Middle East fever

When your competitors are all establishing offices in the Middle East, it becomes less a matter of following a trend and more of a mandatory business journey.

Absa Group Ltd., South Africa's third largest bank plans to open an office in Dubai by early 2026—pending regulatory nods. The bank follows the footsteps of its competitors like Investec, Standard Bank, Rand Merchant Bank, and Nedbank already riding the wave of booming Gulf-Africa investment flows.

What’s the buzz? Dubai, often associated with luxury and tourism, is in fact a hub for trade and investment. Gulf nations have demonstrated a vested interest in African markets, investing billions of dollars into the continent for the past decade. The trade relationship is thriving, with UAE-Africa trade seeing an impressive growth of over 30%. 

For businesses like Absa, establishing a presence in Dubai is about capitalising on cross-regional investment prospects, with a strong focus on infrastructure development and other business opportunities that align with the bank’s ambitious goals. Talk about being in the right place at the right time.

The Dubai office is a powerful move to stay relevant in a fast-changing game as part of Absa’s expanding global footprint, including London, New York, and a fresh unit in China. 

Can Absa use this Dubai hub to outperform competitors and capture the Middle East-Africa investment mood? Come 2026, we are watching the space. 

JP Morgan, the global investment bank, is set to expand its business in Nigeria by turning its Lagos office into a full-fledged branch. The American bank, which has been operating in Nigeria since the 1980s, plans to apply for a merchant banking licence from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) soon. This is part of the bank's broader plan to grow its business across Africa.

In the past, JP Morgan has provided advisory services and asset management in Nigeria, but now it wants to offer more, including dollar loans to big companies. The bank’s CEO, Jamie Dimon, visited Nigeria in October 2024, meeting with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor Olayemi Cardoso to discuss the bank’s African plans. JP Morgan has already opened new offices in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, and Nairobi, Kenya, to push its regional growth.

The bank has been active in supporting countries in Africa with Eurobond issues, including Nigeria’s 2024 $2.2 billion fundraising, where it was a key player. This shows how JP Morgan is involved in helping African countries raise capital on the international markets, further strengthening its presence on the continent.

This signals JP Morgan’s bigger commitment to Nigeria and Africa. The expansion could lead to more opportunities for businesses in Nigeria to access financing and services, helping the local economy grow. It also reflects the growing importance of Africa in the global banking sector.

You’ve likely read articles about how the ride-hailing sector is fraught with problems: drivers are unhappy with high commissions and low fares, and they protest. Eventually, ride-hailing apps make a small tweak here and there, and the drivers are happy again to have a source of income. It’s the same cycle every time.

Those are operational problems—it’s a classic excuse that exists in most multi-party businesses. It’s everywhere: food delivery, asset-light e-commerce, and other marketplace-type businesses. For gig driving, drivers want more ownership and say because they know they are central to ride-hailing companies’ operations. This fickleness—coupled with the opportunity to build an ecosystem around their app—is what drove the likes of Uber and Bolt to launch food and grocery delivery services, respectively.

However, when it comes to driver or passenger safety, excuses are thrown out the window. This is why Nigeria's transport union, the Amalgamated Union of App-Based Transporters of Nigeria (AUATON), has threatened to boycott inDrive, the US-based ride-hailing app operating in Nigeria. The union said the platform lacked adequate security features to properly verify passengers or allow drivers to indicate when they felt endangered.

These attacks are not isolated to inDrive. The gig economy is a trust-based business model that somehow imploded. Between 2023 and 2024, there were reports of attacks on drivers and passengers. In June 2024, Bolt blocked over 6,000 drivers in South Africa for misconduct after two reported cases of drivers attacking passengers.

Despite its many flaws, the gig-driving business still seems viable with the huge ride numbers they handle daily. Yet, security is important. In 2023, Uber launched an in-app emergency button with audio recording features. For inDrive, verifying passengers, like drivers, could be a useful way to make them accountable. Otherwise, if this trend becomes a bigger threat, it could trigger mass customer exits.

One of the products of Chpter, a Kenyan social commerce startup, was getting so much demand the company has made it a standalone business: Pluto. It is a WhatsApp API suite that automates customer interactions and processes transactions right in a WhatsApp chat.

The company says that the spike in demand came after it partnered with Meta, WhatsApp’s parent company, its in-app payment technology has seen a spike 

This isn’t surprising, as the tech solves a key pain point: cart abandonment. Kenyans love buying stuff on social platforms but businesses keep fumbling the handoff when it’s time to pay. A customer clicks a payment link, gets redirected to an external site, and when they hit snags on that payment platform, they’re gone. Pluto enables sellers and buyers to complete the payment right there on WhatsApp.

Major businesses have signed up to build custom chat-based experiences, TechCabal’s Kenn Abuya reports. Andrew Bosson, Chpter’s former chief growth officer, has stepped up as co-founder and CEO. 

The potential of this in-app technology isn’t lost on other innovators across Africa. We’ve previously reported on the in-app payment plays of companies like Vendy and Sukhiba’s WhatsApp commerce push.

If you want to know about the revenue potential of this for Pluto, read Abuya’s article.

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