TechCabal Daily – A Chinese plot twist

If you’ve been studying TC Daily for some time, you’d know {that a} cat-and-mouse recreation has been taking part in out in Kenya. The Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) desires to get the economic system transferring by reducing rates of interest to encourage business banks to make loans cheaper. The banks have responded, however not fairly as a lot because the regulator would love.

What’s new? Kenya’s Treasury Cabinet Secretary, John Mbadi, has joined the dialog, urging banks to decrease their lending charges and prolong extra credit score to companies, farmers, and producers.

Explain like I’m new right here. Since June 2024, the CBK has reduced its benchmark rate of interest from 13% to eight.75% to make loans cheaper, encouraging companies to borrow, broaden operations, and create jobs. But whereas banks have diminished their charges, the typical lending price remained at 14.4% in September 2026; debtors haven’t loved the complete good thing about the central financial institution’s cuts.

There’s some progress, although. Private sector lending has recovered, growing 10.6% in September, in contrast with a 2.9% contraction in January 2025. The authorities additionally mentioned it’s borrowing much less from banks, leaving lenders with extra money to finance companies.

Zoom out: Kenya is attempting to revive financial exercise from each ends. Beyond encouraging cheaper loans, the federal government has approved payments for verified excellent payments of KES 50 million ($385,000) or much less owed to suppliers, a few of whom have waited years to receives a commission.

The banks have been given room to lend, and the federal government is promising to pay what it owes. Whether Kenyan companies lastly get some respiratory room is dependent upon how shortly each guarantees flip into money in hand for enterprise house owners who urgently want it.

When you apply for a mortgage, a lender desires to know whether or not you possibly can repay. Governments face the identical scrutiny after they borrow billions from traders. The distinction is that as a substitute of checking payslips and financial institution statements, traders depend on credit standing companies to evaluate a rustic’s capacity to repay its money owed. Africa desires one other company doing the grading.

What occurred? The Africa Credit Rating Agency (AfCRA) is in discussions with 15 African international locations and expects to publish its first sovereign credit score rankings by March 2027. The company is backed by an African Union initiative and led by interim CEO Sifiso Falala. At launch, the AfCRA mentioned its researchers have been making ready to evaluate 5 international locations first, together with Togo, Kenya, Seychelles, Burundi, and Mauritius. 

Explain like I’m new right here: The company formally launched in Mauritius on October 7. When international locations wish to increase cash via worldwide bonds, traders have to understand how dangerous the funding is. Three companies have dominated this enterprise, together with S&P Global Ratings and Moody’s, each headquartered within the US, and Fitch Ratings, headquartered in New York and London. 

They assess a rustic’s economic system, authorities funds, debt ranges, and talent to repay, and their rankings affect how a lot curiosity traders demand. These companies have been criticised for relying closely on exterior information that don’t all the time mirror native realities. The African Union (AU) endorsed the concept of making AfCRA in 2018, and the African Peer Review Mechanism developed its institutional framework. It is lastly transferring in direction of operations. 

Why Africa desires one other scorecard: According to the AU, 23 of its 55 member states don’t have any sovereign ranking from the three main worldwide companies. Countries corresponding to Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Sierra Leone have been amongst these with out rankings in current assessments—making it tougher to draw traders in worldwide capital markets. 

Africa’s exterior debt-service funds additionally climbed from $61 billion in 2010 to $163 billion in 2024. AfCRA hopes better-informed assessments will help traders perceive the continent’s dangers and probably enhance entry to financing.

There are different gamers, together with Nigeria’s Agusto & Co, Côte d’Ivoire’s Bloomfield and South Africa’s Sovereign Africa Ratings, that already function on this house. The distinction is AfCRA’s proposed continent-wide sovereign ranking mandate.

AfCRA desires to boost $15 million from African traders in trade for a two-thirds stake. However, there’s a credibility query. AfCRA plans to make use of an issuer-pays mannequin, the place governments pay to be rated, however it questions whether or not paying purchasers can affect authorities grades. 

It mentioned unbiased committees and separation between business operations and ranking choices will defend its assessments. Its first rankings are anticipated by March 2027, most likely drawn from the international locations that conform to be assessed.

Helium Health, a Nigerian healthtech, desires to sort out an issue plaguing Nigerian ladies: maternal mortality.

The startup has secured a $2.5 million grant from Google.org, Google’s philanthropic arm, to deploy AI-powered instruments that establish being pregnant dangers and assist join ladies to acceptable care. It hopes to achieve 1.9 million pregnant ladies over three years, beginning in Lagos earlier than increasing to Delta, Kano, and Oyo.

Explain like I’m new right here: Nigeria already has a number of initiatives tackling maternal deaths. In November 2024, the Federal Government launched the Maternal Mortality Reduction Innovation Initiative (MAMII), concentrating on 172 high-burden native authorities areas throughout 33 states. 

It combines group identification of pregnant ladies, referrals, free maternal companies, emergency transport, and better-equipped well being amenities. By October 2026, greater than 32,000 ladies and 1,700 newborns had benefited from emergency obstetric and neonatal care, whereas the nationwide emergency medical service had transported practically 79,000 beneficiaries to acceptable care.

What is AI anticipated to do? AI may assist Helium’s group well being employees course of affected person info, flag potential issues and prioritise ladies who want pressing consideration. It has been examined outdoors Nigeria. 

Kenya’s Jacaranda Health runs PROMPTS, an SMS-based maternal well being service that makes use of AI to evaluate messages from pregnant ladies, flag hazard indicators, and prioritise pressing instances for human follow-up. By mid-2025, the platform had reached greater than 3.3 million moms, and its AI triage system, TRIM-AI, was about 17% extra correct at figuring out high-risk messages in preliminary checks.

Why this issues: The grant arrives as Nigerian healthtech funding has turn out to be tougher to safe. Funding into the sector fell from practically $55 million in 2023 to $18 million in 2024 and simply $3 million in 2025, according to TechCabal Insights. In addition to the grant, Google’s $2.5 million comes with entry to Google engineers and AI product consultants. 

Yet, AI can not exchange a functioning well being centre, educated medical workers, ambulances, or emergency obstetric care. An algorithm can flag a harmful being pregnant, however it can not ship a child or carry out an emergency C-section. Resources nonetheless should be in place for Helium Health’s expertise to translate into higher outcomes for moms.

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