👨🏿‍🚀TechCabal Daily – Is AGOA making a comeback?

If you like to carry your Visa debit cards around for payments—or as paperweights in your purse that eventually lead to unplanned purchases—don’t try using them for Uber in Kenya. Uber Kenya, the subsidiary of the ride-hailing platform, no longer allows Visa cards on its app.

Behind the change is cost. Uber processes Visa payments in Kenya through its global merchant-of-record (MoR) setup, which routes transactions offshore. Each ride attracts FX spreads, interchange fees, and cross-border processing charges before the driver ever gets paid. As global payment costs climbed, those layers stopped making economic sense for everyday, low-value trips.

Why Visa and not Mastercard? Uber has not said. Mastercard remains available, alongside local options such as M-PESA and cash.

Why this matters is bigger than Uber. Global platforms are quietly rewiring payments to favour local rails that are cheaper, faster, and easier to reconcile. In Kenya, mobile money fits how people earn, spend, and settle far better than international card schemes built for credit-heavy markets.

What happens next? Corporate travellers lose a familiar expense tool. Local banks like KCB and Equity lose a channel they once used to push card adoption. Visa, meanwhile, finds itself edged out of one of Africa’s most advanced digital payments markets, not by regulation, but by economics.

On Tuesday, the US House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to extend the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), sending a lifeline to sub-Saharan African exporters who had been bracing for a prolonged trade vacuum. The bill, H.R. 6500, passed 340–54 and now heads to the Senate.

Catch up: Since 2000, AGOA has given eligible African countries duty-free access to the US market, helping anchor industries such as apparel, agribusiness, and light manufacturing. More importantly, it has provided predictability on tariffs and long-term access to US buyers. Investors built factories, hired workers, and structured supply chains around the assumption that access to the US market would not suddenly disappear.

Recently, that assumption has been under pressure. The Trump administration’s renewed focus on tariffs and bilateral trade deals has weakened confidence in long-term preferential trade programmes. AGOA briefly expired in September 2025, but the lapse, even though temporary, exposed the fragility of such trade arrangements and how quickly exporters can be left scrambling for alternatives.

Competitors like China moved quickly and targeted Kenya, proposing a sweeping zero-tariff deal that would cover all Kenyan-made goods. For Nairobi, the appeal is obvious: China already absorbs millions of dollars in trade flows from Kenya (and several other African countries), and offers scale without the political conditionality that shadows US trade policy.

The risk, however, is substitution rather than diversification. AGOA plugs Kenya into high-value US supply chains; China offers volume, not necessarily margin.

House approval restores momentum, but only partially. Senate action will determine whether AGOA regains its role as a credible trade anchor for Sub-Saharan Africa or continues to drift into a cycle of short-term extensions in the global trade order.

After banning the importation of kits in December and switching off Starlink weeks later, Uganda has extended the “grace” to virtually every provider that makes internet connectivity possible ahead of Thursday’s general election. The government says it is restricting internet access to “mitigate the spread of online misinformation, disinformation, electoral fraud and related risks, as well as preventing the incitement of violence.”

The Ugandan government is borrowing a leaf from Tanzania’s book as it heads to the polls. In October, Tanzania, under an incumbent and contentiously re-elected leader, shut down the internet for five days for similar reasons. Both events point to a growing pattern in which African governments are using telecom kill-switches as a blunt instrument of political control rather than a narrowly tailored security response.

Between Blurring the lines: Thanks to the ubiquity of AI tools, it is now easier than ever to generate and spread (the potential virality of ‘juicy’ misinformation and fabricated videos). We’ve previously covered how available digital technology tools can manipulate the electorate’s response, based on the illusion they see. Yet, a total internet shutdown is impractical and borderline totalitarian. The internet underpins finance, healthcare, logistics, and consumer technology. Switching it off pauses daily life, pushing entire economies into stasis.

Like Tanzania, Uganda has form. In 2021, it shut down the internet during elections, citing security concerns. Today’s justification, too, is to curb misinformation, yet it might just be a convenient ruse. President Yoweri Museveni, in power since 1986, has twice changed the constitution—first removing presidential term limits in 2005, then scrapping the age limit in 2017—to extend his rule. Against that backdrop, Uganda’s “until further notice” sounds less like moderation and more like permanence.

Pan-African payments startup, NALA, has partnered with UK-based payments infrastructure provider Noah to build a cross-border settlement network linking Africa and Asia. This network will allow businesses to receive dollars, settle operators in stablecoins, and give cash out in local currency within minutes.

After launching Rafiki, its B2B payments platform, last year, NALA is now wiring in stablecoins as the settlement layer, using Noah’s global dollar collection rails and its local licences across 18 countries.

Why stablecoins? Stablecoins behave like a digital currency that moves 24/7, sidestepping traditional banking delays to settle payments instantly. This partnership would mean that global companies can collect USD anywhere, convert it to stablecoins under regulated rails, and send local currency into African and Asian mobile wallets.

Why this matters: In 2024, stablecoins accounted for a large share of financial activity across Africa and Asia. Over $54 billion in stablecoin transactions were recorded in sub-Saharan Africa, while Asia recorded $519 billion. By using stablecoins as the settlement layer, NALA and Noah can instantly move these funds and give SMEs and global businesses predictable access to dollars.

Written by: Emmanuel Nwosu and Opeyemi Kareem

Edited by: Emmanuel Nwosu & Ganiu Oloruntade