Absa Bank Kenya, a subsidiary of South Africa’s Absa Group, has launched a WhatsApp banking solution called “Abby” to assist users in making basic transactions. According to the Bank, customers can use the service for bill payments, balance enquiry, inter-account transfers, as well as transfers between bank accounts and M-Pesa/Airtel money.
The Ministry of Foreign Trade of Peru (Ministerio de Comercio Exterior del Perú, MINCETUR) and the Commission for the Promotion of Peru for Exportation and Tourism (Comisión de Promoción del Perú para la Exportación y el Turismo, PROMPERÚ) presented the Peru Marketplace, the new commercial digital platform that shows the best of Peru’s exportable supply, offered by companies from every region of the country that meet the highest international standards. The Peru Marketplace commercial platform will offer more than 5,000 products from 1,000 Peruvian exporters.
Kenyan fintech startup Paylend, which is helping MSMEs better record data and access loans, is conducting surveys in Tanzania and Nigeria ahead of beta tests in those markets.
The U.S. Senate has passed a bill that could potentially ban TikTok in the U.S. if its Chinese owner, ByteDance, does not sell its holdings within a year. The bill now goes to the President Biden, who has said he will sign it. Court challenges are likely to follow.