Salvador Anglada Optasia CEO Salvador Anglada says the very same algorithms that made credit-vetting decisions via mobile wallets can be used in formal banking. Newly listed, technology-driven fintech Optasia sees the formal banking sector as a “massive opportunity” for growth as the company’s microfinancing business continues to overtake its traditional airtime advance offering. Speaking to…
The Department of Home Affairs is being sued over increased ID verification costs. The Department of Home Affairs (DHA) says it welcomes a legal challenge to its decision to hike identity verification fees by 6 500%, arguing the court case will “expose” how private companies profiteered under the previous fee structure at taxpayers’ expense. This…
Telecoms operators experienced a “pivotal” year. South Africa’s mobile network operators (MNOs) reported a strong 2025, leveraging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and preparing for further network investment in 2026. ITWeb spoke to the operators about their key milestones, regulatory developments and expectations for the year ahead. Byron Kennedy, spokesperson for Vodacom, said a…
Adapt IT Telecom’s Phillip du Plessis Imagine sitting on a gold mine and not even knowing it. That’s what many telecommunications companies are doing today. Across the industry, providers collect vast amounts of data – from location pings and app usage to payment histories and device types. Yet, despite this flood of information, most only…
Telecommunications industry body, the Association for Comms & Technology (ACT), has developed a set of industry principles and practices regarding Sim registration for its members – Vodacom, Telkom, Rain, MTN, Liquid Intelligent Technologies and Cell C – to adopt on a voluntary basis. Speaking to TechCentral in an interview on Monday, ACT CEO Nomvuyiso Batyi…
Quintin van Zyl, head of pre-sales in the telco division at NEC XON NEC XON has announced the introduction of a new generation of unique anti-theft telecommunications cabinets designed to combat the ongoing epidemic of battery theft and vandalism across mobile networks in South Africa and Southern Africa. South Africa’s two largest operators, MTN and…
The relative stability of the power grid, following the worst year of load shedding on record in 2023, has given South African mobile operators more financial room to up their investments into expanding their 5G networks. But international trends suggest operators are struggling to recover the costs of 5G network deployments, with consumers finding older,…
Local telcos punt eSIMs as an environmentally-friendly alternative to physical SIM cards. Reducing the number of SIM cards distributed in South Africa each year could lead to an annual reduction of almost 190 tonnes of plastic waste. This is according to a calculation from Securi-Tech, a firm that provides encoding, personalisation and security of SIM…
