👨🏿‍🚀TechCabal Daily – New airtime lenders are in town

Wazzup.

In the world of Kenyan elites, wristwatches are becoming the new real estate. Yes, instead of land plots, some of the crème de la crème are now putting money into pre-owned luxury watches, because apparently, you can wear your investment and flip it later for profit. What makes this wild is how much it makes sense. Unlike property, a watch doesn’t need permits or months to sell. It can be liquidated in days and carried across borders on your wrist.

If you were to invest in something unconventional, what would it be?

In other news, Nigeria’s elections have a retention problem. A new Zikoko Citizen report predicts what participation in the 2027 election might look like, drawing on trends from previous cycles, and explores what could bring about a massive turnaround.

Read the full report here.

— Yemi

After Nigeria’s largest telecom operators MTN and Airtel temporarily suspended airtime lending last week, new players have swooped in to take their place—at least temporarily.

On Wednesday, the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC), Nigeria’s consumer protection watchdog, approved five companies to operate airtime and data lending services: Total TIM Nigeria Limited, Rane Interactive Medien CLS Limited, Mode NG Applications Nigeria Limited, Cloud Interactive Associate Limited, and Coverage Broadband Limited.

The move comes as Globacom and T2, which round up the four telcos operating in Nigeria, have also quietly paused their own lending services, according to our checks.

Will telcos resume airtime lending? Airtime lending has not been scrapped; it is being reorganised. Under the FCCPC’s 2025 regulations, services like MTN’s Xtratime are now classified as consumer credit, requiring proper licencing, disclosure of fees, and clearer accountability.

For users, the immediate question is what happens to existing debt. Telecom operators haven’t addressed this yet.

There is another wrinkle. The newly approved lenders, it is worth noting, do not yet have listed consumer-facing apps in the FCCPC’s disclosure, making it unclear how Nigerians can actually access these services for now.

Between the lines: This is opening the door to new competition. Telcos have long dominated airtime credit, but once they secure approval and return, they may find themselves sharing that space with licenced third-party lenders operating under stricter rules.

What is really happening? Airtime credit is being pulled into the formal lending system, where the business is clearer, and the players are easier to hold accountable.

A curious little back story: In 2025, a cyberattack hit M-Tiba, a Kenyan healthtech platform, and went undetected for ten days. That attack exposed the personal and medical information of nearly five million Kenyans, including insurance claims, patient information, and clinical records.

What’s the news here? The same platform is now shutting down its My Health Funds (MHF) wallet, the feature that allowed people to set aside money strictly for healthcare. M-Tiba users have begun receiving refunds of the amount in the wallet into their M-PESA accounts without requesting withdrawals.

There is no confirmed link between the breach and the decision to shut down the wallet, but the timing raises eyebrows. Plus, the explanation that CarePay Limited, M-Tiba’s operator, gave is… thin. The official line is that it is evolving and will now shift its focus to “improving health insurance management.” 

Beyond that, there is very little detail on why the wallet is being retired, how many users were affected, no clarity on how affected users transition, and no real sense of what this new focus will look like. Will this mean deeper partnerships with insurers? A new insurance-led product? Or a full pivot away from individual users entirely? For now, it seems like a product shutdown wrapped in a vague strategy shift. 

While one can make guesses about what might be happening behind the scenes, this is one of those moments where CarePay needs to spill a bit more tea.