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Wednesday, 09 November 2022
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Partners
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Good morning!
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You miss Dennis? 😉 Don't worry, he will be back in no time and I hope we become good friends before then, because I will give you all the news, and the pepper 🌶️, of the tech world, like he would.
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It was reported yesterday that Nigerian fintech company, Kuda is expanding its operations to the United Kingdom, with the objective to offer financial services to Nigerians and other Africans within and outside the continent. But, something else happened afterwards.
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Kuda customers thought their monies had washed into the red sea when they realised they could not log in. The icing is that some accounts were deactivated.
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Technext parted the red sea to understand where the monies could be, but, let us first see what else happened in the tech world, as curated by Technext.
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Summary of the news
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- Meta continues a trend of layoffs by tech companies
- Kuda confirms UK expansion but leaves Nigerians behind
- Look for Twitter Africa's team and see almost nothing
- It is not FTX' year
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Meta's Mark takes responsibility for layoffs
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When Elon Musk took over at Twitter and Jack Dorsey apologised saying, "I own the responsibility for why everyone is in this situation: I grew the company size too quickly. I apologise for that," we were all in a dilemma. Was Elon wrong? And is Jack only doing eye service?
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"I got this wrong, and I take responsibility for that," he told employees on Wednesday.
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Zuckerberg mentioned that Meta had over-invested in recent years after the pandemic led to increased revenues thanks to surging online activity. He said:
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We’ve cut costs across our business, including scaling back budgets, reducing perks, and shrinking our real estate footprint. We’re restructuring teams to increase our efficiency. But these measures alone won’t bring our expenses in line with our revenue growth, so I’ve also made the hard decision to let people go.
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He said in the memo to employees: "Many people predicted this would be a permanent acceleration that would continue even after the pandemic ended. I did too, so I made the decision to significantly increase our investments. Unfortunately, this did not play out the way I expected."
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The COVID-19 reset is not over, but we hope layoff season ends with Meta. 😟
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A word from our partners!
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Write about all the awesome things you’ve built or are building with Fincra’s APIs and stand a chance to win cash prizes 🚀
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Kuda, don't leave us
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On the one hand, many Nigerians were excited that Kuda had expanded operations to the UK. And on the other hand, some other Nigerians put their hands on their head. I mean, why not? It is sapa season and loosing money should not be on the agenda.
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It started on Wednesday, when users started noticing that they were locked out of their accounts, or saw deactivation notices.
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If you use Kuda bank, and you’ve forgotten your mobile app password because you’ve been using the biometric login. I advice you takeout your money before Wednesday (12/08/22) It’s a new infrastructure and many data will be lost.
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This means that the fintech company may have failed to understand geolocation technicalities before its expansion.
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Twitter lays off most of the Africa team
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Twitter Africa's office was destined to celebrate one year in operation, but Elon Musk has used the infinity stones.
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Twitter's office in Accra opened on Tuesday, November 1 after the team had spent one year working remotely. But, on Friday, November 4, employees were locked out of their email accounts and their work laptops no longer functioned, CNN reported.
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"The company is reorganising its operations as a result of a need to reduce costs," Twitter's director of people services in Dublin, Ireland, told its staff in Africa in the email, per CNN. "It is with regret that we're writing to inform you that your employment is terminating as a result of this exercise."
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Employees were told in the email that they'd be placed on garden leave until December 4, when the termination will take effect. CNN reported that employees were told they are not allowed to communicate with colleagues during this time period, but should remain available in case Twitter needs them for a handover.
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CNN reports that Ghanaian lawyers may take legal action against Twitter for violating Ghanaian labour laws.
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SEC adds to FTX' turmoil 😞
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Crypto trading platform, FTX, fell from grace after what appeared to be a bailout by Binance. Now, U.S. regulators are looking into whether FTX potentially mismanaged customer funds on its platform, Bloomberg.
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The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) are investigating FTX’s relationship with its sister entity Alameda Research as well as with FTX US. The investigations, which haven’t been publicly disclosed, began “months ago as a probe into FTX US and its crypto-lending activities,” Bloomberg reported.
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In recent days, the regulators have asked for details about the ownership structure of FTX US and FTX.com, which caters to non-American clients, according to two of the people. Regulators are interested in any overlap between management and board structures, and the financial relationship between the two entities. The agencies have also asked for details on whether customer accounts were properly segregated and the composition of the investor base at FTX.com, said one of the people.
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Meanwhile, Binance has scrapped its letter of intent to buy FTX, according to a Binance spokesperson.
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"As a result of corporate due diligence, as well as the latest news reports regarding mishandled customer funds and alleged U.S. agency investigations, we have decided that we will not pursue the potential acquisition of FTX.com," the spokesperson told CoinDesk.
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Latest in funding
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Other stories we are following
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