$80m
South Africa is investigating an alleged cryptocurrency scam that defrauded investors of 1 billion rand ($80 million) with promises of huge returns that never materialised, police said on Friday. The fraud investigation involves a company named BTC Global, which told clients they would earn 2 percent per day, 14 percent a week and 50 percent in a month, the police said. A search for the company on the internet showed its services had been suspended. The website lists Steven Twain as the “primary trader”.
41%
Botswana’s telecoms regulator says its order that the three mobile phone companies cut fees they charge rivals to use their network by 41 percent has been endorsed by a local court. The ruling comes after Mascom, the country’s biggest telecoms company, filed a court application last July seeking to have the Botswana Communications Regulatory Authority’s (BOCRA) directive declared illegal, improper and irrational.
2.7m
Kenya built a reputation as a pioneer of financial inclusion through its early adoption of a mobile money system that enables people to transfer cash and make payments on cellphones without a bank account. Now, a proliferation of lenders are using the same technology to extend credit to the banked and unbanked alike, saddling borrowers with high interest rates and leaving regulators scrambling to keep up. In the last three years, 2.7 million people out of a population of around 45 million have been negatively listed on Kenya’s Credit Reference Bureaux, and for 400,000 of them, it was for an amount less than two dollars.
$27bn
Business in the UK will face extra bureaucracy costing up to £20bn or more than $27bn a year if Britain opts for the “max fac” customs deal with the EU favoured by Brexiters, the head of HM Revenue & Customs has claimed. In a dramatic intervention in the Brexit debate, Jon Thompson said the extra form-filling facing British and foreign companies as they crossed a proposed “streamlined” customs border could cost £17bn-£20bn, around twice the size of Britain’s net annual contribution to the EU budget.
10.7m
The US oil export infrastructure is straining to cope as the country’s crude oil exports hit new highs and China snaps up more of it than ever before. US crude production has surged to a record 10.7m bbl/day, driven largely by growth from the Permian shale patch in West Texas, which pumps more than 3m bbl/day.
