The Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Professor Umar Garba Danbatta, has hailed the conferment of the Fellowship of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations, (fnipr) on two management staff of the Commission, as meritorious and a testimony to the Commission’s promotion of professionalism and excellence in its scheme of management.

The NCC EVC’s assertion followed the recent investiture and induction of Mr. Reuben Muoka, Director of Public Affairs, and Dr. Omoniyi Ibietan, Head, Media Relations in the Public Affairs Department of the Commission, as Fellows of the Chartered Institute during its AGM and Conference at the International Conference Centre in Abuja.

Danbatta, in congratulating the duo, said the Commission is proud to have produced these two individuals who have been considered worthy of elevation to the fellowship cadre of the prestigious institution like the NIPR, and that their emergence resonates with two of the Commission’s core values; Excellence and Professionalism; which the Commission coincidentally shares with the NIPR.

The NCC boss, a Professor of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, with many Fellowships like: Nigerian Society of Engineers, Nigerian Academy of Engineering, Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, and Renewable and Alternative Energy Society of Nigeria, expressed delight at the level of performance of the Commission’s staff in their different areas of professional calling.

He commended the NIPR as a body for its commitment in the regulation of the practice of public relations in Nigeria for which it has found an ally in NCC. “This can only rekindle the healthy collaboration and partnership existing between the NCC and NIPR, especially in the area of capacity-building and commitment to appropriate national social orientation”, Danbatta stated.

Muoka, the Director of Public Affairs Department of the NCC, holds M.Sc. in Mass Communication from the University of Lagos with specialisation in Public Relations and Advertising, after a Postgraduate Diploma in the same field from the same University; and he had earlier obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Performing Arts from the University of Ilorin.

Besides being a fellow of NIPR, he is also an associate of the Registered Practitioners of Advertising, (arpa).

He had worked for many years as Communications Editor in Vanguard Newspapers during which he also chaired the League of Communications Correspondents, one of the platforms that championed the deregulation of the telecom industry in Nigeria.

He also worked for MTS First Wireless, Nigeria’s first mobile network operator, where he rose to the position of Deputy General Manager. In 1999, Muoka received a fellowship involving a Pan-African training and tour, leading to the award of a Diploma in Journalism, at the instance of the Egyptian Ministry of Information, and the African Journalists Union (AJU), in Cairo, Egypt.

Ibietan earned a PhD in Communication from North-West University in South Africa. He had earlier obtained MA in Communication and Language Arts from the University of Ibadan, a BA in Communication Arts from the University of Uyo, and a Journalism Diploma from the Moscow-based International Institute of Journalism, Abuja Campus.

A noted advocate of freedom and democracy, he was Freedom House Nigeria Project’s Regional Media Researcher in the Niger Delta until his appointment in 2006 as Special Media Assistant to the Federal Minister of Information and Communication, during which he popularised the use of new media for public communication in Nigeria.

He is a member of the African Council for Communication Education (ACCE) and the International Institute of Communications (IIC).

Ibietan joined the NCC in 2008 and was deployed to Legislative and Government Relations (LGR) Department where he was frontline liaison staff of the Commission with the National Assembly. Much later after the merging of the LGR Department with the Public Affairs Department in 2010, he served as Manager Media and Public Relations under Muoka’s supervision and became Senior Manager Media Management until January 2017 when he was redeployed to PAD’s emergent Online Media and Special Publication Unit, and subsequently designated as the head of the Unit. He also worked at the Consumer Information and Education Unit of the Commission’s Consumer Affairs Bureau (CAB) until his redeployment to PAD. He became an Assistant Director in January 2021 and was appointed Head Media Relations in July 2022.

In a move to further reduce dependency on cash transactions, stimulate innovation and drive the growth of digital payments in Nigeria, ProvidusBank together with Mastercard, Interswitch and Thales Group, today announced the introduction of a new Tap-to-Pay service.

The service allows cardholders to make fast, secure, and convenient in-store payments by tapping their NFC enabled smart device at any contactless-enabled payment terminal.

The solution works by enabling a connected device such as a smartphone or wearable device to act as a safe and secure payment method in the same way as a physical card.

Leveraging Mastercard’s Digital Enablement Service (MDES), and Interswitch’s tokenization capability, ProvidusBank customers can enjoy a new level of convenience, no longer needing a card or a physical wallet during shopping trips.

For each transaction, Mastercard’s tokenization and digitization technology replaces primary account numbers (PANs) with tokens to provide a faster, more secure, and seamless checkout experience while rendering card numbers useless to fraudsters.

“Technology has evolved greatly in Sub-Saharan Africa in the last decade with the mobile phone technology playing a significant role in that space. As a Bank, our collaboration with Mastercard and Interswitch to provide additional value through the mobile device is a strategy to leverage existing infrastructure, while delivering simplified payment through their advanced digital and tokenisation services,” said Walter Akpani, Managing Director/CEO, ProvidusBank.

All Mastercard transactions are made with industry-standard EMV-level security and are protected using standards-based payment tokens.

“The convergence of physical and digital commerce is not in the future, it’s happening now. At Mastercard, we understand that consumers want to make digital payments when, where and how they want, with the same protection and security offered with a physical card,” says Ebehijie Momoh, Country Manager & Area Business Head, West Africa at Mastercard. “As a pioneer of mobile commerce innovation, we are excited to work with ProvidusBank to deliver a new payment experience that is both seamless and secure, in turn speeding the adoption of digital payments in Nigeria.”

Akeem Lawal, Managing Director, Interswitch Purepay also commented on the collaboration. According to him: “With the increasing adoption of digital payments, there has been the corresponding need for players in the payments ecosystem to heighten the safety and security of payment platforms and channels. This notion is the underpinning rationale behind Interswitch’s collaboration with Providus Bank, Thales Group and Mastercard to deliver the tokenization technology, providing an added security layer and ensuring safer and more seamless payment transactions. At Interswitch, we continue to leverage key partnerships that push the boundaries of innovation.”

To use the service, customers need to first digitize their card as a once off set-up by following instructions in their banking app. Once the card credentials are provisioned to a mobile device, a cardholder can tap to pay simply by opening their banking app, selecting NFC payments, tapping their phone at the Point of Sale and entering their PIN to complete the transaction. They can also make safe and seamless in-app and e-commerce payments.

Truecaller, the world’s leading global communications platform, today launched a brand-new version of their iPhone app for users around the world. iPhone users have been underserved by CallerID and Spam blockers. Consumers have been clamouring for a solution, and Truecaller has built a better mousetrap.

The iOS app has been completely re-written from the ground up to be lighter (smaller app size), more efficient (works faster, even on the older iPhone 6S) but most important of all, it offers 10 times better spam, scam and business call identification compared to previous versions of the app.

This change has been brought about by an all-new architecture that can more effectively take advantage of advanced background features in iOS. All-new Truecaller for iPhone has developed the most current, accurate, and complete first ring CallerID and spam detection for every geography.by automatically updating spam information in the background.

The app also has a complete design refresh and user experience flow that results in far shorter times for initial onboarding and quicker day-to-day navigation through the app.

“We’ve been innovating within Apple’s platform to bring users more powerful features like Call Alerts, Call Reason, and a convenient search extension,” said Alan Mamedi, Co-founder and CEO of Truecaller. “This update has been a long time coming for many iPhone users, and now we can offer them the best performing identifier of spam and scam to help them separate the noise from the communication they   want to respond to.”

Highlights of the new Truecaller for iPhone:

10x better Caller ID, 10x better protection against spam and scam   Smoother and faster onboarding for new users

Enhanced detail view when you search for numbers

New Premium purchase flow with easier feature comparisons

Redesigned search extension (from Phone > Recents > Share Contact)

Updates coming soon:

Major improvements on SMS filtering, spam detection and community-based services, including a redesigned number look-up widget to search unknown callers even faster

The iPhone app will also get automatic blocking of top spammers, the ability to view detailed statistics on spam marked numbers and the ability to view and contribute comments on spam marked numbers for additional context

About Truecaller:

We enable safe and relevant conversations between people and make it efficient for businesses to connect with consumers. Fraud and unwanted communication are endemic to digital economies, especially in emerging markets.

We are on a mission to build trust in communication. Truecaller is an essential part of everyday communication for over 320 million active users, with half a billion downloads since launch and close to 38 billion unwanted calls identified and blocked in 2021.

Headquartered in Stockholm, since 2009, we are a co-founder-led, entrepreneurial company, with a highly experienced management team. Truecaller has been listed on Nasdaq Stockholm since 8 October 2021.

To herald its 20th anniversary commemoration, Interswitch has launched a new brand campaign to project its positioning as a pioneering and integral enabler that has not only actively supported the growth and development of fintech and payments across Africa over the last 20 years, but also to amplify the brand’s progressive outlook as a frontier-driving company which keeps pushing boundaries and facilitating the creation of new ecosystems that help businesses and individuals scale and thrive, in line with its purpose of inspiring Africa to greatness through innovation, value-creation and excellence.

In the words of Mitchell Elegbe, Founder & Group CEO at the anniversary kick-off media parley:

“Today, as we flag off our celebrations, there is quite a lot of excitement within Interswitch, but also some deep reflection as we look back on the journey of the last two decades – twenty years of transforming Africa’s digital economy. Interswitch was founded to solve a social problem – to make people’s lives easier when it came to payments, transactions and accessing their funds. We saw a way to do this by developing products and services with the consumer at the heart, leading with technology and innovation. As is the case with many pioneers, while we navigated uncharted waters, there were times when we pushed ahead with absolutely no assurances and buoyed up by just sheer tenacity and grit.  At those times, the big picture kept us going, our dream to deliver a prosperous Africa, driven by a seamless exchange of value and commerce.”

Elegbe goes on to assert that the foregoing was the foundation upon which Interswitch’s two flagship products, Quickteller and Verve, were created – born from the over-arching mission to solve problems and focused on delivering comprehensive solutions for individuals to make everyday payments, to help connect and simplify the lives of our consumers across the continent.

Capturing the essence of Interswitch’s new ‘Never Stop’ campaign, Cherry Eromosele, the company’s Executive Vice-President for Group Marketing and Communications stated that “anniversaries not only give the chance to celebrate how far we’ve come in our journey but also provide the opportunity to stop, reflect and launch out again with fresh passion, a renewed zeal and a clearer vision. This is what underpins the philosophy that has given rise to #NeverStop. As we look ahead, we see enormous potential for future growth and the furthering of our vision. The outlook is rapidly evolving; At Interswitch, we also see the application of digital payments as being sector-agnostic and, with the increasing adoption of technology and digital payments across Nigeria and Africa, opportunities to broaden the fintech/payments landscape continue to present themselves.”

From Elegbe’s perspective, the runway for growth remains significant as well over 50% of Nigeria is still unbanked or underbanked and 85% of transactions in sub-Saharan African still occur in cash. He opines that “today, technology is at the forefront of society and will continue to play a significant role in how we work and live. Nigeria is fast becoming the tech-capital of Africa, with one of the fastest growing tech markets in the world. Interswitch has always been focused on the bigger picture, with the understanding that “going it alone” is not the answer, and that we do better by working together.

Building a profitable, thriving business has been important, but in order to achieve our purpose of Inspiring Africa to Greatness, we had to play our part in providing an enabling environment for the holistic ecosystem to thrive.”

Over the next 6 months, the company intends to progressively unveil a line-up of brand campaigns, commemorative events and thought-leadership initiatives centered around this significant corporate milestone on a Pan-African level.

Interswitch is a leading technology-driven company focused on the digitization of payments in Nigeria and other countries in Africa.

Founded in 2002, Interswitch disrupted the traditional cash-based payments value chain in Nigeria by supporting the introduction of electronic payments processing and switching services.

Today, Interswitch is a leading player with critical mass across Africa’s developing financial ecosystem and is active across the payments value chain, providing a full suite of omni-channel payment solutions. Interswitch’s vision is that of a prosperous Africa, driven by a seamless exchange of value and commerce and its mission is to create technology solutions that connect and empower individuals, businesses, and communities.

Interswitch’s broad network and robust payments platform have been instrumental to the development of the Nigerian payments ecosystem and provide Interswitch with the infrastructure to expand across Africa.

Interswitch continues to create and facilitate technology solutions and platforms that support a variety of industry ecosystems which help commerce evolve, businesses grow, and individuals thrive, with solutions and services that are secure and provide convenience and real value for consumers, whilst also improving operational efficiency and driving sustainable revenue growth for businesses.