The Open Africa Podcast

The Open Africa Podcast

On this podcast 'Laolu, Furo, and Nosa talk about technology, startups, and issues across the African banking and technology ecosystems. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episodes

October 1, 2025 32 mins

On this episode, 'Laolu, Furo, and Nosa talk about recent developments across the continent! They start off by discussing Kredete’s recent $22 million series A funding raise, Rulebase raising $2.1 million to automate financial services compliance, new regulations for e-hailing services in South Africa, and other news.


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On this episode, 'Laolu, Furo, and Nosa talk about Chowdeck’s growth and recent $9 million series A funding raise, Nedbank’s acquisition of iKhokha, and Nomba’s industry presence and new multi-currency wallet for businesses.


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July 8, 2025 92 mins

On this episode, 'Laolu, Furo, and Nosa are joined by Osarumen Osamuyi from The Subtext!

They talk about the recent collapses of Vendease and Okra in the ecosystem, then take a closer look at Magic Beans, the first chapter of Foodpod – a limited series about Technology eating food in Africa – by Osarumen.



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On this episode, 'Laolu, Furo, and Nosa talk about dLocal’s intention to acquire AZA Finance, Fincra’s Expansion to East Africa, Palmpay’s plan to Raise, and other alleged Industry news.



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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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April 24, 2025 45 mins

On this episode, 'Laolu, Furo, and Nosa talk about Banks—how banks make money, how banks loan money, and what most Nigerians think about bank charges, while reading commentary from Twitter (X).


Read our substack about Bank Charges here


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On this episode, 'Laolu, Furo, and Nosa talk about Paystack launching Zap, PayHippo’s recent $4 million raise, rebrand as Rivy and pivot to clean energy financing, alongside news of Nigerian neobanks like Kuda and Nomba launching premium tiers.


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On this episode of the podcast, 'Laolu, Nosa, and Furo talk about Cedar Money’s $9.9 million seed round, Ghana-based fintech Oze securing undisclosed funding from Visa and DEG, Edukoya’s shutdown as a result of macroeconomic challenges, Vendease’s second round of layoffs in five months, and other industry news across the continent.



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Welcome to our first explainer episode for 2025!



On this episode, 'Laolu, Furo, and Nosa talk about how cross border payments and remittances really work, LemFi’s expansion into Europe and why this is a good thing.


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February 1, 2025 36 mins

On this episode of the podcast, 'Laolu, Nosa, and Furo talk about Moniepoint and Visa’s partnership, Accrue, SeamlessHR’s additional $9 million raise in series A extension, MoneyHash’s $5.2 million pre-series A raise, and what they think is really happening with Bento.



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January 20, 2025 41 mins

On this episode of the podcast, 'Laolu, Nosa, and Furo talk about the KPMG Customer finance report; what exactly investing in commodity looks like, LemFi’s $53 million raise as it expands remittance services into Europe, Gokada filing for bankruptcy, some predictions for 2025, alongside other industry news.



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December 31, 2024 46 mins

…and it’s a wrap! Thank you for rocking with your favorite finance trio this year (and don’t worry, we tried not to make “doomy” predictions this time ;-) )



On this episode, 'Laolu, Furo, and Nosa do a month by month recap of 2024 episodes. From raises to shutdowns to unicorns to migrations to fraud, this was the year it all happened.


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December 17, 2024 40 mins

On this episode, 'Laolu, Furo, and Nosa talk about Moniepoint raising $110 million in their series C funding and achieving Unicorn status, their ambitious plans of becoming a commercial bank and the Access bank playbook. We also discuss the reoccurring fraud problems at First Bank alongside other industry news.



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October 15, 2024 52 mins

On this episode, 'Laolu, Furo, and Nosa talk about some developments in the ecosystem in recent weeks. They consider Rise’s acquisition of Hisa; a Kenyan investment startup, Chipper’s expansion and securing Ghana’s SEC license, Fincra receiving a Third Party Payment Provider (TPPP) licence in South Africa, and other industry news.



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We call this the episode that almost never was but thankfully we were able to salvage it (everybody, say thank you ‘Laolu!) and now you get to listen.



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On this episode of the podcast, Nosa, Furo, and 'Laolu talked about some new people changes at MTN MoMo, USA Mercury Bank’s decision to close accounts linked to Nigeria and implications, the Unity and Providus Bank Merger, and the 44 billion naira reported fraud at Nigeri...

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On this episode, 'Laolu, Furo, and Nosa have a guest! They are joined by Angie Jones, the Global Vice President of Developer Relations for tbd. This is Block’s new business unit focused on decentralized technologies to move money in a fast and compliant way.

They discuss tbd’s flagship protocol tbDEX, and the upcoming hackathon happening at the Africa Bitcoin Conference in December.



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July 3, 2024 59 mins

On this episode, 'Laolu, Furo, and Nosa do a deep dive into some not so exciting news in the Tech Ecosystem; Carbon shut down its debit card service over two years after launch, the reoccurring problems with Cards among Fintechs in Nigeria, Afrigo - the CBN’s Domestic Card Scheme, Prospa, and Brass’ acquisition by a Paystack-led consortium, amongst other industry news.



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June 1, 2024 54 mins

On this episode, 'Laolu, Furo, and Nosa recount recent popping headlines in the Tech Ecosystem, Orca’s $550,000 pre-seed round led by Norrsken22, the Central Bank of Nigeria and new directives for Bureau De Change operators, Snitching-as-a-service, Google’s plan to build Umoja; the first-ever fibre-optic cable directly connecting Africa with Australia, BlackCopper’s 2 billion naira debt, amongst other industry news.



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May 5, 2024 42 mins

On this episode, 'Laolu, Furo, and Nosa discuss YC’s list of best performing startups, the Peer’s shutdown, CBN’s directive for neobanks to temporarily halt onboarding of new accounts, and Chowdeck’s recent $2.5 million seed raise, among other industry news.



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March 13, 2024 48 mins

On this episode, 'Laolu, Furo, and Nosa recount some activities of The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in recent weeks; new BDC regulations, revoking of 4,173 Bureau De Change licenses, Binance exiting Nigeria. Mara pausing operations, Bfree raising $3 million, Carbon acquiring Vella Finance, and other industry news.



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January 26, 2024 43 mins

Happy New Year, everyone!


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On this episode, 'Laolu, Furo, and Nosa talk about some updates in the Cryptocurrency Industry; CNGN stable coin by the Africa Stablecoin Consortium and the unveiling of suspects connected to the ₦ 142.8 million Patricia hack. They all discuss Mastercard’s partnership with Jumia, Rova’s quarterly report, Yellowcard and Coinbase.



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