OPay made it to Wall Street, rang the opening bell, and was ready to start trading. But its big moment ended before a single share changed hands.

What happened? On October 30, the Nigeria-focused fintech was preparing to list on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) after pricing 16 million shares at $19 each. The offering would have raised $304 million and valued OPay at over $4 billion. But hours after setting the price, the company called off the listing, citing an inquiry from an unnamed foreign regulator.

Bloomberg reported on Wednesday that the inquiry came from a Chinese regulator, citing people familiar with the matter.

Explain like I’m new here. OPay, founded by Chinese businessman Zhou Yahui, operates one of Nigeria’s largest digital payments platforms, serving more than 50 million customers who use it to transfer money, pay bills, and access financial services. The company also operates in other emerging markets, but has no business operations or revenue in China. Yet, its founder’s Chinese connection has now become a complication in its ambition to go public in the US.

OPay has not disclosed what the Chinese regulator is investigating. But it maintains that the inquiry does not reflect problems with its financial performance or operations and expects the matter to be resolved.

Zoom out: OPay’s listing would have been a major moment for Africa’s fintech industry, giving international investors access to one of its largest digital payments businesses. But its experience shows that growing a successful business in Africa is one thing; navigating the regulatory demands of international capital markets is another.

If you’ve been reading TC Daily for a while, you’d know that a cat-and-mouse game has been playing out in Kenya. The Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) wants to get the economy moving by cutting interest rates to encourage commercial banks to make loans cheaper. The banks have responded, but not quite as much as the regulator would like.

What’s new? Kenya’s Treasury Cabinet Secretary, John Mbadi, has joined the conversation, urging banks to lower their lending rates and extend more credit to businesses, farmers, and manufacturers.

Explain like I’m new here. Since June 2024, the CBK has reduced its benchmark interest rate from 13% to 8.75% to make loans cheaper, encouraging businesses to borrow, expand operations, and create jobs. But while banks have reduced their rates, the average lending rate remained at 14.4% in September 2026; borrowers haven’t enjoyed the full benefit of the central bank’s cuts.

There’s some progress, though. Private sector lending has recovered, growing 10.6% in September, compared with a 2.9% contraction in January 2025. The government also said it is borrowing less from banks, leaving lenders with more money to finance businesses.

Zoom out: Kenya is trying to revive economic activity from both ends. Beyond encouraging cheaper loans, the government has approved payments for verified outstanding bills of KES 50 million ($385,000) or less owed to suppliers, some of whom have waited years to get paid.

The banks have been given room to lend, and the government is promising to pay what it owes. Whether Kenyan businesses finally get some breathing room depends on how quickly both promises turn into cash in hand for business owners who urgently need it.

When you apply for a loan, a lender wants to know whether you can repay. Governments face the same scrutiny when they borrow billions from investors. The difference is that instead of checking payslips and bank statements, investors rely on credit rating agencies to assess a country’s ability to repay its debts. Africa wants another agency doing the grading.

What happened? The Africa Credit Rating Agency (AfCRA) is in discussions with 15 African countries and expects to publish its first sovereign credit ratings by March 2027. The agency is backed by an African Union initiative and led by interim CEO Sifiso Falala. At launch, the AfCRA said its researchers were preparing to assess five countries first, including Togo, Kenya, Seychelles, Burundi, and Mauritius. 

Explain like I’m new here: The agency officially launched in Mauritius on October 7. When countries want to raise money through international bonds, investors need to know how risky the investment is. Three agencies have dominated this business, including S&P Global Ratings and Moody’s, both headquartered in the US, and Fitch Ratings, headquartered in New York and London. 

They assess a country’s economy, government finances, debt levels, and ability to repay, and their ratings influence how much interest investors demand. These agencies have been criticised for relying heavily on external data that do not always reflect local realities. The African Union (AU) endorsed the idea of creating AfCRA in 2018, and the African Peer Review Mechanism developed its institutional framework. It is finally moving towards operations. 

Why Africa wants another scorecard: According to the AU, 23 of its 55 member states have no sovereign rating from the three major international agencies. Countries such as Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Sierra Leone have been among those without ratings in recent assessments—making it harder to attract investors in international capital markets. 

Africa’s external debt-service payments also climbed from $61 billion in 2010 to $163 billion in 2024. AfCRA hopes better-informed assessments can help investors understand the continent’s risks and potentially improve access to financing.

There are other players, including Nigeria’s Agusto & Co, Côte d’Ivoire’s Bloomfield and South Africa’s Sovereign Africa Ratings, that already operate in this space. The difference is AfCRA’s proposed continent-wide sovereign rating mandate.

AfCRA wants to raise $15 million from African investors in exchange for a two-thirds stake. However, there is a credibility question. AfCRA plans to use an issuer-pays model, where governments pay to be rated, but it questions whether paying clients can influence government grades. 

It said independent committees and separation between commercial operations and rating decisions will protect its assessments. Its first ratings are expected by March 2027, probably drawn from the countries that agree to be assessed.

Helium Health, a Nigerian healthtech, wants to tackle a problem plaguing Nigerian women: maternal mortality.

The startup has secured a $2.5 million grant from Google.org, Google’s philanthropic arm, to deploy AI-powered tools that identify pregnancy risks and help connect women to appropriate care. It hopes to reach 1.9 million pregnant women over three years, starting in Lagos before expanding to Delta, Kano, and Oyo.

Explain like I’m new here: Nigeria already has several initiatives tackling maternal deaths. In November 2024, the Federal Government launched the Maternal Mortality Reduction Innovation Initiative (MAMII), targeting 172 high-burden local government areas across 33 states. 

It combines community identification of pregnant women, referrals, free maternal services, emergency transport, and better-equipped health facilities. By October 2026, more than 32,000 women and 1,700 newborns had benefited from emergency obstetric and neonatal care, while the national emergency medical service had transported nearly 79,000 beneficiaries to appropriate care.

What is AI expected to do? AI could help Helium’s community health workers process patient information, flag potential complications and prioritise women who need urgent attention. It has been tested outside Nigeria. 

Kenya’s Jacaranda Health runs PROMPTS, an SMS-based maternal health service that uses AI to assess messages from pregnant women, flag danger signs, and prioritise urgent cases for human follow-up. By mid-2025, the platform had reached more than 3.3 million mothers, and its AI triage system, TRIM-AI, was about 17% more accurate at identifying high-risk messages in preliminary tests.

Why this matters: The grant arrives as Nigerian healthtech funding has become harder to secure. Funding into the sector fell from nearly $55 million in 2023 to $18 million in 2024 and just $3 million in 2025, according to TechCabal Insights. In addition to the grant, Google’s $2.5 million comes with access to Google engineers and AI product experts. 

Yet, AI cannot replace a functioning health centre, trained medical staff, ambulances, or emergency obstetric care. An algorithm can flag a dangerous pregnancy, but it cannot deliver a baby or perform an emergency C-section. Resources still need to be in place for Helium Health’s technology to translate into better outcomes for mothers.

The World Wide Web3

Source:

Coin Name	Current Value	Day	Month
Bitcoin	$80,344	+ 3.46%	– 6.05%
Ether	$2,418	+ 5.57%	– 10.43%
XRP	$1.30	+ 2.29%	– 12.99%
Solana	$95.69	+ 3.17%	– 20.12%

* Data as of 06.59 AM WAT, November 5, 2026.

Written by: Yemi Kareem and Emmanuel Nwosu

Edited by: Emmanuel Nwosu & Ganiu Oloruntade