|
|
|
Partner(s)
|
|
|
Good morning!
|
This is where the road ends for Moneymie, sort of. The company announced that it's calling its digital bank quits, but it won't be going away just yet.
|
It said that it will be focusing on its B2B business. Moneymie is not the first fintech to change its business model just with the stroke of the pen. Kora and Abeg have also done so in recent years.
|
|
Below are the tech stories and news you need to know to start your day, carefully curated by Technext.
|
|
|
|
|
Summary of the news
|
- The University of Johannesburg is now using blockchain for certificate issuance
- Moneymie has shut down its digital bank for immigrants to focus on B2B services
- Jack Dorsey said that his biggest regret is that Twitter was a company at all
- A key leader for Meta’s metaverse software is leaving the company
|
|
|
The University of Johannesburg is using blockchain for certificate issuance
|
|
The University of Johannesburg, South Africa will be issuing certificates for short-term training programs using blockchain. Notably, the initiative is important as it helps graduates of the institution to easily forward their certificates to prospective employers via the digital form, Technext reports.
|
According to the announcement, all short-term training program certificates will have special QR codes. The QR codes can be easily scanned using a smartphone by anyone, including prospective employers, who want to verify the certificate’s authenticity.
|
|
The school is planning to issue 30,000 blockchain-based certificates to different students by the end of the year. Commenting on the development, Tinus van Zyl, director of administration at the University of Johannesburg, said the school has been working on various ways to boost the security of educational documents in the last 10 years.
|
|
|
|
A word from our sponsor!
|
|
Fincra is a startup that creates API products for businesses with the aim of helping them build and launch their embedded payment features, using a concept called Banking as a Service (Baas).
|
"What is BaaS?" One might ask. BaaS helps non-banking businesses with financial infrastructure, allowing them to deliver their products faster to the market.
|
Now, this is where Fincra comes in. At its core, Fincra provides banking services for platforms on the API level, with the goal of building API infrastructure that connects Africa to the rest of the world. With Fincra's APIs, platforms can build quick and seamless financial applications for scalability across Africa and the rest of the world.
|
|
|
|
Moneymie shuts down its digital bank product
|
|
On August 9, 2022, Moneymie paused its digital bank service that enables African immigrants in North America to send and receive from Nigeria, Ghana and South Africa.
|
"We are grateful to the thousands of customers that believed in our dream to build a digital bank for immigrants, but unfortunately, that journey has come to an end," reads a notification on the company's website.
|
Although Moneymie is shutting down its B2C services, Benjamin Dada reports that the fintech company disclosed it would focus on cross-border payments and payouts for business users via its B2B platform and APIs.
|
|
|
|
Jack Dorsey's biggest regret
|
|
Jack Dorsey might be out of the picture at Twitter these days, but he’s still waxing philosophical about the company. In a reply to a tweet asking about his biggest regrets (paired with, sigh, anecdotal claims about political bias on the platform) the company’s co-founder and former CEO offered the grand observation that he wishes the company had never existed at all, TechCrunch reports.
|
“The biggest issue and my biggest regret is that it became a company,” Dorsey tweeted.
|
If you’ve not heard Dorsey on one before, the idea that Twitter should never have been a company might sound strange. But he doesn’t really mean that the project should have never existed, more that if he could rewrite history he would have (supposedly) steered Twitter toward being a protocol, not a company. “[I] don’t believe any individual or institutions should own social media, or more generally media companies,” Dorsey tweeted back in April. “It should be an open and verifiable protocol. Everything is a step toward that.”
|
|
Of course, Dorsey made absolute bank when Twitter went public in 2013, but tech billionaires always do seem to have these hypothetical regrets, don’t they? (To Dorsey’s credit, at least he’s doing something worthwhile with a big chunk of that cash.)
|
|
|
|
Major shakeup at Meta
|
|
The vice president of Meta’s Horizon social media virtual reality software, Vivek Sharma, is leaving the company, a spokesperson said last week CNBC reports.
|
Sharma has been with Facebook parent Meta for the past six years, holding high-ranking positions in marketplace and gaming, and most recently its nascent metaverse-related business unit.
|
As VP of Horizon, Sharma, who is based in the Seattle area, oversaw various VR projects such as the Horizon Worlds social media service, which is akin to the online game Second Life that’s been retrofitted to virtual reality. Other Horizon products include the VR-based workplace collaboration app Horizon Workrooms, and the Horizon Venues app for live events, which was moved into the core Worlds app this summer.
|
“Thanks to his leadership, the Horizon product group has built a strong team with an ambitious vision, and it is just getting started,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement. “Meta continues to be a source for developing great leaders, and we’re excited to see what Vivek accomplishes in his next chapter.”
|
|
The spokesperson added that the Horizon team will now directly report to Vishal Shah, Meta’s VP of the Metaverse.
|
|
|
|
Latest in funding
|
|
|
|
|
Other stories we are following
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
    
|
|
|
|