PayPal has ranked Nigeria as the 3rd highest mobile shopper worldwide. We indeed are masters in spending!

The online payment giant is the most popular medium among Nigerian cross-border shoppers, and estimated 55 percent of all oversea online purchases in the past 12 months were done via PayPal.

Nigerian mobile shoppers reportedly spent N128.1 billion ($610 million) in 2015 using PayPal, and on target for N172 billion ($819 million) this year.

The General Manager of PayPal Africa and Israel, Efi Dahan, said Nigerian online shoppers have realized the world is their shopping mall and as such shop wherever and whenever using their mobile devices.

It should be recalled that Facebook Inc. in February also affirmed Nigeria as its biggest market in Africa, with 97 percent of its 16 million Nigerian users accessing the platform through their mobile devices.

“Nigerians are generally sophisticated mobile users and this sophistication is aiding small businesses,” said Nunu Ntshingila, head of Africa for Facebook.

While China still remains the global leader of mobile shopping nations, with 86 percent of all its online shoppers using smartphone. Nigeria’s 72 percent is third after India’s 82 percent.

Since PayPal commenced business in Nigeria, Nigerians are no longer limited to what they can purchase locally, but they now search the globe for better deals.

The soon-to-be ex-leader of Britain, David Cameron, called Nigeria “fantastically corrupt” because of the news about evil men that masquerade as politicians and civil servants. Today, we are happy to let him know the real Nigerians. In a moving story from Mr. Tony Elumelu, the Chairman of UBA Group, we read about Mohammed Ibrahim Ogbanago, a security guard  who returned $10k he saw in the bank.

‘Last month, Mohammed Ibrahim Ogbanago, a security guard at the at ubagroup branch in Oba Akran, found $10,000 outside on the ground at his branch. In an unparalleled display of integrity, he decided to return the money. When I heard about this story, I knew I had to meet the man who despite facing rising petrol & transportation prices and “tomato ebola” returned such a huge sum of money without recourse to himself.

It was a pleasant surprise to hear him tell this story and about how he came to be in the board room with us. Even more surprising was hearing him speak about his passion for governance and integrity in leadership.

Mohammed Ibrahim Ogbanago is an exemplary ambassador of the UBA spirit and it was fulfilling to meet and reward him for his conduct.

The at UBAGroup management is proud to have this caliber of staff at all levels. Congratulations to Mohammed and keep up the good work’.

The Nigeria’s representative of the United Nations Children’s Fund, (UNICEF) Jean Gough has said that one in five children in the North East of Nigeria will die because of inability to access some of the community and inadequate assistance for those being reached.

Gough said: “We estimate that there will be almost a quarter of a million children under five suffering from severe acute malnutrition in Borno this year. Unless we reach these children with treatment, one in five of them will die. We cannot allow that to happen.”

In a related development and worried by the high levels of severe malnutrition and desperate conditions in most Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camps in north-east Nigeria, United Nations (U.N.) agencies and partners have stepped up assistance even as they canvassed more action and humanitarian assistance.

Access to credit is a key link between economic opportunity and economic outcome. Without the ability to obtain credit in times of need, businesses are harder to start and run, apartments are harder to rent, and emergencies can become disasters.

Until now, consumers in emerging markets have had limited access to credit in any form. Even when credit is technically available, it often requires days or weeks of form-filling and waiting. Mines.io provides an end-to-end platform where consumers can apply for a loan through a mobile phone, be instantly approved, and receive funds within minutes. This is made possible by a proprietary credit scoring system, which uses sophisticated algorithms to analyze multiple data sources and cost-effectively predict default risk for both banked and unbanked consumers.

Invented in Stanford University by Nigeria-born Professor Kunle Olukotun .

Kunle Olukotun has been a Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Stanford University for the last 20 years and is an expert in parallel hardware and software systems.

They just received seed funding from Fintech Collective.

MoneyLion is an online lending company that specializes in consumer personal loans. It also provides free credit monitoring, personal financial management tools, and a unique rewards program that encourages good financial actions that can be used to redeem gift cards. In a piece in TechCrunch, the value in this startup is explained.

In a financial context, people are really bad at anticipating future frustration. If I buy an Apple Watch with my credit card now, my brain doesn’t want me to be able to imagine the bill in my mailbox. Customers check their credit score on MoneyLion an average of 3.9 times a month. This degree of transparency makes people sweat in the short-run but reduces the likelihood of bad decision making that induces long-term elevated stress.

The platform also leverages data to recommend loans when they are most needed. If spending patterns appear incongruent with prior months, MoneyLion can suggest a small loan to smooth things over. A user can receive overdraft warnings within the app and take a $200 advance in about 15 minutes. Tim Hong, one of the key behavioral architects of the platform, wants MoneyLion to dream big.

This product can save one stress in Nigeria if it can be built. But of course, the first is having the ability to track the expenses by linking all to BVN (bank verification number).