Author: ITPulse

Interswitch has recorded a tremendous leap in transaction volumes, logging in over 1.2 billion transactions across Nigeria in the month of March. This number represents a 58% increase over the previous month’s total transaction volumes processed. This figure is contained in its 2022/23 financial year For context, during the entire year 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic set in, Interswitch processed 2.7 billion transactions over the course of the entire year. The company’s continuous investment in cutting-edge technologies that power Africa’s financial ecosystem has greatly contributed to the increase in its switching capacity, providing much-needed relief to millions of Nigerians in…

Konga Travels and Tours said it is targeting over 20 million Nigerians by announcing the launch of a flexible installment payment scheme for prospective travelers, through which the company intends to expand access to affordable travel deals. Tagged Pay As You Earn, the scheme allows customers to hold down and enjoy cheaper travel deals by making a minimum of 20% down payment on the travel cost and paying the balance in convenient installments. ‘‘We are delighted to offer our customers this excellent and long-awaited product. Through Pay As You Earn, we have identified a fitting avenue through which we can…

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) at the 10th edition of Business 360 Clinics organised by Abuja Enterprises Agency (AEA) in Abuja, highlighted some of the initiatives to empower the Small and Medium Enterprises in Nigeria. Such initiatives include strategic partnerships with various organizations including the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) which birthed initiatives such as Digital Economy Academy where business owners learn about security risks and online threats in a 12-course programme for 3 months. “NCC has been at the heart of providing the digital drive for transforming businesses and sustaining socio-economic activities in Nigeria,” said…

Nigeria’s premier financial services institution, First Bank has started implementing the gradual corporate name change of its subsidiaries in the United Kingdom and Sub-Saharan Africa. The brand names, which were hitherto FBNBank UK, FBNBank Sierra Leone, FBNBank Gambia and FBNBank DRC are to be known and addressed as FirstBank UK, FirstBank Sierra Leone, FirstBank Gambia and FirstBank DRC. According to a statement by Firstbank, the Ghana, Senegal and Guinea subsidiaries will be next in the phased name change implementation, stating that the name change is being implemented to align the subsidiaries with the parent brand and to enjoy the strong…

Huawei has partnered with TD Africa to unveil a range of state-of-the-art products targeting the Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) market in Nigeria and beyond. The products unveiled include the Intelligent Collaboration IdeaHub series products, next-generation networking devices and smart storage products. The revolutionary products were unveiled at a well-attended launch event at Yudala Heights located at 13 Idowu Martins, Victoria Island, Lagos on Thursday, March 30, 2023. The Huawei IdeaHub series is an intelligent endpoint that integrates multiple functions, including multi-screen collaboration between mobiles and PCs, interactive whiteboard, remote collaboration, FHD video conferencing and built-in HD AppGallery. Among the…

The Director General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Mal. Kashifu Inuwa has argued that the survival of the 21st century Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, (MSME) is largely dependent on the adoption and adaptation of digital technologies. Inuwa, who spoke as a keynote speaker at the 10th edition of Abuja Enterprise Agency’s Business 360 Clinics with the theme “Technology Utilisation and Innovation: Its Effect on SME Profitability and Productivity, noted that embracing digital technologies will help SMEs to increase productivity and profitability of their businesses. “The effective utilisation of technology by SMEs will result in improved efficiency…

Given the diversity of IoT devices and their related cybersecurity risks, the need for their protection is clear, especially when it comes to smart cities or critical infrastructure. Traditional measures are not sufficient for IoT protection, making it crucial that specialised security solutions are implemented. To keep your devices safe, Kaspersky recommends users: Install updates for the firmware you use as soon as possible. Once a vulnerability is found, it can be fixed through patches within updates. Periodic rebooting will help get rid of malware already installed (although in most cases the risk of reinfection will remain). Change the factory…

There is a growing trend towards conversational experiences for customer communications as data from research conducted by Infobip, a cloud communications platform shows the rapid growth of interactions on chat apps such as WhatsApp Business Platform and social media channels such as Instagram for many customer needs. The data from more than 449 billion interactions in 2022 shows that conversational experience is becoming more popular across all forms of customer communication, from sales to customer support. Infobip’s analysis shows that traditional channels like SMS still play an important role in time-sensitive messages, two-factor authentication, and one-time passwords. But when it…

Search engine giant yesterday released its 2022 Ads Safety Report, where it was revealed that a total of 5.2 billion ads, were removed, restricted over 4.3 billion ads and suspended over 6.7 million advertiser accounts. In the report by Alejandro Borgia, Director, Product Management, Ads Safety, Google said these figures represent an increase of 2 billion more ads removed in 2022 from the previous year. “We blocked or restricted ads from serving on over 1.5 billion publisher pages and took broader site-level enforcement action on over 143,000 publisher sites,” it added. According to Google, these policies were enforced after relying…

 About 30,089 attacks on Internet of Things devices were in 2022 blocked by Kaspersky honeypots – decoy devices used to attract the attention of cybercriminals and analyse their activities in Nigeria. In that same period, the next-generation cybersecurity solutions and services provider detected and blocked 45,562 cyberattacks on Internet of Things (IoT) devices in Kenya and 221,695 in South Africa. IoT devices include wearables, smart home appliances, smart city systems, self-driving cars, automated retail checkouts, and other smart devices for home and business use. These devices can collect and transfer data over a wireless network without human input. Cybercriminals use…