A Sterling sales pitch

Good morning! ☀️

The Future is Female Mentorship Programme, a media and PR training programme, announced its 20 female finalists for the 2024 edition. Healthcare, AI, agritech, and climate tech startups stood out in the latest announcement.

In other news, Apple is about to announce its smallest computer ever. 

The Apple Mac Mini, introduced in 2005 as the most affordable Mac in Apple’s lineup, is about to get even smaller. The size of the PC, which has not changed much since inception, will now become as small as the size of a DVD case.

The shrink in size of the Mac Mini is thanks to Apple’s new M4 chip. The company also plans to release new versions of its devices with the M4 chips in the coming months, including iMac desktop and MacBook Pro.

Sterling bank pitches its core banking software to other financial institutions

Let me tell you the most shocking thing I heard last week: core banking software—the pesky stuff banks buy so we can send money to each other—costs about ₦25 billion per year ($15.3 million). Yet, it's a drop in the ocean for Nigeria’s biggest banks.

These banks will only spend 1% of their half-year revenue on core banking costs.

Yet, not everyone is a tier-1 bank. When you're not valued at trillions of naira, you may not always want to splash the cash on core banking software.

Sterling Bank, for example, chose to build its own banking software. But building a banking software from scratch is also expensive.

That's where other plans come in, like selling the software to other banks and grabbing a share of those billions they spend.

Look out for my article later today on who Sterling is already speaking to.

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On October 1, 2024, Starlink surprised its Nigerian customers by doubling subscription prices. The satellite internet service provider increased its residential plan from ₦38,000 ($24) to ₦75,000 ($48).

While Starlink chalked up price increases to macroeconomic conditions, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) said the company didn't get regulatory approval for the price increase.

One person with knowledge of the matter claimed Starlink wrote the NCC for approval to increase prices but did not wait for a response before implementing new prices., The NCC ordered Starlink to halt its price increase because it contravened “Sections 108 and 111 of the Nigerian Communications Act (NCA), 2003, and Starlink’s Licence Conditions regarding tariffs.”

While Starlink reversed the price increase, the NCC isn’t done yet.

The NCC will demand a formal response on why Starlink did not wait before increasing prices, familiar with the matter said.

Stanbic Bank Kenya, a Kenyan subsidiary of the Stanbic IBTC Holdings, recently announced that it upgraded its core banking software from Temenos T24 R17 to the newer cloud-based T24 R23. The vertical core banking switch, which started early in 2024, was finally completed on October 21.

The bank suffered downtimes during the upgrade, which is now par for the course for many banks that are switching core banking platforms. Banks improve their technology to make its lending and banking services better.

This tech upgrade made sense for Stanbic Bank Kenya as it plans to deal with emerging cyber threats which have been haunting Kenyan banks. Ecobank Kenya and Equity Group were previously targets in card fraud schemes where fraudsters stole millions of dollars.

Stanbic Bank Kenya is one of the moderately large banks in the country with 266,000 customers and controlling 5.8% market share in the lending business.

The new T24 R23 platform provides core banking capabilities across account management, loans, payments, and transfers. It also offers quick customisation features specific to the bank's needs by only writing a few lines of Java codes.

Stanbic Bank Kenya started using the Temenos technology in 2010. R23 is Stanbic’s bet to provide faster banking services to its customers.

Yet, it is unclear if the tech upgrade applied to other banks in Stanbic IBTC Group’s portfolio—which operates banks in 20 countries. For instance, the Stanbic Nigeria bank experienced a 24-hour downtime on October 10 where customers were not able to use their bank apps. The Nigerian lender has not confirmed if this was also due to a core banking switch.