Is Binance leaving Nigeria?

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello everyone. Welcome to the Tech Point Africa podcast. Today on the podcast, we'll be discussing updates about the state of binance in Nigeria. We also talk about the nigerian fintech startup that couldn't pay customers money, as it were, and blamed it on not being able to raise funds. We also touch on MTN's 2023 financial statements and the reason behind the company's 177.8 billion naira loss. With me in the studio today, as usual, is Bulu and Shim Gozurim. But also joining us in the studio is a distinguished guest, Joseph Alalua, a senior reporter from Techava. We're joining us as we delve into all the things we have to discuss today and more. A quick update from CBN's new guidelines for BDC that we discussed last week. Over 4000 BDC operating licenses have been revoked by the CBN. You can find that news on the website, but quickly, let's move to Binance. Two updates with Binance. Yeah, Binance was fined and then there was something else that is looking like you can't use binance in Nigeria, but it seems that it's false. So bully is going to give us a rundown of that before we do a few discussion on it. [00:01:31] Speaker B: All right, so yes, like you said, two things happened. The first thing is Binance was reportedly fined 10 billion error them because. [00:01:43] Speaker C: They. [00:01:43] Speaker B: Were profiting from what regulators authorities say describe as illegal transactions. But I mean, the person who said they've been balanced will be fined 10 billion has later come out to say it was just speculation and they were not actually fined by the government. So that's the first thing. The other thing is Binance is stopping naira services. And this does not mean that Binance will stop working in Nigeria. It just means that you won't be able to use naira on the platform. Like, there won't be anything like naira on that platform. So when it comes to using crypto platforms, right, there usually two things you do. So you want to go on ramp or you want to go off ramp. So going on ramp simply means you want to go from fiat, which is narrative, into crypto, or you're already into crypto and you need to go back to narrator. So those are the two things you do. So to go on ramp, you usually need to sell like I have narrator. So I need to buy crypto, right. So before you could do that on finance, there are a number of ways to do that. You could go on the platform, go to the P to P section, find someone who is willing to sell cryptocurrency and then give the person, your narrator, they give you cryptocurrency, and then you maybe trade or do whatever it is that you want to do, and then you want to go off again. You could do the same thing, right? So binance is saying, all right, so you can't do that again. Right. You can't also deposit narrative because before it was possible to deposit narrator on the platform, you can't also deposit narrator. You can't also use trading pairs that has NGN, nigerian era. So trading pairs are like, oh, if I want to trade bitcoin, for example, now. So I'll search for the trading pair that has bitcoin and probably USDT so I can buy, and that means I can buy bitcoin with USDT or sell bitcoin for USDT. So they're also trading pairs where there's naira and BTC. So you can buy BTC with naira or sell BTC for naira. So that's what it simply means. You can't do any of that again. [00:04:09] Speaker A: Now, I am curious. Is it that it was illegal before or binance is trying to punish us for what Nigeria is doing to them? Not like. [00:04:23] Speaker B: So that's a very interesting question. So I would say illegal, right? So when it comes to the crypto space and regulations and what is allowed and what is not allowed, a lot of things are very blurry. A lot of things are not clear. But one thing that we are clear on is that in February 2021, the CBN said that banks should not have anything to do with cryptocurrency platforms. This now meant that because what happened before, right, going back to that on ramp and off ramp, what used to happen was that if I wanted to buy cryptocurrency, I probably already have my card, my bank card on a crypto platform. And then I go on that crypto platform and tell them I want to buy bitcoin worth 100,000 error. And then that platform can debit me, debit my bank, and then give me crypto. That had to stop after the secular by the CBN. Yes, in 2021. So that basically gave birth to peer to peer, the b two p. We keep talking about where those platforms now because they can interact with you directly. And that's okay. Let's bring Tim Razim and Bullu together so that they can exchange by themselves. What we just do is we'll be the middleman making sure that Timgazim doesn't suffer loss. Bullu also does not suffer loss, and they will provide escrow and all those things to make it easier. That was how PTP came to being. Right. So it's not after, I mean, in December, CBS told us that, okay, we now allow it. So that basically means that it wasn't illegal, right? As of December, yes, as of December. For finance to collect narrative from you or help you trade. [00:06:13] Speaker A: Narrator on the platform on March 14, 2024, Techpoint Africa will be hosting a workshop for business owners, entrepreneurs, HR professionals, startup founders, and legal and compliance team from any industry. And the focus is to learn the five biggest hiring, unemployment, mistakes that can lead to litigation, penalties, and loss of funds. You also learn how to avoid these mistakes. Taking this workshop is startup attorney Omori Ediogeawiri. He is the lead partner at ANC Legal. Registering for this workshop will help you learn how to catch loopholes that increase the chances of litigation, teach you how to assess your workforce, to know whether it is legally compliant or not, help you spot early signs of an employee that will get you into a legacy trouble, and how to make proper documentations that will give you a defense during legal challenges. To register, go to www. Dot Techpoint Africa workshop. Theemployerandbook. Anyway, so the thing with fintech platforms or any platform is like, to remove as much barrier it is for you to use their platform. But for this case, now for Nigerians to use binance, binance to use it, now there's now more barrier to using them. So what is, like, the implication of this use of that platform in the country? [00:08:00] Speaker B: Okay, so the implications definitely means using binance now becomes harder, becomes more difficult, because if I wanted to trade on binance, I could just do everything straight on Binance, put my narrator on Binance, take my crypto out, convert it to narrative, send it to my bank account, but now there's more friction. So what I would need to do now is outside of those guardrails that finance created in p two. P right, where I could meet someone and tell that person, oh, sell me bitcoin, let me give you 20,000 error. Now I have to go out, meet somebody on WhatsApp, tell the person to give me bitcoin, what's 20,000 error? And then I send them 20,000 error, and I don't get the BTC, which now opens me up to a lot of scam. So that's one thing that's an implication for users, right? Also an implication for finance, because, okay, before we talk about the impressions for finance, let's not talk about other platforms. There are other platforms that say have p two p, right? [00:09:07] Speaker D: Local platforms? [00:09:08] Speaker B: No, not local. Many of them are non local platforms. So I don't want to start mentioning names and advertising people because I've been doing it a lot. So you go on those platforms, there's p two p. You get your p two p. Now, you get your BTC, right? You meet someone there. Those platforms, they provide you, like, a safe place to trade. And then you get your bitcoin. And now it now means that if you want to now trade it, you now have to take it from that platform, send this back again to Binance and trade on Binance. And then you trade on Binance, you want to turn it back to naira, you send the crypto back to those platforms. So that friction now means that instead of me doing that, I'll just do everything on that platform and I will not go to Binance. So binance could actually be losing customers because of that. So it wasn't as if they even make that much money from peer to peer. I don't even think they make any money at all. But peer to peer made it easier for them to get customers to do. Exactly. Because you could do everything on that platform. But now that I have to start moving between platforms, it makes things easy. Mistakes could happen. I couldn't put the wrong address, and I will lose money. So I'll just stay on that platform. Trade. [00:10:20] Speaker A: I don't know. Sorry, guys, for facing BOlo because he's the crypto person. I don't know. I don't care. No offense. I know it's people's money that I stay here, but does any of you trade crypto? [00:10:33] Speaker C: Not really. [00:10:35] Speaker A: Just a few? [00:10:35] Speaker D: No, I don't trade crypto. [00:10:37] Speaker A: Okay, so I'm justified. So, olu, how are you surviving? [00:10:41] Speaker C: You really don't care about his finances? [00:10:44] Speaker A: So we are doing this because we need to do a story. I mean, talk about things that affect people's livelihood. [00:10:51] Speaker C: You don't care about what affects bullies livelihood. [00:10:56] Speaker A: For some people's livelihood. That's some people's business. [00:11:04] Speaker B: Okay. [00:11:05] Speaker C: Because I don't know. [00:11:10] Speaker B: But there's actually a consequence for Nigeria, because this could actually have been an opportunity for the country to generate a lot of revenue from crypto. Because if you look at the crypto markets now, there's a lot of trading going on because the market is bullish. Right. People are trading a lot. There's a lot happening. [00:11:32] Speaker A: Use the right one. That glimmer can no glimmer. [00:11:36] Speaker B: Understand? Wait, the market is okay? The market is doing great. [00:11:42] Speaker A: I see, you are smiling. Volume. [00:11:46] Speaker B: That's not good. Finance could actually have been making a lot of more money now because a lot of people want to trade, want to make money, not miss out on this. [00:11:59] Speaker D: The volume of Peter. [00:12:01] Speaker B: Yes. Right. So it would have been an opportunity for the government like, oh, there's so much money. Like, okay, tax them or do whatever. [00:12:11] Speaker A: But the CBN governor said last week that this money are unaccounted for. [00:12:17] Speaker B: It's a centralized exchange, which means people do KYC. Very stringent KYC, if you think about it. Try and open a binance account now and see how difficult it will be. It's more difficult than opening ope. That's how hard it is. [00:12:32] Speaker C: They have KYC. [00:12:36] Speaker B: So it is not as if you work with them. You can regulate them, identify, okay, which money is going where, who is doing what, how much are they transacting. Right. You can easily get this information from them. It's also blockchain. Blockchain is free for anybody to, you can collect my wallet address and you can see everything I'm doing. You can see everything. You can basically see everything binance is doing on the blockchain. Right. So I just think whatever is going on between CBA and Nigeria and the crypto space right now, they should fix up. There needs to be a lot of communication going on. [00:13:16] Speaker D: I think there are two things to note about what's happening in the crypto space. This is the second time the same CBN now it's the same CBN in 2021 that tried to restrict crypto. Same CBN tried to give some regulations. I think last as the year was come to an end and the same CBN now less than how many months. So in four years or in space of four years, twice CBN has tried to restrict crypto. That's on one hand. The other hand is that the problem that we are having with dollar inflows. [00:13:58] Speaker A: Finance is not the enemy. [00:13:59] Speaker D: They are not the reason why we are not having as much dollar inflows already. The situation is a supply problem and all situations are combined together. Like there are microeconomic problems. There's inflation that is already at like a three decade. There's a currency devaluation that is 70%. And then there's Nigeria as a whole. We are not producing anything. So I mean, what is going to bring in those foreign exchange? No foreign exchange. And Nigeria is not doing so well to bolster its foreign exchange. So trying to restrict cryptocurrency, some people might think that maybe it's an avenue for free dollars, maybe because the father market is doing well, but trying to restrict that aspect is not like the only solution. Even what the CBN governor is doing, trying to fight a monetary battle on this monetary side, hoping that the fiscal, and he said it in the CBN MPC meeting to make sure that the fiscal side can quickly react, which is insecurities in country people cannot farm produce, food that we need to eat to fight. And there's energy issues. There's also the fact that production is low because if even the basic farming cannot happen, then you can imagine how much will happen in manufacturing if energy is already high. And imagine how many companies have shut down because they cannot produce power to power manufacturing. And if dollar has devalued, you can imagine how much people are using to import raw materials because men have not even produced raw materials. So these are some of the problems that the government should be thinking about rather than promising $10 million inflow, kidnapping people rather than abduct trying to. [00:15:53] Speaker A: So the thing is, when you think about it, bananas looks like a low. [00:15:57] Speaker C: Hanging fruit as recording criminal behavior is. [00:16:01] Speaker B: Going through it right now. They'll give you 10 billion. [00:16:06] Speaker A: So yeah, we just hope that it gets a time where things like this, like allowing crypto to have its play. It's yet to stay. Whether you. Yes, there's nothing you can do about it. [00:16:19] Speaker B: Find a way. [00:16:20] Speaker A: Once the young population in the country have embraced something to get it out of their hand. It's going to take a long time, if ever it reapplies. [00:16:33] Speaker C: Volu speaking for other crypto enthusiasts, they will pick you up. [00:16:41] Speaker A: So talking about still talking about money. And I just finger startup, which is like a bank, a digital bank for small businesses for a few months now has not been able to release customers funds that were deposited on the platform. And news came to fall this week that the reason behind it is because the startup couldn't raise fund. Now, it created a lot of conversation earlier in the week, and I'm like, what's the big deal? What's the big deal? I know it shouldn't be the idea that a bank is not allowing you to take your money, but what's the specific uniqueness to this particular case? [00:17:30] Speaker D: Joseph well, the prostitution is tricky and it's worrisome. This is a fintech that offers business banking services to small businesses. And so what it means is one, it's holding deposits of, based on the story, around 80 businesses businesses. So let's just imagine that one business out of the 80 has Satan employees or maybe more. So that's compounding it. That's one two, it says that they're having withdrawal delays because of a funding environment. That's also very worrisome because as a bank, one of the major functions is the deposits, right? The money that has been deposited into the bank are customers or business owned, like it's not the bank's money. And we know that sometimes banks maybe as the normal function, give out loans, do some treasury does do some things. [00:18:44] Speaker A: Is this Cr that they call it cash reserve ratio. Cash reserve ratio. [00:18:50] Speaker D: So they do some businesses with the money. Some hardly increase how much they can end you get. And then some of them might say, okay, banking with us, maybe charge some fees, electronic fees and all kind of fees. [00:19:08] Speaker A: But for every time the customers need their money, they should be able to. [00:19:13] Speaker D: So you can charge your fees, you can do the loan options and all of those other things. But I mean, every time that I need money, I should be able to get the money back. And then these are 80 businesses that are hanging on the thread. And then the reasonable excuse that is given by the CEO browsers that. [00:19:32] Speaker C: There'S. [00:19:32] Speaker D: A funding winter, it doesn't relate to the problem. But aside from the fact that that's happening, there's also a customer care issue whereby people that are trying to get their money cannot even reach the customer care. And this is a fintech that is without borders. So I don't know where the office is. And so people are held in a limbo and why that is happening as well. Then you now have staff cuts. Company announces that it's going to cut staff. We don't know how many is going to cut. So, I mean, this is a quagmire in three dimensions. And it's worrisome because it highlights that this is a problem beyond just, you have tough cuts, you have customer care issues, you can give customers money. This is a similar situation we have seen before in the fintech landscape, showing how difficult it is to do business. One of the most important things about brats is that if you look at the conversation, it shows how difficult it is to do business as a fintech in Nigeria. If you look at some of the explanations that the CEO gives, it says that, oh, you need to raise money. Why that excuse is worrisome. People might not believe that because they have rights not to believe that. The other part is that it also says that to actually run a fintech is capital intensive in a way. So these are some of the takeaways from what that story highlights. [00:21:02] Speaker A: Just like in the previous month where we've been talking about layoffs and shutdowns. Some startups have come to say that they had to shut down because they couldn't raise their nest round. Would we be saying that in this particular case of brass? Why I'm asking this is that I need to understand why it stands out. Would you say? Okay, let's say the operational expenses for a startup, like the startup has to run and it needs money to operate and mistakenly went to take customers money to do operation and at the time the customers needed was not available. What is the implication to that? Let's say we cannot run to the optimal, should we just say, customers come and take your money? I don't understand where we are going to right now. Let's try to find our footing, probably raise fund, then we get back in position or what will have been the best move in this situation for brass. [00:22:11] Speaker C: Timgozim, you okay? I'm trying to understand the question, but maybe what I understand is what should they have done when they were struggling? First of all, I think from all the issues they're having, which is following staff having difficulties with customer withdrawals, points to two things. One is that you're not making enough. [00:22:33] Speaker A: Money, you're not having difficulty with customer withdrawal, like you say, tech. [00:22:39] Speaker B: Because that. [00:22:40] Speaker A: Is the way it is. [00:22:41] Speaker C: Customers are not able to access their fund. So two problems here. One, you're not making enough money, which suggests that you are actually okay. So maybe your business model, it hasn't gotten to the skill where without you raising external funding can survive, you can survive. So I think brass supports about, I can't remember the exact number, either 300 or 3000 businesses. So what you're probably doing for them, I know they have quite a number of products. They have a payroll feature, which I don't know how much that has taken off, considering that there are really large players in this space. But the problem with fintech is if you're not giving out loans, you often have to make. Okay, so you're taking out maybe 1%, 0.5% or something like that of each transaction. [00:23:30] Speaker A: Transaction. [00:23:31] Speaker C: A business is unlikely to make as many transactions as an average individual. I'm not paying for Uber every day, so I probably make a few large transactions in a month. And that's maybe, I think one problem is that they were not making enough money, which is not a big deal really, because anybody can be in that situation. But where the problem now is I have made the deposit and to the best of my knowledge, brass is sort of regulated. They acquired the microfinance bank license. Yeah. [00:24:12] Speaker A: To get the license. Okay. [00:24:14] Speaker C: So you are regulated, and there's a reason why you can go to your bank almost anytime and ask for your. [00:24:20] Speaker A: Money, and they don't give you, even. [00:24:23] Speaker C: If it's too secret to bond you. But yes, there's a reason why you have that confidence. I go into the bank, I'll get my money back. You may not know it, but your banks are insured or your deposits are insured. Now, my hope is that the customer deposits were insured, which means that to a very large extent, brass should be able to fulfill every customer request for withdrawal. Because all these customers did not come to you at the same time, they couldn't have possibly come for you. [00:24:51] Speaker A: They've been having it like November or so. [00:24:54] Speaker C: Yes. So they couldn't have possibly come to you at the same time. It's virtually impossible for all your customers, except there's something in the environment that. [00:25:03] Speaker A: Makes they are planning a bank run. [00:25:04] Speaker C: Yeah. And unlike Silicon Valley bank, where we saw people give instructions, basically telling people to go withdraw their money, we did not hear any instruction of that sort. So you cannot tell me that they came at the same time. Which now points to a problem in how you're managing your funds. I'm not a banker, but I believe that if I'm serving businesses with technology, I should be able to see when they move certain amounts of money the most. I should know that, okay, between the 24th and the 30th, or maybe 31st, or people transact. Yeah. You are going to be paying staff salaries. I should also be able to know that, okay, maybe. I have a lot of supply chain guys, so at least every two weeks or so, or maybe even every six weeks, they are making very large transactions to suppliers. I should also be able to know from this data that, okay, there's a certain threshold that my money can never go below. Yes, because you have money for operations. Yes, because of customer deposits. I think the problem here is either they were unaware of how to run a banking institution, because let's face it, this is a bank startup is like four years. Yeah, think about that. Either you did not know how to run a bank, or you made some mistakes somewhere, or an oversight. [00:26:32] Speaker A: That's just maybe a raise was in the office and it was so close. [00:26:39] Speaker C: I don't know the last time that. [00:26:40] Speaker A: I'm not making a case. [00:26:42] Speaker C: Yeah, I know you're not making a case, but you're a deposit taking institution. You should never say or no, you should never hinge your ability to fulfill your responsibility to your customers on a risk. You're not a payment facilitator. If you're a payment facilitator, I can say, okay, no, wahala. What? The 1.5% you're making isn't enough? Customers are not exactly depositing money with you. It's just, I collect money from this person. I give it to this person, I don't know, plus or minus three days, I collect money from here. I give it to this person in a few days. If you're a very terrible Payment provider, maybe one week, the money has left your account. But this one, someone is giving you. [00:27:25] Speaker A: Money when they are saving with you. [00:27:27] Speaker C: There are a few things that banks do. Either they are investing in treasury bills or investing in some kind of instrument that gives them. What are you doing? Maybe I should be asking, do they have a CFO, for example? Because do you have a CFO who was handling your treasury management to ensure that you are not. Because let's face it, you don't have any excuse, really, to be in that kind of situation. [00:27:51] Speaker A: Situation. [00:27:52] Speaker C: You don't have any excuse. [00:27:53] Speaker B: There's one question we also need to ask, right? Yes, please. And the question is, is it possible that brass can survive this? I'm asking because, one, it's a business that has to do with a lot of trust. And I'm sure that by now, most of the customers. Yes, a lot of people not want to trust you especially. And I won't even trust that company again. Because if you tell me that it's. [00:28:23] Speaker C: My money or didn't do. [00:28:24] Speaker B: Yes. Because if I'm depositing money with you and you're telling me the reason why I can't collect my money, because you're not able to raise. I don't think I want anything to do with you ever again. So is it possible that. [00:28:40] Speaker C: Possibly because. [00:28:41] Speaker A: Immediately you can assess your money, what's the next thing you want to do? [00:28:45] Speaker C: Sorry. Maybe I should have them here. If I'm the one. Make your tech 40 for the next three months. I'm sorry. If your money is here, I've just given bad advice. Don't take me serious. Make your tech 40 for the next three months so that people are withdrawing their monies in batches. Maybe in that time you repair your reputation. I don't know how long it would take. [00:29:07] Speaker A: I can't let them be able to. [00:29:09] Speaker B: Get their money in five years. [00:29:10] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:29:10] Speaker B: No. [00:29:10] Speaker C: You convert it to brass tokens. I don't know. You can cover their money to brass tokens. I'm not giving you financial advice. Nobody should go and say that they are giving their advice. But you can provide that money, but really, can they survive? It is possible. The major problem with banks is that, yes, they deal with our money, but I think the only currency that they have is just trust. So if you've lost that trust, it's difficult, but it's not possible. And nothing has come out of that town hall today. Names shall not be called. What, you know them? Somebody did town hall, multiple town halls that you could not see. Nothing from due today. But anyway, I think they can fix their reputation, let's say. Well, the story is that they could raise some money in the next few weeks. So if you properly communicate to your customers, okay, it won't happen again. Maybe even if your CEO has to go on this personal call with all the 80 businesses and say, look, we have sharp, forgive us, even he has to kneel down. Because really, banks, yes, this is why. [00:30:38] Speaker A: Our parents would never want to put big money in fintech, because that is the claim they make. Like, I know that these banks, there's nowhere they want to run to. [00:30:50] Speaker D: Yes, I think this is a master class in communication. I think what brass missed was a master class in communication. To just add some context. Maybe some people actually forgot. Last year, around June, I think Techaba published it as well. Heritage bank had issues with funding. It's granting this kind of request to. Heritage bank was having issues with customers withdrawals. And at that time, people were worried, people were very worried because some people had gone to the bank to start staging protests. It was actually that bad. People were going to more or less take all their money out. People were complaining because I got some personal complaints because I was actually aware of the situation and I was also doing some stories about that. And what the bank really did was it came out and began to issue this customer care began to work much more effectively. Issued a few statements at the time, and if I remind us, what they said was that someone stole 49 million from my dead bank. Right. And that was all over the news everywhere. And then for some reason, the bank began to allow people to withdraw their money, but then was also countering to some communication, like making public communications, making this. And after some time, everything began to subside, everything quelled. And people now use heritage, you understand? [00:32:16] Speaker C: And I think Heritage bank has a green. I didn't think that. [00:32:26] Speaker A: I think this is always a communication thing, right? Anything you are bringing, taking to, you need to be able to open up and communicate with different companies. Anything you are doing. Businesses have been in situations, not very terrible situations, and they were able to talk their way out of it, even after fixing it. I'm not talking about ones that talk their way out of it and still did not fix it. They were able to talk their way out of it and still fix it. So we hope that brass is able to fix this and the company survives this challenging period. We move from there to the last story we'll be discussing today, because spend a lot of time and this is about a big company. We've been talking about atops and crypto and disruption and all. MTN Nigeria recorded its first loss, its first loss in six years. In its 2023 financial statement, it says there was a 177.8 billion loss in FX. FX loss. Right. And I'm wondering what is responsible for this loss to start with is a big company is not your first rodeo. What's going on? [00:33:41] Speaker D: To be fair, I think that it was coming, literally it was coming and then it just happened. So I don't think that it's a problem of the environment. And I'll explain. If you look at the nine month results for MTN, MTN had a profit deep of 45%. And when you look at that nine month result, it tells you that we had inflation concerns, we had currency devaluation. But then they were able to come off with not a loss, a profit decline of 45%. But now in the end of full year, they're not having like a serious loss. And it's from the same thing from forex loss. And major part of the forex loss is the tower cost. According to them, they are financing the towers, they are paying for towers in dollars and it's 45% to 50% of. [00:34:30] Speaker A: Like they're making money in Ira. [00:34:34] Speaker D: They also explained that when they costed a financial result at 23, it was 900. I mean, dollar to naira was around 900 to one. And then now it has come like 1700. And they keep explaining that the more the devaluation continues to happen already at some percent of devaluation, the more they continue to lose money. And then what makes it worse again? I mean, MTE has issues with tower costs. That's ATC and IHS, tower disputes. But then it's unfortunate that those tower disputes, paying those tower costs are in dollars. And it's a business operates in naira in Nigeria. And then that affects many things. There's energy cost issue. Diesel is already expensive. And powering a tower, we're guessing diesel, diesel most likely to power the tower. And you know, M ten is probably one of the networks that have one of the largest coverage in Nigeria. Everywhere you go, it's gone so far. So for every time that power goes out, diesel comes on running that cost as well as inflation. As well as inflation. Maybe that's how people complain that tariffs are not lasting. So these are some factors around it. And then people that be at the front is their shareholders who lose all. It's completely wiped out because the forex loss is around 740,000,000,000 and it wipes out shareholders fund so they don't get to pay final dividend for this year. So if you have MTN stock expecting. [00:36:17] Speaker A: Like this, it just be like nothing. [00:36:23] Speaker C: This year. We did this, we did that. [00:36:25] Speaker A: I think we should just move on from the loss and just talk about a few things that went well for MTN in 2023 as reviewed by their financial statements. [00:36:35] Speaker D: Was there a few good things? I mean, mobile subscribers have been growing for MTN over like 2023, and they are not close to 80 million. They had some 9.7 million mobile subscribers. Momo wallets increased once it's 3% to 5.3 million. I dispute that fact because that's the question I asked last year when I was doing a story on Momo, wondering who I'm able to use it actively. But then they said that it grew and fintech revenue grew. But I mean, what's important about the announcement is that they said they're going to move into cloud Iot and unified communications. That's in addition to their four g and five g businesses. So we are looking forward to what cloud, if you say cloud, meaning this Zoho and cloud issues that we have, I mean, that will not be bad. If MTN is provided, people will be clamoring for. [00:37:39] Speaker A: AWS competitor. [00:37:41] Speaker D: So those are good things to look out for. [00:37:45] Speaker C: They could be in a good position to be that, hopefully. [00:37:50] Speaker A: So we are looking forward to what MTN would do in this first quarter is almost over, right. So we look out for how they are able to diversify their revenue channels. Nice. Sounded like a startup move. [00:38:08] Speaker C: Sounded like motivational speaker move. [00:38:10] Speaker A: Have seven streams of income diversified their revenue channels, and probably not experience a loss in this year. So that has been it for us today in the studio, we've had a great conversation. You are free to add. In fact, we welcome you to add to this conversation we've had. You can send us an email at podcast at Techprind Africa, or drop your comments on any of our social media channel to contribute to any of the points we've made. If you think we made any mistake at any point, please drop your reservation. We welcome them respectfully. [00:38:46] Speaker C: Please. [00:38:47] Speaker A: As Jim Gozim said, your reservations, your contribution, your feedback are welcome. Please don't forget to share this podcast with your friends, folks, and anybody and family. Anybody you know is interested in the roundup of tech news in Africa. Although today we discuss Nigeria mostly. But yes, you get what I'm trying to say. And if you want to listen to us on any of our audio platforms, where can they find us? [00:39:14] Speaker B: Yes, for audio listeners or you want to find us on audio platforms, you can always find us on Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Hiatradio, or anywhere else you get your podcast. [00:39:25] Speaker A: Yes. That is it. Volu always comes true. [00:39:30] Speaker B: Sure. [00:39:30] Speaker A: Thank you for joining us once again today on the tech metaphysical podcast. Thank you, Joseph, for joining us. It was lovely having you here. Thanks for being great and voluching, thank you for joining me. [00:39:44] Speaker B: Oh, you're welcome. [00:39:44] Speaker A: And Oluwani family, thank you for joining us today. Don't forget to subscribe to our newsletters Tech points digest. We have the modern workplace newsletter. We have equity merchants. Don't forget to subscribe to keep up with all the apneas in different industries. And you can also go to our website, Techpoint Africa to catch up with all the news we did not talk about today because we have a lot of them. I need to keep up with them. So go to Techpoint Africa to keep up with tech news in Africa. Catch you next week and stay safe. Bye.