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Carbon Partners with AXA Mansard to Launch Healthcare Benefits Program

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Carbon, Nigeria’s foremost digital financial services company, has partnered with AXA Mansard, a leading provider of insurance products and services, to launch a range of healthcare benefits for its regular customers.

As part of the new program, customers that save a minimum of N3,000 monthly with Carbon will qualify for a N20,000 cash benefit in the event that they are hospitalised for 2 or more nights.

Customers that also have an existing loan that is not in arrears or do over N5,000 in transactions with Carbon monthly (transfers, bills, airtime) will also qualify for this health benefit. This cover is for a period of one month for every qualifying month on a recurring basis as long as customers continue to qualify and is currently only available to Carbon’s customers in Nigeria.

In addition to this new program, Carbon has also announced some new measures designed to ease the financial burden caused by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. As well as providing customers who pay their loans on time with access to the new healthcare benefits, Carbon is rescheduling loans for eligible customers who experience difficulty paying back their loans. Users will also be able to make up to 30 fee-free transfers on the platform.

Across Africa, as well as the rest of the world, many lenders have stopped issuing loans to customers, potentially depriving people of funds when they need it the most.

To cater for the expected increase in loan requests, Carbon has put some additional safeguards in place but will continue to disburse loans. Carbon will also keep loan amounts constant on renewals and in some cases reduce loan amounts. Repeat loan applications may also require further review but that will be kept to a minimum.

According to Ngozi Dozie, co-founder of Carbon, “Our main aim as a business is to empower our customers to live a life of dignity and prosperity. Whether that is by rewarding their discipline and loyalty or by adjusting the terms of their loans, we are committed to seeing them thrive and flourish.

“That is why we have rolled out these benefits and announced the new measures. We want to ensure that they have the best support and access to life-changing services, even at this difficult time.”

Alfred Egbai, AXA Mansard’s Group Head, Emerging Customers and Financial Inclusion, also added: “We are really excited to partner with Carbon to roll out these benefits across Nigeria.

“In Carbon, we have a partner that understands the needs of the Nigerian consumer and is committed to putting the customer first, just as we are. We are confident that, by working together, we can deliver services that add value to the lives of our customers”.

Carbon’s new range of healthcare benefits is the latest on a long list market-leading innovation from the startup. Carbon (formerly Paylater) pioneered instant lending in Nigeria and was the first mobile app that provided access to credit digitally and without requesting individuals to present the documents and collateral traditionally associated with accessing loans.

Earlier this year, Carbon introduced an iOS app and USSD service following on from their launch in Kenya in December 2019. It also announced the launch of its Disrupt Fund, a $100,000 Pan-African fund to address the lack of capital for African tech startups.


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E-Business

Attackers Target Employees with Fake HR Updates

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Kaspersky has identified an advanced phishing campaign targeting employees with personalised emails and attached documents disguised as HR policy updates.

This campaign marks a significant escalation in phishing tactics, with attackers tailoring not only the email body, but also the attachments by addressing individual recipients, showcasing an unprecedented level of customisation. The goal was to lure the victim into entering their corporate email credentials.

The attackers likely prepared by parsing employee names to make the campaign targeted and more convincing.

The emails feature a deceptive body: a fraudulent “verified sender” badge to build trust, the recipient’s name, and an invitation to open the attached file to review remote work protocols, benefits administration and security standards. However, the whole email body is in reality just an image with no real text in it; this is done to bypass email filters.

The attached document, posing as an updated “Employee Handbook,” does not contain any actual guidelines – only a title page, a table of contents with the items that have supposedly been changed highlighted in red, a page with a QR code, supposedly for going to the full document and common instructions on how to read QR codes using a phone. The document features the victim’s name multiple times to convince that this document was created specifically for them.

If the victim scans the QR code and follows the link, they land on a fraudulent page where they are asked to enter their corporate credentials, which is what the attackers are hunting for.

“This campaign demonstrates a new level of sophistication in phishing attacks, and we may be seeing a new mailing automation mechanism that generates a separate attached document and a separate image for the email body for each recipient.

“This tactic allows to scale the attack and at the same time possibly evade traditional defenses. Organisations must prioritise advanced security measures and employee education to stay ahead of these threats,” comments Roman Dedenok, Anti-Spam Expert at Kaspersky.

 


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Temu Joins INTA to Combat Counterfeits and Elevate IP Standards Worldwide

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Temu, the global online marketplace, has joined the International Trademark Association (INTA) as a corporate member and serves on its Anti-Counterfeiting Committee.

INTA is a global association that brings together more than 6,700 organizations, representing over 37,000 trademark professionals and brand owners across 181 countries. By joining INTA, Temu deepens its commitment to building a trusted online marketplace and advancing global IP protection through broader, cross-industry collaboration.

“INTA welcomes TEMU’s willingness to engage in anticounterfeiting initiatives, including in the Association’s annual Anticounterfeiting Workshop and Online Takedown Certificate Program which serve to share best practices and connect stakeholders,” said Alastair Gray, Director of Anti-Counterfeiting, INTA. “Constructive collaboration with these efforts can contribute to the protection of intellectual property rights for INTA members and support the removal of counterfeit products from the platform which ultimately protects consumers.”

At the 2025 INTA Annual Meeting held in San Diego in May, Temu participated in the Anti-Counterfeiting Committee Roundtable, serving as a moderator to facilitate discussions among brand owners, online platforms, and government officials on emerging technologies, best practices for collaboration, and strategies to strengthen global anti-counterfeiting efforts.

“Joining INTA and serving on its Anti-Counterfeiting Committee reflects Temu’s ongoing commitment to ensuring a trustworthy online shopping experience,” said a Temu spokesperson. “We value collaboration with industry peers and stakeholders and are dedicated to advancing collective efforts in intellectual property protection.”

Temu also participates in INTA-led online workshops, including the Online Platform Notice and Takedown Certification Program, which outlines the latest procedures and best practices used by e-commerce platforms and social media companies. These workshops aim to enhance the quality and accuracy of rights-holder notices, promoting more effective takedown processes and content moderation.

Since launching in 2022, Temu has made significant investments in IP enforcement. Its measures include comprehensive seller vetting and compliance training, 24/7 algorithmic monitoring with manual review, a dedicated IP protection portal and brand registry to streamline takedown submissions, and an internal enforcement team that handles claims with speed and accuracy.


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Huawei Unveils AI Computing System to Challenge Nvidia’s Flagship Product

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China’s Huawei Technologies unveiled an AI computing system on Saturday that an industry expert said rivals Nvidia’s most advanced product, as the company aims to expand its footprint in the country’s booming AI sector.

Huawei Unveils AI Computing System to Challenge Nvidia’s Flagship Product

The CloudMatrix 384 system made its public debut at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC), a three-day event in Shanghai, attracting a large crowd to Huawei’s booth with its showcase of cutting-edge AI innovations.

The system has attracted significant interest from the global AI community since Huawei (HWT.UL) first introduced it in April. Industry analysts see it as a direct challenger to Nvidia’s GB200 NVL72, the most advanced system-level offering currently available from the U.S. chipmaker.

In an April article, Dylan Patel, founder of semiconductor research firm SemiAnalysis, stated that Huawei now possesses AI system capabilities that could surpass those of Nvidia.

Huawei staff at its WAIC booth declined to comment when asked to introduce the CloudMatrix 384 system.

A spokesperson for Huawei did not respond to questions.

Huawei has become widely regarded as China’s most promising domestic supplier of chips essential for AI development, even though the company faces U.S. export restrictions.

Nvidia CEO, Jensen Huang told Bloomberg in May that Huawei had been “moving quite fast” and named the CloudMatrix as an example.

The CloudMatrix 384 system features 384 of Huawei’s latest 910C chips and, according to SemiAnalysis, surpasses Nvidia’s GB200 NVL72 in certain performance metrics, despite the latter using 72 B200 chips.

SemiAnalysis attributes this performance advantage to Huawei’s strong system design, which offsets the lower power of individual chips by leveraging a greater number of them and incorporating system-level innovations.

Huawei describes the system as utilizing a “supernode” architecture that enables ultra-high-speed interconnectivity between chips.

In June, Zhang Pingan, CEO, Huawei Cloud confirmed that the CloudMatrix 384 was already operational on Huawei’s cloud platform.


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