernising ageing systems to a partner that already plugs into much of Africa’s payments plumbing.

“This is a pivotal moment for Interswitch as we accelerate our expansion beyond payments and reimagine digital banking for Africa,” said Jonah Adams, managing director for digital infrastructure and managed services at Interswitch. He said the Temenos platform gave the company the flexibility “to scale our services across the continent”.

A widening footprint

Interswitch operates in 32 African countries and supports more than 300 financial institutions. Its Quickteller platform handles consumer and merchant payments, while its Verve card scheme recently passed 100 million cards issued. The company has steadily broadened its remit over the years, from card processing into areas such as health technology.

Africa’s banking-technology market is increasingly contested, with local players and global vendors alike chasing lenders that want to modernise without building everything in-house, a shift also visible in deals like Brass folding its business banking into Paystack. For Interswitch, managed banking services are a way to deepen ties with the institutions it already serves, and to sell them more than payments.

MTN Group Fintech has signed a strategic partnership with Ant International, the global arm of China’s Ant Group, the operator of the Alipay super-app, to overhaul the technology behind MoMo, its mobile-money platform. The first rollout is expected in Nigeria next quarter.

The plan is to evolve MoMo from a payments app into a wider ecosystem: a “mini-app” platform that lets third parties build services inside MoMo, alongside stronger fraud prevention and richer features for consumers and merchants. It mirrors the model Ant built with Alipay in China, where a single app bundles payments, lifestyle and commerce.

Building a “One Big Tech” platform

“This partnership aligns with MTN Group’s ambition of leading digital solutions for Africa’s progress by leveraging scale, technology and strong global partnerships,” said MTN Group president and chief executive Ralph Mupita.

MTN Group Fintech chief executive Serigne Dioum framed the deal as a step in the unit’s “One Big Tech” strategy, while Ant International president Douglas Feagin said the company would combine MTN’s market knowledge with its own technology to build “a more inclusive, secure and scalable” financial-services platform.

The mobile-money prize

The target is significant. Sub-Saharan Africa is the world’s most active mobile-money region, and mobile technology already underpins a large share of the continent’s economy. MoMo is one of MTN’s fastest-growing businesses, and a more capable platform could deepen its hold on payments, savings and value-added services.

The move also fits a broader push by MTN to build consumer platforms beyond connectivity, from fintech to its recent launch of the One TV streaming service. Whether a super-app model that thrived in China translates to Nigeria’s market, with its own habits and rival wallets, is the test the Nigeria launch will set.