SOUTH AFRICA REDESIGNS THE RAND
If the idea of a currency redesign makes your skin crawl, you must have lived through—and survived—Nigeria’s unnecessary currency redesign, which almost crippled the economy.
South Africa is touting a similar path. For the first time since 2012, the South African Reserve Bank—the country’s apex bank—has unveiled new designs for rand notes and coins.
At the launch event held yesterday at the Nelson Mandela Foundation in Johannesburg, the Reserve Bank governor, Lesetja Kganyago, announced that the new currencies will have enhanced security features to prevent counterfeiting.
What’s changing? The new notes feature colour-changing ink. Large watermarks that feature Africa’s five biggest animals, one per denomination, have also been embossed on the notes: rhino on the R10 note, elephant on the R20, lion on the R50, buffalo on the R100, and leopard on the R200 bill.
The notes also have inclusive features for visually impaired users, including numerals and unique shapes printed in positive and negative ink on the currencies.
You can check out the new coins and notes here.
Lessons learnt: Nigeria has a lot of lessons to learn from South Africa; even the redesign is more inclusive and well-thought-out than Nigeria’s vanity project.
Unlike Nigeria which tried to limit the use of old notes, South Africa will keep the new and old notes in circulation together. The new notes, which will enter circulation today, May 4, will also be rolled out in Lesotho, Namibia and Eswatini, where the rand is legal tender.
It will be the first time the country is releasing new coins since 1989.
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CALLS AND MOBILE DATA TO GET MORE EXPENSIVE IN NIGERIA
Long-distance relationships are about to get expensive for Nigerians as the cost of phone calls and data will be going up soon.
The federal government of Nigeria has reintroduced a 5% excise duty on telecom services, as part of the fiscal measures to be implemented this year.
Surprise, surprise: The announcement came as a surprise to many, as in September last year, the federal government suspended the proposed excise duty on telecommunication services and eventually exempted the sector from the duty in March.
Tax upon tax: In March when Nigeria’s minister of communication Isa Pantami announced that the president had exempted the telecoms sector from the 5% excise duty, he stated that the telecoms industry was under threat from excessive and multiple taxes. According to him, ICT firms pay about 41 duties.
Who’s gonna pay? Last year, when the excise duty was first announced, stakeholders in the telecoms sector told everyone who cared to listen that the burden would be on the consumers. The news has been met with dissatisfaction by Nigerians who are dealing with increasing inflation.
KENYA UNIFIES PAYMENTS CHANNEL
The Kenyan government wants its banks and payment operators to work together.
Yesterday, it announced the launch of the Kenya Quick Response Code Standard 2023, or the “KE-QR Code Standard 2023”.
Pay with QR codes: The KE-QR is simple. It will offer all payment service providers regulated by the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) the ability to process payments using QR codes. According to the CBK governor, Patrick Njoroge, merchants will now be able to receive payments from multiple channels, be they banks (Equity, KCB, Cooperative Bank, Absa, and more), mobile money wallets, and other payment processors such as VISA and Mastercard.
For consumers, this means that, instead of using debit cards, USSD codes or transfers to pay for stuff, they can simply scan a single QR code and pay.
Will QR Codes work though? The CBK states that the KE-QR will allow consumers access to fast and easy payments without the hassle and friction of previous payment processes.
QR codes—those black and white square boxes—are just links on a picture. That means after scanning, customers still have to click links and enter some details. From the basic definition of QR codes, it doesn’t seem like there will be much difference. At this stage, the CBK is still implementing the QR codes, but once TechCabal tries it out, we’ll be able to share more on whether the KE-QR is truly a better payment alternative.
THE WORLD WIDE WEB3
|
|
|
|---|---|---|
|
Bitcoin
|
$29,128 |
+ 2.27% |
|
Ether
|
$1,901 |
+ 2.12% |
|
BNB
|
$326 |
+ 1.06% |
|
Cardano
|
$0.39 |
+ 2.60% |
|
|
Source:
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* Data as of 06:30 AM WAT, May 4, 2023.
Written by – Timi Odueso & Ngozi Chukwu
Edited by – Kelechi Njoku
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