👨🏿‍🚀TechCabal Daily – SuperSport to fly solo

Hold up, before you panic: no, MultiChoice is not removing SuperSport from DStv.

Here’s what’s actually happening: MultiChoice is thinking about letting people subscribe to DStv without SuperSport, and then choose to add only the sports they want. So, if you’re not into tennis or football, you don’t have to pay for them. Want only tennis channels? They will allow that. Want all the sports? Just bolt them on! This model is used by global pay-TV operators, including Sky in the UK.

Why the sudden decision? MultiChoice is bleeding subscribers. The group lost 1.2 million subscribers—an 8% decline—in the recently concluded financial year. This is a result of people ditching traditional TV for streaming rivals like Netflix and YouTube Premium or pirated sites (no names mentioned). Multichoice also recognises the tough economic situation, and it knows people will choose food over football.

What’s in it for MultiChoice? They want to make money. Your revenue doesn’t fall by 9%, and you’d do nothing about it. By making DSTV cheaper and more flexible for customers, they believe it will increase their subscriber base. However, they hope that this model will not harm their business.

Zoom out: Multichoice is changing its stripes. First, it’s giving you the power to drop SuperSport if you want. Then it’s testing weekly bundles in Uganda. What’s next? A “build-your-DStv” menu?

It’s giving survival, but it’s also giving reinvention.

Kenya’s financial reputation just took another hit. 

The European Commission has added Kenya to its high-risk list for money laundering and terrorism financing, following the country’s 2024 greylisting by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). 

The EU move, which mirrors FATF’s, means European institutions must now apply stricter checks on transactions involving Kenyan entities.

Here’s why it matters to Kenya’s financial ecosystem. Banks, businesses, and startups will likely face slower cross-border payments, higher compliance costs, and more red tape. It also risks making foreign investors nervous, potentially raising borrowing costs for the government and private sector.

There’s more at stake. EU development funding could shrink, and with Europe as a top export destination for Kenya, tighter transaction scrutiny could dampen trade flows. 

Remittances could also become more expensive or delayed due to the added checks from financial institutions. This is a huge blow because the UK-Kenya corridor is one of the fastest-growing sources of diasporan dollars flowing into the African country. In Q1 2025 alone, Kenyans living and working in the UK wired KES14.95 billion ($112.4 million) back home.

To get off the Greylist, Kenya needs to fix regulatory lapses. The country has a wonky relationship with crypto which carries significant financial activity in the country. It needs to tighten its crypto rules, financial transaction monitoring, and reporting. It also needs to step up scrutiny over money laundering in the traditional finance sector. If Kenya doesn’t act fast, it could face a drag on its economy and reputation. 

However, in Africa, Kenya isn’t alone on the dirty money list—Algeria, Angola, Namibia, and Côte d’Ivoire are also affected. But for Kenya’s status as an economic hub in East Africa to stick, it needs a way out of the EU greylist—and fast. The clock is now ticking for reforms.

If you’ve been reading TC Daily (*expectant look*), you’ll know that some employees of the fintech unicorn Moniepoint have been smiling at their account balance lately, thanks to stock option cashouts that shook the ecosystem. 

But while some were cashing out, one former employee was battling what he claims was a malicious action by Moniepoint to deny him of his stock options.

You need to be seated for this: Damilola Ajiboye, a former executive of Nigerian fintech unicorn Moniepoint, has filed a lawsuit against the company, claiming that he was denied $889,600 worth of stock options. 

He says that when he joined in 2016, he was promised stock options if he stayed for five years. He did, and in 2019, it became official with the offer of 32,000 executive stock options managed by Stanbic IBTC Trustees. By 2021, he had even successfully sold 4,200 of them during a liquidity event. Smooth sailing, right?

Things began to fall apart after he resigned in December 2021, officially leaving on January 9, 2022. Then, a new stock option management system, Carta, was introduced—it informed him he had only 3 months (until April 9, 2022) to use the rest of his stock options. But he only got access to his Carta account five days before the deadline.

He said, they said: Ajiboye argues that the five-day deadline was unfair, and that he received assurance from a Moniepoint executive that the window for using stock options would be extended by two years, which influenced his decision not to rush the process. On the other hand, Moniepoint maintains that Ajiboye was fully aware of the stock option terms and that five days was a sufficient window to take action.

Zoom out: This case is pulling back the curtain on how stock options are handled in startups, and depending on how the court rules, it just might force companies to rethink how they treat their employees when it’s time to share the pie. 

All eyes on the court. This one’s just getting started.

BYD, the Chinese car company that makes electric vehicles (EVs) is deepening its presence in South Africa. It will expand its dealership locations from 11 to 35 by 2026.

In 2023, the EV company entered South Africa as its first African market, after launching its battery electric ATTO 3 SUV. At the time, the country wasn’t new to EVs, but it was yet to develop to the extent it is currently at. There were local EV companies in South Africa at the time, but sales were poor, and manufacturing was expensive.

ICYMI: Before private cars, BYD previously tested electric buses in the country in 2021. 

Fast forward to the end of 2024 and it’s a different story. South Africa now has one of the highest EV adoption rates in Africa. In 2024, EV sales in the country more than doubled to reach 15,611 units. While that’s still small in the grand scheme, South Africa’s EV sector is now the continent’s most dynamic. Since ATTO, BYD has rolled out six more models locally, including the plug-in hybrid Shark pick-up and the hybrid and fully electric versions of the Sealion SUV.

BYD isn’t just focused on South Africa. It has expanded into Nigeria, Kenya, Benin, and Gabon, and now operates in 17 African countries. The goal is simple: build a strong presence early, before the competition gets serious.

Still, affordability is a major hurdle. The ATTO 3 sells for around $37,000; in South Africa, the median household income, which is a better indicator of what people can afford, is R95,770 ($5,400). That’s nearly seven times less than what the car costs. While there are efforts to produce EVs locally, high energy and input costs mean they aren’t much cheaper. 

EVs remain out of reach for most people, with the market leaning heavily toward upper-middle-class buyers. BYD may need to get comfortable catering to this group for now. Growth will come; perhaps just not as quickly as people expect. For now, investing ahead of demand could be its best long-term play.