Social network giant Facebook on Monday launched new global product Workplace, a platform that it hopes will replace intranet, mailbox and other internal communication tools used by businesses worldwide.

It is intended to compete with similar office communication products including Microsoft’s Yammer, Salesforce’s Chatter and Slack.

The Silicon Valley company developed the concept, hitherto called “Facebook at Work”, two years ago in its London office and has since tested the product on 1,000 companies worldwide.

Workplace was developed outside of the Facebook ecosystem and remains completely separate from the social network, being accessible without a Facebook account.

The service will only enable the transfer of intra-office data, which will remain fully owned by the business.

Subscribers will pay between one to three euros per connected employee, depending on the size of the business, while NGOs and educational establishments will receive the service for free.

FarmDrive is a mobile tech, agri-tech startup that looks to advance bankable farmer initiatives. FarmDrive is a Kenyan-based social enterprise that connects unbanked and underserved smallholder farmers to credit, while helping financial institutions cost effectively increase their agricultural loan portfolios. Using simple mobile phone technology, alternative data sets, and sophisticated data analytics, FarmDrive is closing the critical information gap that keeps smallholder farmers from loans that would allow them to grow and diversify their businesses.

FarmDrive has won the Thomson Reuters Africa Startups Challenge 2016. The Thomson Reuters Africa Startups Challenge seeks to find the best new companies coming out of Africa. As a large continent made up of many emerging markets Africa is home to some exciting ventures who are able to leverage new technology and new business models to leap-frog the current players.  It won over other 13 competitors.

Nigeria’s banking industry is experiencing a “full-blown financial crisis” as failed fiscal and monetary policies lead to a credit crunch, according to Arqaam Capital.

Unity Bank Plc and Skye Bank Plc are close to being insolvent, while lenders FBN Holdings Plc and Sterling Bank Plc “will need a dilutive capital hike,” Jaap Meijer and Tarek Sleiman, analysts at the Dubai-based investment bank and brokerage, said in an e-mailed note on Monday. Capital ratios are set to worsen because of currency depreciation and souring loans, they said. Calls to Unity weren’t immediately returned and Skye didn’t reply to questions.

The central bank in July replaced the management of Skye after the lender breached liquidity thresholds, spurring concerns about the health of small- and medium-sized lenders, and reviving memories of bank rescues by the government after the financial crisis in 2009. Nigerian banks are grappling with a devaluation of the naira, rising bad loans and an oil-dependent economy that’s set to record its first annual contraction in more than two decades.

“Our acid test reveals seven under-capitalized banks” with a deficit of as much as 1 trillion naira ($3.2 billion) in the financial system, Meijer and Sleiman said. A stress test identified FBN as the most under capitalized lender with Unity, Diamond Bank Plc, Skye, FCMB Group Plc, Sterling and Fidelity Bank Plc also showing deficits if they were to fully provide for non-performing loans, according to Arqaam.

“Our bank is strong,” Ikechukwu Mike Omeife, a spokesman for Diamond Bank, said by phone from Lagos. “Our capital-adequacy ratio and non-performing loans are within the statutory requirements.”

Source: Bloomberg

Samsung reportedly suspended production of the Galaxy Note 7. Over the weekend four consumers reported that their newly purchased Galaxy Note 7 replacement phones overheated, suggesting that the company’s recall is ineffective. Two US carriers have ceased selling the phones altogether, and an unnamed supplier told South Korean media Samsung has temporarily stopped making the device.

Sure, Samsung Group is a huge. Do not be surprised if the smartphone business collapses with all these unforced errors.