Senegal Launches A New Electronic Currency

Senegal is now the second African country after Tunisia to adopt an electronic currency. eCFA is equivalent in value to the country’s physical tender and will be available on all mobile money and e-wallet platforms. This development has led to e-money proponents speculating which African country might be next to adopt electronic money. Zimbabwe, perhaps? It’s popularly been argued that given the persistent economic troubles that have dogged the country, Zimbabwe might very well be the continent’s best use case for the adoption of virtual currency. But for the time being, Zimbabweans will have to be content with the country’s newest currency-- bond notes, which the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe started rolling out on Monday, December 28th, 2016. This week’s African Tech Round-up features a lively chat Andile Masuku had with Dr Vukosi Marivate, a Data Scientist and Senior Researcher at South Africa’s Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). They speak about the trend towards countries around the world passing laws that require the personal information of their citizens to be hosted on servers within their borders. We reached out to Vukosi after having some insightful engagement with him on Twitter last week; following our coverage of Russia blocking LinkedIn for flouting data security regulations. Music Credits: Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution