At home

First National Bank (FNB) and South African retail giant Pep have partnered to extend the bank’s eWallet  money transfer solution available to all consumers, regardless of whether or not they have a bank account. FNB says the joint initiative means all consumers will be able to use their cellphones to shop and do banking via the eWallet solution, available at Pep stores throughout SA. – ITWeb

Citrix Systems SA has entered a partnership with Business Connexion, appointing the company as its first locally-based systems integrator partner. According to Sean Wainer, country manager for Citrix Systems Southern Africa, virtualisation goes far beyond consolidating servers or storage. “It’s about powering the cloud, enabling online access and collaboration from anywhere, and taking desktop computing to an entirely new level.” – ITWeb

Sean Wainer

The South African National Space Agency (SANSA) is calling on South Africans to participate in developing a National Space Programme (NSP) “that will make SA a leading space player by 2030”. Using social networking platforms, Facebook and Twitter, SANSA is hoping to engage the public and register 2 030 participants in the consultative process for the NSP by the end of February. – ITWeb

SA’s second cellular operator, MTN, announced it would reward customers for recharging their cellphones. MTN says, for five days at the end of each of the first three months of the year, it will give R5 000 to one customer per day. MTN SA chief marketing officer, Serame Taukobong, says customers are automatically entered into the draw when they recharge, call or SMS. – ITWeb

Global call centre company Teleperformance has appointed Fagri Semaar, a former call centre agent, as its new MD for SA. Semaar, who joined the company at the beginning of this month, plans to grow the South African unit “aggressively” in the next year. Teleperformance has 128 000 staff in more than 50 countries, of which 600 work in Cape Town and Johannesburg. – ITWeb

Fagri Semaar

The transition from IPv4 to IPv6 is simple and SA’s systems are ready, according to the Department of Communications. Speaking to ITWeb, acting deputy director-general of the Presidential National Commission on Information Society and Development Themba Phiri said: “The IPv6 issue is a simple transition. All you need is the equipment that enables new registration of the domain names.” – ITWeb

Phase one of a multimillion-rand libraries project to shore up Internet connectivity in SA is complete, Vodacom has announced. The National Department of Arts and Culture project, driven and managed by the National Library of SA, is being implemented in the North West, Mpumalanga and Limpopo provinces. On completion, it will equip 300 community libraries with free Internet using VSAT and Vodacom ADSL services. – ITWeb

SA’s first and currently only banking application from First National Bank (FNB) has seen immense activity, with transactional value reaching over R1.5 billion in just six months. According to head of products and markets at FNB, Farren Roper, there are over 100 000 individual active clients registered with the FNB Banking App, which was launched on 20 July last year. He says this has far exceeded the bank’s expectations. – ITWeb

JSE-listed television equipment provider Ellies says its recent start-up broadband satellite provider, SkyeVine, has been slow in meeting its initial objectives. The company published its results for the six months to October. It reported revenue growth from R652.6 million to R721.2 million, while net profit moved from R45.9 million to R62.6 million. – ITWeb

Into Africa

New research has been released, conducted by Portland Communications and Tweetminster, called: “How Africa Tweets”. South Africans are the most prolific on the continent, while Kenyans and Egyptians follow. The research mapped the use of the social networking site by analysing over 11.5 million tweets on the continent over a period of three months. – Daily Nation

The Zambian government has frozen all bank accounts belonging to the embattled Zambia Telecommunications Company, operated by LAP Green Networks of Libya. The government claims the move aims to stop the Libyans from externalising money as investigations into the alleged fraudulent sale of the company continue. – ITWeb

Zantel Tanzania has rebranded its Z-Pesa service, a mobile payment service, in a bid to offer better services and withstand competition in the market. Re-launching the service, Zantel CEO Ali Bin Jarsh said the new payment service, to be known as Ezy Pesa, has been upgraded and comes with new payment services, including enabling employers to pay salaries using the service. – The Citizen

Kenya has officially moved to a new electronic cheque payment cycle that businesses and policy analysts say will stimulate economic activity following a six-month trial period. The Kenya Bankers Association said all banks would now credit customers’ accounts with cheque proceeds after two days in urban areas and after three days for upcountry cheques. – Business Daily

Sierre Leone president, Ernest Koroma, launched the Transparency-International portal at State House. The portal is designed to capture all government projects in prose, photographs and video, and included an interactive Internet forum through which the citizenry can ask the president and his cabinet questions, and the president can respond through a blog. – Concord Times

Recently in Milan, Vodafone Egypt threw in a free concert with the famous Egyptian singer Nancy Ajram, to launch its first mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) under the label “Bladna”, which means homeland in Arabic. It is an MVNO targeted at the Egyptian Diaspora living in Italy. – Balancing Act

The chief communications strategist of Cellcom Liberia, Dr Kimmie Weeks, says his company has set reconciliation as its key focus for 2012. Dr Weeks says Cellcom will engage in numerous projects and promotions to support the president, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf’s vision for reconciliation of Liberia. – Heritage

Oil and gas companies in Nigeria spend an estimated $1 billion annually to buy new technologies, an official from Shell said. The MD of SNEPCO, a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell, Chike Onyejekwe, said at the ongoing Onshore West Africa Conference that the world’s population of seven billion was putting pressure on energy demand. – Daily Trust

Several members of the Rwanda business community have called on Rwanda Development Board (RDB) to decentralise its services, particularly the business registration services. Despite RDB’s launch of an online registration programme, it does not favour those not conversant with ICT, especially those in rural areas. – The New Times

Abroad

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata dismissed the idea that the age of the dedicated handheld games device was over, and said he aimed to return the company to substantial profit in 2012/13, after it warned of its first ever operating loss this year. Shares in Kyoto-based Nintendo tumbled nearly 8% to an eight-year low. – Reuters

Samsung Electronics said a German court has ruled against it in a patent suit with Apple over mobile technology, the latest verdict in an intensifying global legal battle between the two technology giants. The ruling by the court in Mannheim covered one of three patents Samsung claimed Apple violated, and follows Samsung’s defeat last week. – Reuters

Samsung Electronics posted a record $4.7 billion quarterly operating profit, driven by booming smartphone sales, and will spend $22 billion this year to boost production of chips and flat screens to pull further ahead of smaller rivals. Apple, overtaken by Samsung in the third quarter, regained its crown as the world’s biggest maker of smartphones in the fourth quarter, with record sales of 37.04 million iPhones. – Reuters

A leading lawmaker on privacy issues said he would ask for a probe into whether recently announced changes in how Google handles consumer data violated an agreement it made with the US Federal Trade Commission. Google, whose offerings include its flagship search product, Gmail, YouTube and Google+ products, announced it was unifying 60 of its privacy policies. – Reuters