PalmPay is weighing a public listing in Hong Kong, according to Bloomberg, as the Nigeria-focused fintech explores another funding round and broader expansion. The company is reportedly discussing a round that could raise about $200 million and value it at more than $1 billion. Its listing plans remain under discussion.

PalmPay launched in Nigeria in 2019 with backing from Chinese smartphone maker Transsion Holdings and semiconductor company MediaTek. It has since expanded into South Africa, Côte d'Ivoire, Uganda, and Tanzania. Transsion owns Tecno, Infinix, and itel, brands that have a strong presence across African smartphone markets and have given PalmPay a distribution advantage that many fintech startups do not have — the ability to pre-install its app on devices before they reach consumers.

A Hong Kong listing would mark a notable departure from the more common path taken by many African fintechs, which have historically looked to New York or London for initial public offerings. Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX) has become one of the world's busiest equity fundraising venues.

The timing is significant. HKEX ended 2025 as the world's largest IPO fundraising market, raising $37.4 billion across 119 listings. By comparison, Nasdaq, in second place, raised less than $30 billion, excluding special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) listings. SPACs are shell companies that raise funds first and later merge with a private business to take it public.

Hong Kong's equity capital market fundraising reached $103 billion in 2025, while technology, media, and telecommunications companies alone raised $34.5 billion, the second-highest total globally for tech fundraising. If PalmPay proceeds with a Hong Kong listing, it would join Chinese conglomerates Tencent and Alibaba, which listed on HKEX in 2004 and 2019, respectively, raising a combined $11.2 billion, not adjusted for inflation.

If OPay — another Chinese-backed Nigerian mobile money rival that has also been reported to be weighing a US listing — reaches Wall Street and PalmPay reaches Hong Kong, Nigeria's mobile money competition would produce an unusual outcome: two Chinese-backed African fintechs taking different routes to the public markets.

Moment, the Cape Town-based payments company spun out of MultiChoice's fintech ambitions, has raised $22 million in a Series A round led by AlphaCode Venture Partners. The new round brings Moment's total funding to $55 million and includes renewed backing from Canal+, which completed its takeover of MultiChoice and listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in June.

Moment was launched in 2023 as a joint venture between MultiChoice, Rapyd, and General Catalyst. The original idea was to use MultiChoice's large subscription payment flows as the foundation for a wider African payments platform. At the time, MultiChoice was processing about $3.5 billion annually across 22 million households.

The company has since expanded beyond its parent's core business. After Moment's 2024 seed extension, about 95% of its processing volumes still came from MultiChoice South Africa and Showmax South Africa. Today, Moment says it processes payments for 10 million people each month, supports more than 2 million physical payment locations, and handles about 600,000 transactions per day across third-party enterprise clients.

Canal+'s participation is the clearest sign yet that the French broadcaster sees payments as more than a side project. Subscription billing infrastructure, recurring payments, and merchant acceptance networks may be less visible than streaming products, but they can also be more durable — and Moment is part of a wider pattern of African companies with large captive customer bases building standalone payments businesses from internal billing operations.

In Nigeria, Globacom recorded the highest growth in internet subscribers in May, according to new data from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC). Nigeria's internet subscriber base rose by 2.67 million users during the month, with Globacom accounting for nearly half of that increase.

The NCC said Nigeria had about 157 million internet subscribers in May 2026, up from 154.3 million in April. Globacom added roughly 1.2 million subscribers to reach 16.8 million. Airtel Nigeria added 1.07 million to reach 55.8 million, while MTN Nigeria, the market leader, added 382,894 users to reach 83.5 million.

T2 Mobile, formerly 9mobile, recorded no growth for a second straight month and remained at 802,534 subscribers. That is notable because T2 has had a national roaming agreement with MTN Nigeria since May 2025, allowing its users to rely on MTN's network where T2 coverage is weak. So far, the arrangement has not produced visible subscriber growth.

Globacom's increase appears to be tied to aggressive promotions, including a "Welcome-Back" offer for subscribers whose lines have been inactive for at least 90 days, as well as device promotions that combine smartphone purchases with data benefits and eSIM offers.

The growth highlights how price remains a major competitive factor in Nigeria's telecom market, Africa's largest by subscriber count. While MTN and Airtel continue to compete for premium users, Globacom has leaned on affordability, and the strategy has delivered results. With Nigeria's total internet subscribers approaching 160 million, the competition is shifting from who can sell the most SIM cards to who can keep users active and spending.

Kenya has capped carbon credit exports at 10 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO₂e) between now and 2030. The limit is intended to prevent local developers from exporting too many emission reductions to foreign buyers and leaving Kenya short of the carbon reductions it needs to meet its own Nationally Determined Contributions under the Paris Agreement.

A carbon credit represents one tonne of carbon emissions that was prevented from entering the atmosphere or removed from it. Projects such as solar power plants, electric bus fleets, methane-capture facilities, and reforestation programmes can earn carbon credits and sell them to companies or governments seeking to offset emissions they have not yet eliminated.

Kenya's new framework treats carbon credits less like an export commodity and more like a strategic national resource. It introduces a carbon budget that tracks how many credits remain available for international transfer and gives priority to sectors including electric mobility, renewable energy, energy access, industry, and waste management.

The policy is relevant for African cleantech startups, many of which have relied heavily on carbon-credit sales to international buyers to fund operations. Kenya has been one of Africa's most active carbon credit markets, and its position suggests that future projects will be judged not only by the revenue they generate from carbon markets, but also by their contribution to national climate targets, the energy transition, and industrial development.

The export cap comes weeks after Kenya announced plans to launch a local carbon exchange by March 2027 and six months after it rolled out a National Carbon Registry to track ownership and transfers.

Kenya is joining South Africa and Nigeria in adding guardrails to carbon credit exports. Across the continent, climate policy is moving from a model of simply selling offsets abroad toward one that uses carbon markets to support national development first.