South Africa’s Presidency temporarily took its website offline on Friday after two critical vulnerabilities in PHP, the programming language used by millions of websites, were exposed before fixes were available. The vulnerabilities, nicknamed “PHP2Shell,” could allow attackers to run malicious code on vulnerable servers. Flaws disclosed before a fix exists are known as zero-day vulnerabilities, a category that is difficult to defend against because operators have no patch to apply when the details become public.

Nearly 10,000 internet-facing servers in South Africa were running PHP, making a temporary shutdown the safest option. The incident raises questions whether government websites will return with patched PHP systems or whether further security work will be required.

Banque du Caire confirms 45% stake sale

Egypt’s Banque du Caire is set to become the country’s largest initial public offering in five years after its state-owned parent increased the planned stake sale from 30% to 45%.

Banque Misr, which owns Banque du Caire, Egypt’s sixth-largest commercial lender, confirmed that it will sell 45% of the bank. At the expected offer price of EGP 5.30 ($0.10) per share, the sale would raise about EGP 36.4 billion ($680 million).

Demand for the offering appears strong. The institutional book was reportedly about six times oversubscribed. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the International Finance Corporation (IFC), two multilateral development institutions, have each agreed to buy up to 15.74% of the private placement.

Egypt’s Financial Regulatory Authority (FRA) approved the increase after investor roadshows generated stronger-than-expected interest. The offering remains entirely secondary, meaning Banque du Caire will not receive any of the proceeds. Banque Misr is selling existing shares and will retain a 55% stake in the lender.

Two brokerages value Banque du Caire at EGP 6.55 ($0.12) and EGP 7.80 ($0.15) per share, respectively—both above the expected EGP 5.30 offer price. The valuation indicates that investors are being offered a large bank at a price some analysts consider discounted, rather than simply taking a broad view on Egypt’s economy.

The sale also supports Egypt’s divestment programme under its International Monetary Fund (IMF) agreement. The country needs close to $1 billion more in asset sales to meet a $1.5 billion divestment target. The Banque du Caire offering provides evidence that the state can bring a large asset to market, increase the number of shares on offer and still attract buyers.

The next test will come when trading begins. Oversubscription shows that investors wanted the shares at the offer price, while market trading will establish how they value the bank.

OPay plans to raise up to $336 million in US IPO

OPay, the mobile-money fintech operating in Nigeria, plans to offer 16 million American depositary shares (ADSs) at between $19 and $21 each on the New York Stock Exchange. The company plans to trade under the ticker OPAY. Each ADS represents 10 ordinary OPay shares.

The offering could raise as much as $336 million before expenses if the full number of shares is sold at the top of the price range. Bloomberg reported in May that OPay was working with major banks on a potential US listing that could value the company at about $4 billion. That figure was previously a private-market estimate; the proposed IPO gives public-market investors an actual price range. A completed listing would also put a Nigerian mobile-money operator on a major US exchange, and its market value will be set only when the shares price and begin trading.

OPay’s last reported valuation was in 2021, when it raised $400 million at a $2 billion valuation. Since then, the company has expanded its payments business and user base. Its revenue more than doubled year over year to $806 million in the first half of 2026.

Standard Bank, one of Africa’s largest banking groups, is also investing up to $200 million in OPay through a separate share purchase by its subsidiary Stanbic Africa Holdings. The transaction would give the fintech a strategic institutional investor as it moves toward a public listing.

The proposed US offering is described in OPay’s filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Bloomberg also reported on the planned offering in October and on OPay’s work with banks in May.

Starlink tightens access for South African roaming users

Starlink, the satellite internet provider owned by Elon Musk, has begun enforcing a travel-registration requirement for customers using its international roaming service in South Africa. The service is not officially available in the country, but some South Africans have used imported Starlink kits and accounts registered in other countries to connect.

Some users have received notifications asking them to register their travel details or lose access. The registration process requires information including a customer’s name, nationality, date of birth and government-issued identification.

Starlink has been involved in a regulatory dispute over the requirements for foreign telecommunications companies operating in South Africa, including rules concerning black economic empowerment (BEE) and ownership. BEE rules are designed to redress apartheid-era economic exclusion by requiring Black ownership and participation in South African companies, and they apply across regulated sectors, including telecommunications. The company offered to invest in South Africa as an alternative to giving up equity. However, political opposition to a rule that would allow foreign telecommunications providers to operate in the country has kept Starlink from officially launching there.

South African users worked around the restriction by buying Starlink hardware and registering their accounts in countries where the service was available. They then used Starlink Roam, a feature intended for customers who travel with their Starlink equipment.

Starlink initially allowed the arrangement to continue, but began enforcing a 60-day continuous-use limit in South Africa in 2024. For some users, the allowance was later reduced to 30 days and eventually to as little as seven days. The new travel-registration requirement gives Starlink another way to distinguish genuine travellers from customers using Roam as a permanent workaround.

South Africans who rely on roaming should therefore expect the route to become more difficult to use. MyBroadband reported on the latest enforcement.

Kenya steps up beneficial-ownership enforcement in FATF exit bid

Kenya’s Treasury plans to tighten enforcement of beneficial-ownership rules as the country works toward leaving the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) grey list in April 2027.

Kenyan companies must disclose individuals who ultimately own or control more than 10% of them, but compliance been inconsistent. The Trust Administration Act also requires trusts to maintain registers of their beneficial owners. Beneficial-ownership registers are a standard tool of global anti-money-laundering practice, giving banks and regulators a way to verify who ultimately stands behind a company before they onboard it or process payments on its behalf. The measures are intended to make it harder to conceal money behind layers of companies, nominees and trusts.

Kenya has been on the FATF grey list since February 2024 because of weaknesses in its systems for preventing and prosecuting money laundering and terrorist financing. On October 14, the country’s Financial Reporting Centre (FRC) said Kenya had addressed 19 of 21 action items.

However, FATF’s June assessment grouped the country’s remaining work into seven broad areas, including beneficial ownership, financial intelligence, money-laundering prosecutions and supervision of high-risk businesses. Kenya now needs to show that the rules work in practice, including by identifying the real owners of companies, penalising businesses that conceal ownership information, converting suspicious-transaction reports into useful intelligence and bringing money-laundering cases that reflect the country’s risks.

FATF does not automatically require countries to apply additional checks to grey-listed jurisdictions. Other regulators may do so, however. The European Union added Kenya to its high-risk list in August 2025, increasing scrutiny of transactions involving the country.

Completing all 21 action items will not automatically remove Kenya from the grey list. FATF must send a team to verify that the reforms are working in practice before its members can vote to delist Kenya. Until then, the country will remain subject to the additional scrutiny that grey-list status can trigger for banks and businesses involved in international money transfers. Kenya’s progress is documented in FATF’s assessment.

Crypto tracker

The World Wide Web3

The source lists the following changes as of 05:59 AM WAT on October 26, 2026:

• Day: –1.63%, –6.55%, –2.19%, –14.03%, –2.20%, –19.85%, –1.51%, –13.17%

The source does not identify the corresponding coin names or current values.

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Written by Emmanuel Nwosu and Yemi Kareem. Edited by Emmanuel Nwosu and Ganiu Oloruntade.

Source: TechCabal.