Author: Chris Anu
Adrian Gore, Discovery group CEO. Financial services firm Discovery is leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) to drive efficiency as well as transform risk and engagement.This emerged when the JSE-listed company today presented its annual financial results for the year ended 30 June.Headline earnings and normalised headline earnings both increased by 30%, to R9 625 million and R9 781 million, respectively, resulting in the normalised return on equity increasing to 15.4%, from 13.5% in the previous year.Growth was seen in normalised profit from operations in both composites – Discovery South Africa delivered 22% growth and Vitality generated 70%.“The strong performance of Discovery…
China’s car makers like BYD are fast gaining traction in the South African market South Africa is in talks with Chinese car makers to encourage them to invest in local production, with one manufacturer showing strong interest in building cars locally, a senior government official said. Africa’s most developed car manufacturing hub is at an inflection point, with a drop in domestic output and a surge in imported vehicles, mostly from China. Competition is intensifying, meanwhile, with the likes of Toyota and Volkswagen vying for market share against electric vehicle producer BYD as well as Chery, Great Wall Motor and…
SARS commissioner Edward Kieswetter takes home the government technology leader award. (Photograph by SITA) South African Revenue Service (SARS) commissioner Edward Kieswetter walked away with the coveted technology leader award at this year’s Digital Public Service Awards.Hosted on the sidelines of the State Information Technology Agency’s (SITA’s) GovTech 2025 conference, the awards recognise excellence, innovation and digital advancement in education, governance, innovation and community development across SA. Through the awards, SITA aims to acknowledge government institutions, innovators and leaders from government who are leveraging technology to improve the lives of South Africans. See also According to the agency, this year’s…
Agnes Mlambo Eskom has purchased 20 electric vehicles, ranging from light delivery vehicles to light trucks, as it pursues a long-term plan to electrify its entire fleet. It said on Wednesday that the 20 vehicles will be deployed mainly in its distribution and generation divisions. The utility plans to buy another 100 EVs in the “near future”. This follows the news in August 2024 that it had installed 10 charging stations at five sites to support the growing adoption of electric transportation. The distribution division, which has the largest vehicle footprint, has a target of full electrification by 2035 The…
Milu Kipimo, SA country manager, Bolt Business. Bolt Business has appointed Tanzanian executive Milu Kipimo as its new country manager for SA. In his role, Kipimo will oversee business development and team growth to expand Bolt Business in SA.Kipimo previously served as senior country manager for Tanzania, Tunisia and Ghana. He has more than five years of business leadership experience in the mass media and fast-moving consumer goods sectors, managing projects at both local and international levels.“I’m honoured to join Bolt Business in South Africa. I look forward to bringing my experience with East and North African countries to Bolt…
Digital challenger bank TymeBank has introduced a PayShap Request payment option that third-party payment service providers can offer to merchants to use with their clients. According to a statement by the bank on Wednesday, the functionality will give South African businesses “a simple, unique and bank-agnostic” way to receive instant payments from customers at checkout. “PayShap Request is an important step towards a safer, easier and universal instant payments system for South African businesses and consumers,” said Chris Becker, managing executive for enterprise payments at TymeBank. PayShap Request is an important step towards a safer, easier and universal instant payments…
East Africa Connect map. Pan-African telecommunications and network services provider, Paratus Group, has completed its expansion programme into East Africa. This expansion forms part of the group’s ongoing efforts to connect communities and businesses across sub-equatorial Africa with reliable digital infrastructure.Across East Africa, Paratus is providing reliable digital services to meet the needs of businesses and communities. Paratus Kenya has been operational since November 2024 as a licensed ISP (internet service provider) and authorised Starlink reseller. Rwanda and Uganda have recently launched as ISPs, with Rwanda also providing Starlink services. Tanzania joined the network in 2025, delivering ISP services to…
Image: ARM Holdings ARM Holdings said on Tuesday it was launching its next-generation set of chip designs called Lumex that it has optimised for AI to run on mobile devices such as smartphones and watches without accessing the internet. Called Lumex, the new generation of ARM mobile designs come in four types, ranging from less powerful but more energy-efficient ones designed for watches and other smart wearable devices to a version designed to maximise the computing horsepower available. The peak performance design aims to run software that harnesses the power of large AI models without accessing cloud computing on devices…
The State IT Agency has unveiled its automated supply chain management platform. Often in the news for its archaic and manipulation-prone procurement processes, the State IT Agency (SITA) this morning unveiled its automated supply chain management (SCM) platform. The soft launch took place at the GovTech conference, in Durban, with the government ICT procurement arm saying the platform will be fully deployed by the end of this month. Version 2.0 of the platform, with artificial intelligence (AI) enablement, will be available at a later stage. According to SITA, the SCM platform has been designed to empower the public sector, helping…
MTN Group CEO Ralph Mupita has admitted that the group’s South African operation has lost market share to rival Telkom, especially in the prepaid mobile market. According to Mupita, although competition from long-time rival Vodacom and on-the-mend Cell C remains intense, Telkom is grabbing market share in a “discernible” way from MTN South Africa. “Have we lost market share to Cell C? Not in a way that is discernible. The [loss to] Telkom is discernible – we see that and it’s pretty clear,” Mupita said in response to a question from TechCentral at a press conference on Friday. Have we…