The Central Bank of Kenya has announced the Kenya Quick Response Code Standard 2023, also shortened as KE-QR Code Standard 2023.
The service seeks to boost digital payments, which are offered by multiple financial institutions in the country. These companies usually have in-house payment solutions, meaning customers can only use a channel that has been implemented by a vendor.
The CBK governor, Patrick Njoroge, says merchants will now be able to receive payments from multiple channels, be it banks (Equity, KCB, Cooperative Bank, Absa, and more), mobile money wallets, and other payment processors such as VISA and Mastercard.

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The Government of Kenya has proposed multiple amendments to the Finance Bill for 2023.
The proposals aim to expand the tax base for the government, which has been having revenue issues that have forced it to at some point, delay the salaries of its employees. One of the proposals in the Bill is the taxation of payments made to digital creators.
Content creation has grown over the years, and creators earn a living through sponsored content, digital campaigns, or ad revenue from platforms such as YouTube, Tiktok and Facebook.
Payments made by taxpayers to digital content creators will be subject to a 15% withholding tax rate, according to the new proposed legislation.

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South Africa’s supreme court of appeals is set to rule on whether prisoners should have access to computers for educational purposes during their incarceration.
Judges have ruled that the present policy, which prohibits or limits computer use, constitutes unfair discrimination, a ruling that the country’s ministry of Justice and correctional services is appealing against. Currently, in South Africa, prisons’ policy either prohibits or limits computer use by inmates who have registered to study.
The ministry says allowing prisoners access to laptops in their cells would create a security threat. The ministry believes that inmates could smuggle modems into their cells or use illegal cell phones to create hotspots.

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The African Development Fund and Smart Africa Alliance have jointly launched a $1.5 million project to streamline digital trade and e-commerce policies across 10 African countries.
The project will evaluate policy gaps in the digital trade and e-commerce ecosystems of Côte d’Ivoire, Benin, Ghana, Liberia, Uganda, South Sudan, Zimbabwe, the Republic of Congo, São Tomé and Príncipe, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The project will see the implementation of regional training and capacity-building programs focusing on cross-border e-payment and e-commerce for governments, private sectors, and Small and Medium Sized Enterprises.

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Nigerian payment service provider Nomba has raised $30 million in a pre-Series B investment to support the delivery of bespoke payment solutions for African businesses. The round, which values the company at $150 million+ according to YCombinator data on its most valuable companies, was led by San Francisco-based Base 10 Partners.
Partech and Khosla Ventures, existing investors from its $5 million Series A round in 2019, participated, as well as new backers, including Helios Digital Ventures and Shopify, which might be making its first investment on the continent through the Nigerian fintech outfit.
Nomba supplied thousands of individuals and small business owners (who acted as its agents) with POS terminals to offer essential financial services such as cash withdrawal, transfer and bill payments to unbanked and underbanked Nigerians.

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Kenya is considering enforcing new regulations that will tax crypto exchange platforms like Binance and Bitmama.
Business Daily reports that crypto platforms operating in Kenya may soon have to pay a 1.5% duty on every transaction they make, per the Value added Tax (Electronic, Internet and Digital Marketplace Supply) Regulations, 2023.
Kenya has repeatedly ranked top of cryptocurrency adoption on the continent, beating out South Africa and Nigeria.
The country also announced an amendment to its Capital Markets Bill to introduce a 20% excise tax on every crypto transaction fee charged in the country. Another 1.5% tax would mean more charges for crypto exchange platforms and higher fees for crypto traders who are turning to crypto to avoid currency devaluation.

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A federal US court in Texas has ordered the CEO of a South African firm to pay $3.4 billion for bitcoin fraud. This is now the biggest fraud case involving Bitcoin.
Cornelius Johannes Steynberg, head of Mirror Trading International was charged by the Commodities Future Trading Commission for running a $1.7 billion bitcoin scam.
A federal judge ordered Steynberg to pay $3.4 billion—$1.7 billion in restitution to victims, and another $1.7 billion as a penalty.
MyBroadBand reported that the liquidators of MTI recovered 1,281 bitcoin frozen by its former brokerage in Belize, FXChoice.
The South African Revenue Services slapped the firm with a $55 million fine for back taxes while liquidators of MTI and Steynberg are also clamouring for legal fees which reportedly cost over $13.3 million.

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Kenya wants to curb the sale and distribution of fake phones and its solution is a spyware software on every mobile device in its territory.
The Supreme Court of Kenya approved installing and using the Device Management System on all mobile phones to help curb counterfeit devices.
DMS would reportedly use mobile networks to remotely access devices’ International Mobile Equipment Identity numbers and ban counterfeit ones.
The Law Society of Kenya also petitioned the Supreme Court to stop the implementation of the DMS for the same privacy concerns.
The Supreme Court dismissed all appeals citing that the CAK via its regulatory act had the power to monitor compliance with its laws.
This approval will see to creating of an Equipment Identification Register, which will detect all devices, isolate the illegal ones, and deny fake devices service.

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Apple Card customers in the U.S. can open a savings account and earn interest starting today.
When the company originally announced the new financial product back in October, Apple said that it couldn’t share what interest rate would be paid out on these accounts because rates are fluctuating so much these days.
Apple is going to offer an APY of 4.15%. It looks like a competitive offering when you look at data from Bankrate — you can currently find savings accounts that offer an APY of 3.5% to 4.75%.
Apple has partnered with Goldman Sachs for the banking feature. Savings accounts are technically managed by Goldman Sachs, which means that balances are covered by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

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The World Bank Group Board of Directors just gave Kenya a digital high-five with a whopping $390 million in financing for its Kenya Digital Economy Acceleration Project.
This project is all about widening the doors to the digital economy for everyone in Kenya through high-speed internet, better education and government services, and building skills for the regional digital economy.
TechMoran reports that the Kenya Digital Economy Acceleration Project is going to take a multi-phase approach.
Phase one will run from 2023–2028. It will entail expanding internet access, improving education and government services, and teaching more Kenyans digital skills. Then, phase two, from 2026–2030, will kick it up a notch with a data-driven and secure environment for enhanced digital service delivery and innovation.

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