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Banking
Portuguese lender is leaving Angola after 30 years and selling its stake for $451 million
For a bank, leaving a country isn’t as simple as switching off an app and sending everyone a breakup email—or treating it like some rapture. 
Market exits, for banks, are more measured. Banco BPI, a Portuguese commercial bank, has spent almost a decade trying to leave Angola. Now, after 30 years in the country, it seems it is finally time to hand over the keys.
What happened? On September 3, Portuguese lender Banco BPI agreed to sell its remaining 33.35% stake in Banco de Fomento Angola (BFA) to Congolian Financial SA (CFSA), a company owned by Angolan conglomerate Grupo Carrinho, for nearly $451 million. The deal still needs approval from Angola’s Central Bank and Capital Markets Commission. If it gets the green light, BPI will have sold its entire interest in BFA and officially ended its three-decade run in Angola.
Explain like I’m new here: BPI entered the country in 1996, when it acquired the Angolan operations of Portuguese lender Banco de Fomento e Exterior and eventually turned them into BFA. BFA became a separately incorporated Angolan bank in July 2002, initially 100% controlled by BPI. Then, in 2008, BPI sold 49.9% of BFA to Unitel, Angola’s biggest telecom operator. In 2017, it sold another 2% to Unitel, giving up control of the bank to CaixaBank.
BPI really wanted out: BPI’s efforts to reduce its Angola exposure predated the ECB’s 2017 pressure. In 2015, the bank said it planned to spin off its African assets into a separate entity to limit its exposure to risks in Angola. This came after European Union (EU) rules classified Angolan credit and debt exposure as risky assets that had to be fully provisioned for under European rules.
In 2017, the European Central Bank (ECB) then pushed BPI to further reduce its Angola exposure, citing concerns around Angola’s banking supervision and capital requirements. BPI spent years looking for investors to buy its remaining 48.1% stake.
Grupo Carrinho was among the potential buyers; however, in 2023, a sharp depreciation of the Angolan Kwanza against the US Dollar complicated negotiations. BPI eventually suspended the sale. In 2025, it found another way to shrink its position by listing on Angola’s stock exchange. BPI sold 14.75% of the bank through the listing, cutting its stake to the 33.35% it is now selling.
Who gets the keys? Grupo Carrinho started as a small catering business in 1993 and grew into one of Angola’s biggest agro-industrial groups. It is also becoming a serious player in banking. Carrinho already owns 74% of Banco de Comércio e Indústria (BCI) and about 70% of Banco Keve. This story is one of a local conglomerate getting a much bigger seat at one of the country’s biggest banks.
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Streaming
DStv is reshuffling its channels and packages; what changes for you?
If you’ve ever paid more for DStv because the channel you really wanted was trapped in a pricier package (side-eye MultiChoice and its expensive English Premier League access package), DStv is about to make things a little less rigid… at least we hope.
What happened? MultiChoice, Africa’s largest pay-TV operator, is changing its package lineup. From September 17, DStv is discontinuing the Compact Plus tier; sports gets its own package, and some channels that were previously locked inside Premium are becoming available in cheaper packages. Starter, Select, and Sports packages will replace the current Access, Family, and Compact packages, while a new Movies & Series package will also join the lineup.
Explain like I’m new here: In August, MultiChoice announced it would shut down four DStv channels (M-Net Movies 1, Mzansi Bioskop, Mzansi Music, and KykNet Lekker) on September 16. It replaced them with four new SuperSport channels focused on premium football and major African sporting events. Showmax has since been discontinued, while DStv Stream took centre stage; it also discontinued entertainment channels BET Africa and MTV Base in January. This is all part of a reshuffle under French owner Canal+.
What changes for you: If you’re on Access, you’ll move to Starter for R150 ($9.40) monthly on satellite. Family becomes Select at R339 (21.25). If you’re on Compact, you’ll move to Sports for R479 ($30.03) on satellite or R399 ($25.02) on DStv Stream. You’ll also get 17 sports channels, including every Premier League and Champions League match, plus all cricket and major local rugby competitions. If you’re on Compact Plus, you’ll be moved to Premium because Compact Plus is being discontinued. You’ll keep paying your current price for 12 months. After that, you’ll need to decide whether to pay the new Premium price or switch to another package.
Why is DStv doing this? DStv has seen that subscribers are downgrading when they can no longer justify expensive packages. Instead of making customers choose between paying for channels they don’t watch or cancelling altogether, MultiChoice is making its packages more modular. Sports fans can pay for Sports without buying the full Premium bundle, while movie and entertainment fans can subscribe to Movies & Series. Cheaper, tailored packages give customers a reason to stay.
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Government
Ghana launches digital marriage records platform
In our newsroom, we always say, “there’s tech in everything.” We should probably update that thesis to “there’s an AI use case for everything; you just haven’t figured it out.” An African government using tech and AI for marriage records wasn’t on our bingo card for 2026, but bet against Ghana at your own detriment.
What happened? Ghana has launched Marrify, a digital platform that lets people search and verify registered marriage and divorce records. It can also verify marriage officers, licensed venues, churches, pastors, and imams, while an AI assistant provides contextual information on Ghanaian marriage law.
Why it matters: If, at work, you become suspicious of your colleague who has a secret family but keeps denying that they are married, Marrify is your friend in Ghana. (wink)
More seriously, Marrify turns marriage records from something people largely have to chase through offices and institutions into searchable digital infrastructure. That has obvious value when you need to verify whether a prospective spouse has a registered marriage or divorce. Still, it also matters for inheritance, immigration, property disputes, court cases, and other situations where knowing someone’s legal marital status can have consequences. The same goes for checking whether a pastor, imam, marriage officer, or venue is actually authorised to conduct marriages.
But there’s a drawback: Marriage and divorce records are sensitive personal information. Making them easier to access can reduce fraud and bureaucracy, but it can also make stalking, harassment, unwanted disclosure, and other forms of misuse easier if the safeguards are weak.
The bigger picture: The opportunity is what happens when all that information is brought together. Marrify says it pulls data from the Registrar-General’s Department, courts, local assemblies, and the Ghana Gazette. For citizens, that could mean less running around government offices for basic verification. For courts and government agencies, it could mean faster document checks and fewer opportunities for people to exploit gaps between different records.
Yet, Marrify cannot be a magic marital-status truth machine. Ghana recognises ordinance, customary and Islamic marriages, and they do not all follow the same registration process. A person not appearing in the database could mean they were never married. Still, it could also mean their marriage was registered elsewhere, the record has not been digitised or linked yet, or the information entered does not match what is in the registry.
Zoom out: Ghana is showing what digital government can look like when it tackles very ordinary problems. The interesting part isn’t even the AI or tech; it’s whether the country can build enough trust in the underlying data for people to use the platform credibly, and how much more of its public records it can digitise.
Fintech
Mukuru wants Botswana’s phones to do more than receive money
Botswana has more mobile connections than people, but a surprising number of those people still don’t have a bank account. In 2025, there were about 4.22 million active mobile connections, nearly twice as many as the country’s 2.56 million people; about 650,000 of the country’s adult population are unbanked.
People have phones; many just aren’t using traditional bank accounts. Mukuru sees an opportunity in that mismatch.
What happened? The remittance company launched its Companion Card in Botswana in August, giving customers a Visa card linked directly to their Mukuru Wallet. Money can move from the wallet to the supermarket, taxi, electricity bill, or online checkout without first passing through a bank account or cash point.
Explain like I’m new here: Someone receives money in their Mukuru Wallet. Instead of withdrawing it as cash before spending it, they can now pay directly from the wallet wherever Visa is accepted.
State of play: Mukuru is betting that financial inclusion doesn’t have to begin with a bank. Customers already using its wallet can now do more with it without changing how they receive money. Banks still have the edge in savings, credit, and other financial products. Wallets can compete on access and simplicity. Mukuru is trying to close some of that gap.
Zoom out: The bigger opportunity is customer behaviour. A company that simply helps you receive money only processes a transaction. A company whose wallet you use to pay for groceries, transport, and bills will build a deeper relationship.
If Mukuru can make its wallet part of everyday spending, the Companion Card becomes more than a convenient way to spend remittances. It becomes a way to turn a remittance product into a genuine alternative to a bank account.
CRYPTO TRACKER
The World Wide Web3
Source:
|
Coin Name |
Current Value |
Day |
Month |
|---|---|---|---|
 Bitcoin |
$79,844 |
– 0.21% |
+ 22.89% |
| Ether |
$2,510 |
– 0.18% |
+ 30.89% |
| Teller |
$1.77 |
+ 9.80% |
+ 111.04% |
| Solana |
$105.56 |
– 0.97% |
+ 41.45% |
* Data as of 06.41 AM WAT, September 8, 2026.
Events
- The Building Beyond You Institute will host the second edition of the Building Beyond You Conference on September 25, 2026, at the Eko Convention Center, Lagos. Convened by House of Tara founder Tara Fela-Durotoye, the one-day event will bring together founders, business owners and executives to discuss building companies that can scale beyond their founders, with GTBank co-founder and FATE Foundation Chairman Fola Adeola as the headline keynote speaker. The conference expects 2,500 attendees, up from 1,381 at its sold-out 2025 edition, and will explore succession, governance, leadership and later-stage business transitions. Register here to attend.
- OffChart NXT is bringing startups, investors, and business leaders together in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, on October 22–23. As part of the event, its Startup Challenge will give early-traction and early-growth founders a chance to compete for a share of a ₦30 million ($18,000) prize pool, with selected startups progressing to pitch and investor conversations. Applications close by September 13.
Written by: Yemi Kareem and Emmanuel Nwosu
Edited by: Emmanuel Nwosu & Ganiu Oloruntade
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