Apple and Google say they will roll out software updates to enable 5G support on their respective handsets in India, the world’s second-largest wireless market, just days after local bureaucrats began pushing the phone makers to expedite their efforts.
Reliance Jio and Airtel, India’s two largest carriers, have started to offer 5G services in select Indian cities in recent weeks, but many popular handsets in the nation currently don’t support the local airwaves.
Apple says that it will issue a software update in December to enable 5G on iPhones used in India.
Apple says they are working with carrier partners in India to bring the best 5G experience to iPhone users as soon as network validation and testing for quality and performance are completed. 5G will be enabled via a software update and will start rolling out to iPhone users in December.

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The Central Bank of Kenya has announced the successful separation of the mobile money business from the telecommunications business, which was previously under Airtel Networks Kenya Limited.
The CBK licensed Airtel Money Kenya Limited as a payment service provider on January 21, 2022, and also granted a transition period to complete the transfer.
AMKL and ANKL are now separate subsidiaries of Airtel Africa Plc, which has operations in 14 African countries and is listed on the London Stock Exchange.
Airtel’s goal is to make its money arm lighter so as to accelerate its growth, strengthen its operations, and offer better services to its customers.

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The stock prices of Uber, Lyft and DoorDash slid after the Department of Labor announced proposed changes to how workers should be classified.
The federal agency says the prospective guidance is intended to “combat employee misclassification.
Uber’s share price dropped by more than 10% to $24.61, while Lyft’s tanked more than 12% to $11.22 and DoorDash’s fell more than 5% to $44.98 at the time of writing.
Uber, Lyft and DoorDash depend extensively upon gig workers, who haul people and meals around on their behalf but do not receive many hard-won benefits of employment such as employer contributions toward their Social Security and Medicare taxes.
Ride-hail and meal-delivery companies say that changing how gig workers are classified would threaten their businesses, yet these firms like Uber, Lyft and DoorDash have also posted hefty net losses under the status quo.

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Prosus has scrapped the $4.7 billion acquisition of BillDesk it announced last year, once stated to be the European technology giant’s largest, saying certain conditions were unfulfilled in a surprising move a month after the proposed acquisition received from the local antitrust watchdog the approval to proceed.
Amsterdam-listed Prosus says certain conditions precedent were not fulfilled by the 30 September 2022 long stop date, and the agreement has terminated automatically in accordance with its terms and, accordingly, the proposed transaction will not be implemented.
The investment arm of Naspers which has invested close to $6 billion in India, thanks to large bets on edtech Byju’s and food delivery startup Swiggy has lost more than half of its market cap since early last year.

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Naver, the South Korean search giant, announced it plans to acquire secondhand apparel marketplace Poshmark for $1.2 billion in cash.
The deal values publicly traded Poshmark’s shares at $17.90 a 15% premium over today’s closing price and the companies expect it to close by Q1 2023, subject to approval by Poshmark stockholders and the satisfaction of certain other customary closing conditions.
Poshmark will become a standalone subsidiary of Naver led by CEO Manish Chandra and Poshmark’s current management team and continue to operate under its existing brand, Naver says, and maintain its staff, user base, and headquarters in Redwood City, California.
Naver plans to combine the service’s growing social shopping platform, where users buy and sell used apparel, with its technological prowess and existing communities, like the online forum Naver Café.

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The UK government has confirmed another pause to draft digital legislation under new prime minister Liz Truss’ reshuffled cabinet saying the data reform bill it had introduced in recent months is on hold while ministers take another look.
The paused bill contained a package of amendments to the UK’s data protection regime, which remains based on a pan-European Union framework tweaking rules for personal data processing in areas like consent for online tracking.
The government would install what she framed as our own business- and consumer-friendly British data protection system.
This rebooted reform approach entails the government taking aim at bureaucratic EU red tape that Donelan claimed is responsible for current UK rules being a disproportionate burden for small businesses as a result of a “one-size-fits-all” approach in the GDPR.

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Ventures announced the launch of its $90 million second fund. It was the sequel to its first: a $54 million fund invested in 21 startups across Egypt and the Middle East.
While Algebra Ventures predicted it would reach its first close in Q3 2021, the firm had to wait an entire year to achieve that. However, the lag afforded Algebra Ventures enough time to exceed what it initially earmarked for the fund. The firm disclosed in a statement that it has finalized a $100 million first close and expects to reach its final close by the end of Q1 2023.
They include names such as Halan, Brimore, Trella, elmenus, Khazna, Yodawy, Mozare3 and Shift EV.
The firm, whose general partners include Laila Hassan and Omar Khashaba, will also cut checks ranging from $500,000 to $2 million from this second fund.

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Facebook parent Meta has settled a lawsuit in the U.S. against two companies that had engaged in data scraping operations, which had seen them gathering data from Facebook and Instagram users for marketing intelligence purposes.
The companies named in the suit, Israeli-based BrandTotal Ltd. and Delaware-incorporated Unimania Inc., agreed to a permanent injunction banning them from scraping Facebook and Instagram data going forward or profiting from the data they collected.
BrandTotal’s website says its company had offered a real-time competitive intelligence platform designed to give media, insights and analytics teams visibility into their competition’s social media strategy and paid campaigns.

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Paymob and Tabby partner to bolster e-commerce in Egypt
Paymob, an Egyptian payment, and shopping app have partnered with Tabby, a Dubai-based buy-now-pay-later platform, to fuel growth for retailers in Egypt by enabling businesses across Paymob’s network to benefit from Tabby’s split in-four, interest and fee-free payment solution via Paymob’s gateway.
The two fintech will seamlessly integrate Tabby’s BNPL solution into Paymob’s platform as an option for its online and in-store retailers and will be available to over 120,000 merchants.
With e-commerce growing rapidly in the Middle East, this partnership would have a long-lasting impact on the tech ecosystem in the region.
Paymob enables over 30 online and in-store payment methods and empowers over 120,000 small and medium merchants to manage and scale their businesses.
Ahmed Khalil, Tabby Egypt’s general manager, says there is a strong demand for greater financial freedom and flexibility to enable consumers to make their purchases.

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The International Finance Corporation estimates that 40% of formal micro, small and medium enterprises in developing countries have an unmet financing need of $5.2 trillion every year.
In Uganda, YC-backed Numida has provided more than $20 million in unsecured working capital to 27,000 micro and small businesses. Founded by Mina
Numida is also the first digital lender in the East African region to offer risk-based pricing, and business owners can access loans of up to USD 4,000.
CEO and co-founder Mina Shahid says that to provide a technology-based solution to the Ugandan population, Numida had to spend years perfecting its user interface and user experience.
He added that before launching in Uganda, the company had done test pilots in Ghana and considered Kenya, but chose Uganda because of its population and the market size of financially excluded SMEs.

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