OneFi Acquires Nigeria’s Amplify, China Diplomat Condemns the West Over Huawei, Facebook Employees Exposed to Users Passwords

Africa

OneFi acquires fintech company in Nigeria

Nigeria’s One Finance Limited (OneFi) has acquired Amplified Payments, reports have said. Amplify builds and facilitates payment solutions for business, while One Finance leverages data and technology to improve access to credit. PayLater, OneFi’s main product, has distributed $50 million dollars through 750,000 loan applications. The deal will see OneFi take over Amplify’s flagship products, AmplifyPay and mTransfers.

FSD Africa and Equity Bank Congo partner to boost financial inclusion

Financial Sector Development (FSD) Africa and Equity Bank Congo have entered into a partnership to improve financial inclusion in rural areas of Democratic Republic of Congo, it has been reported. The partnership is a three-year programme worth $2.8 million that will see the training of 4,000 mobile bank agents across 26 provinces in DR Congo. FSD is a UK-sponsored project based in Kenya that “aims to reduce poverty across sub-Saharan Africa by building financial markets that are efficient, robust and inclusive. The partnership with Equity Bank Congo will open one million new savings accounts and disburse 10,000 new loans to underserved communities. Years of civil war have caused infrastructural development to stall, meaning approximately 25 million of DRC’s 88 million population still lack access to basic banking and insurance services.

Asia

China’s top diplomat condemns the West’s political attack on Huawei

China has condemned all political attempts at discrediting its telecoms manufacturers, calling it groundless, Reuters has quoted. China’s State Councillor Wang Yi, made the remarks in Brussels, referring to Huawei’s debacle with western governments. Huawei equipment has been flagged by America and its allies as being vulnerable to Chinese peddling, raising security concerns across the globe. The Trump administration has banned the use of Huawei equipment in any federal agency, while other nations have removed Huawei from important 5G networks. “What we oppose are groundless accusations for political purposes and attempts to bring down a foreign company,” Councillor Wang said.

Xiaomi sold 118 million smartphones in 2018

Chinese smartphone maker, Xiaomi, sold a record 118.7 million smartphones in 2018, Tech In Asia reported. This came despite a shrink in global smartphone sales. Only two years prior in 2016, sales were so disastrous that Xiaomi refused to reveal how many devices it had sold. With the record sales in 2018, however, Xiaomi managed to increase revenue by 52% to $26 billion, $6.5 billion of which came from smart gadgets. Profits were $478.4 million last year, rising 46.4% from previous results.

Europe

Tech giants need to be regulated

The European Union will have to regulate the activities of tech giants and social media companies in order to protect citizens, EU First Vice President Frans Timmermans has said. Timmermans admitted that the rules would only work if tech giants agreed to work with regulators. “The first task of any public authority is to protect its citizens – and if we see you (tech giants) as a threat to our citizens, we will regulate and if you don’t work with us, we will probably regulate badly,” he said at a World Policy Forum in Berlin according to a report by Reuters.

Aluminium plants hit by ransomware

One of the largest aluminium producers in the world, Hydro, has been hit by a severe ransomware attack, it has been reported. The companies factories in Norway and America have been hit, forcing workers to switch to manual mode. Hydro staff all over the world now have to access their mail using personal devices as Norwegian authorities work to fix the malware attack. Hydro has reported subsequently that it is making headway in its fight against the ransomware attack.

Finland to investigate alleged Nokia data breach

Finland is investigating reports that Nokia-branded phones transferred data to China without permission from users. This follows reports in Norway that Nokia “admitted that an unspecified number of Nokia 7 Plus phones had sent data to the Chinese server.” Nokia has admitted a data software glitch had affected one batch of their phones but that no personal data was shared with third party. It also announced that the glitch had been fixed, Reuters reported.

The Americas

Google to launch video game streaming service called Stadia

Google has announced plans to launch a gaming platform called Stadia that wouldn’t require downloading the software onto hard drives. Reuters is reporting that the platform would leverage Google’s cloud platform and worldwide datacentres. This would allow users to play high definition games in their browsers.

US politician sues Twitter over insults

Republican congressman of California, Devin Nunes, has filed defamation suits against Twitter and two others, reports claim. The Republican politician has brought the charges against Twitter accounts including @DevinNunesMom and @DevinCow, both of whom he alleges to have broken Twitter’s terms of service. Congressman Nunes is accusing the two of engaging in an “orchestrated defamation campaign” against him. In a 40 page complaint, Nunes cited, “Twitter knew the defamation was (and is) happening. Twitter let it happen because Twitter had (and has) a political agenda.” Nunes is seeking $250 million in damages.

Facebook fixes glitch that exposed millions of passwords to staff

Facebook has announced that it has fixed a glitch that exposed the passwords of millions of users to its staff, Reuters has reported. The glitch allowed user passwords to be stored in a readable format, the report said. Millions of passwords were accessible to up to 20,000 internal Facebook employees as far back as 2012. Between 200 million and 600 million users may have been affected. Stating the facts, however, Facebook added that “These passwords were never visible to anyone outside of Facebook and we have found no evidence to date that anyone internally abused or improperly accessed them.”