Optasia CEO Salvador Anglada Optasia has secured US$330-million (R5.4-billion) in refinanced and upsized debt facilities, with Standard Bank acting as joint mandated lead arranger and underwriter in a deal that deepens the banking group’s relationship with the JSE-listed fintech. The facilities comprise a $180-million term loan and $150-million in bank guarantees, and are designed to…
South Africa’s ability to compete in the global digital economy is slipping, with key metrics on infrastructure, broadband access and the country’s skills profile lagging as peer economies make faster headway. These are among the findings of the South Africa’s Digital Infrastructure Investment Study (Sadis) 2025 report (PDF) released by the Development Bank of Southern…
South Africa’s broadband access market is expected to reach R82.8-billion in revenue by 2029, with 3.7 million new active subscriptions, according to the latest SA Broadband Report from ICT analyst firm BMIT. The headline growth rate – a compound annual growth rate of 8.6% – is driven overwhelmingly by the residential market, where both fibre-to-the-home…
Communications minister Solly Malatsi. Image: DCDT Communications minister Solly Malatsi has gazetted South Africa’s draft national AI policy for public comment, opening a 60-day window for submissions on an 86-page document that proposes a sweeping new institutional architecture – including seven new oversight bodies – to govern the development and deployment of AI across the…
Between 280 and 200 million years ago, a group of animals evolved which would eventually give rise to mammals, including humans: the therapsids. They were first described more than 150 years ago, based on fossils from South Africa. Since then, many more fossils have been discovered. James Kitching, one of the most talented South African…
U.S. Embassy Pretoria Press Release FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE United States Welcomes Arrival of Groundbreaking HIV Prevention Medicine in South Africa PRETORIA, South Africa – The U.S. Mission to South Africa welcomes the arrival of the first shipment of Lenacapavir to South Africa on April 7, marking a significant milestone in the global fight against HIV/AIDS….
Standard Bank Group’s Simon Just Standard Bank has come out in defence of a market-led approach to open banking in South Africa that the Reserve Bank recently criticised, while the fintech industry is calling for more regulation. In March, the Reserve Bank released a working paper (PDF) arguing that South Africa’s market-driven approach to open…
The Managing Director and Chief Executive of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Olubunmi Kuku, has hailed Nigeria’s rising aviation profile following strong performance indicators across key airports, as the ACI Africa Regional Conference & Exhibition concluded in Luanda. Speaking at the closing ceremony of the conference, which brought together aviation stakeholders from across…
The number of pay-TV subscribers in South Africa fell below seven million for the first time in at least five years, dropping 9.6% from 7.4 million to 6.7 million in the year to September 2025, according to communications regulator Icasa’s latest State of the ICT Sector report. The decline adds hard regulatory data to the…
The author, Absa’s Lindelani Ramukumba Rewind just a few years and large language models and generative AI were barely on the public radar. Yet the technology has already evolved into its next iteration: agentic AI, a new breed of systems that are semi- or fully autonomous and able to reason and act on their own….
