Telecom
Mastercard, Financial Access Initiative Partner to Enable More Small Businesses Benefit From Digital Economy
The Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth and The Financial Access Initiative (FAI) at New York University have announced the launch of The Small Firm Diaries, a global research initiative that will provide unprecedented insight into the financial lives of small businesses across six countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia.
The study will examine how small firms manage the adoption of digital financial services, with a focus on women-led businesses.
By collecting detailed quantitative and qualitative data insights from firms employing between 1 and 20 non-family workers in Nigeria, Ethiopia, Uganda, Colombia, Indonesia and Fiji, the study will shed light on how small business owners across the world manage their financial decision making amidst uncertain and volatile economies.
While there has been a great deal of research on informal family-run “microenterprises,” and more professionalized “medium-sized” firms, the needs of small firms are not yet well-understood.
For example, in Sub-Saharan Africa, small firms play a crucial role in economic development and job creation and insight is needed to understand the unique challenges faced by them in order to create sustainable solutions for their longevity and growth.
According to The World Bank, it is estimated that SMEs are responsible for 77% of all jobs in Africa and as much as half of the GDP in some countries.
The research initiative, supported by the Center, aims to provide financial service providers, policymakers, and practitioners with knowledge and recommendations to address barriers to adoption of digital financial services.
“We must understand how small enterprises work in order to develop interventions that reduce inequality and increase financial security amongst financially underserved communities,” said Natasha Jamal, Regional Director, Middle East and Africa, with the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth.
“This first-of-its-kind research will provide on the ground insights into what barriers and opportunities exist for small firms to adopt digital financial services and participate in an inclusive economy.”
“Small firms are by far the biggest employer in low and middle-income economies.
“Despite decades of statistical research, fundamental questions remain about why some grow, and some stagnate,” said Jonathan Morduch, Executive Director of the Financial Access Initiative and Professor of Public Policy and Economics at New York University.
“ Our aim is to go into the field and try to understand small firms from the bottom-up, by listening closely to how entrepreneurs and workers make choices on their own terms.”
“Just as household financial diaries have been crucial to understanding the needs of low-income households around the world, and the barriers to achieving household financial security, the kind of detailed financial information provided by diaries is needed to understand the choices that small firm owners make and the real barriers to growth they face,” said Timothy Ogden, Managing Director at the Financial Access Initiative.
FAI and its partners are working closely with local organizations that will be involved in the research to obtain country-level research and ethics approvals in each of the six countries that will host the study.
Methodology of The Small Firm Diaries Research Initiative
Project researchers will follow a group of 100 businesses in multiple sites in each country over a period of 12 months, visiting them several times per month to collect quantitative data on cash flows, and qualitative data on business owners’ aspirations and decision-making.
Compared to traditional research studies that produce static snapshots from a single point in time, financial diaries can produce nuanced and dynamic portraits of firm owners and their choices.
High-frequency, quantitative data on cash flows shows researchers actual trade-offs and decisions made in near-real time, and qualitative data collection allows them to probe deeply to understand the “why” behind those choices, revealing the behaviors and barriers that prevent firms from adopting useful tools and technologies, hamper firm growth, and slow market development.
The study will illuminate the ebbs and flows of the businesses, the markets they serve, the constraints to their productivity, profitability and growth, the impact of access (or lack of access) to technology and formal credit, the interactions of the cash flows of the business with the cash flows of the owners and employees, and much more.
The Small Firm Diaries has also received funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Argidius Foundation, the Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs, and Australian National University.
The project’s overall research design is based on the experience of FAI and its research partners with previous financial diaries studies, such as Portfolios of the Poor, the US Financial Diaries, and the Bangladesh Garment Worker Diaries.
The advisory board for the multi-country study will include leading researchers on small firms and practitioners with expertise in digital and financial services and business support programs, with experience spanning the private sector, government, and academia.
Current board members include: Tamara Cook, CEO, FSD-Kenya; Matthew Guttentag, Director of Research & Impact at the Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs; Machal Karim, Executive, Development Impact at CDC; Leora Klapper, Lead Economist at the World Bank and founder of the Global Findex; and David McKenzie, Lead Economist within the Development Research Group at the World Bank.
The Small Firm Diaries is a collaboration led by the Financial Access Initiative at NYU Wagner, with independent researchers at The Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva and Oxford University; research implementation partners L-IFT, MFO, and EDI Global; and local partners, including the University of the South Pacific (Fiji), SMERU (Indonesia), National Bureau of Statistics and Lagos Business School (Nigeria), and FSDU (Uganda).
The International Rescue Committee (IRC) has announced the formation of Airbel Ventures, a new humanitarian impact investing fund aimed at accelerating the introduction and scaling of breakthrough technologies in crisis-affected communities.
The fund will invest in companies whose ideas have the potential to change humanitarian response, including digital infrastructure for frontline health systems and climate-resilient agriculture.
The launch of Airbel Ventures follows a period of rapid innovation at the IRC, despite the humanitarian sector facing record funding cuts.
In the past year, the IRC’s Airbel Impact Lab has advanced more than twenty Artificial Intelligence (AI) and technology initiatives—from anticipatory action tools powered by climate and vulnerability data, to frontline service delivery using safe, orchestrated AI systems, to breakthrough diagnostic tools for emerging diseases.
Airbel Ventures’ first impact investment is in Signalytic, a company delivering solar-powered computing devices that ensure reliable electricity and connectivity for remote health facilities.
Following the investment, the IRC will pilot Signalytic’s technology with its Nigeria Health team, demonstrating the viability of next-generation digital infrastructure in humanitarian settings.
“We know breakthrough solutions already exist—what’s missing is the path to scale in humanitarian contexts,” said Dr. Jeannie Annan, Senior Vice President for Research & Innovation at the IRC and head of the Airbel Impact Lab.
MTN Nigeria, the country’s largest telecommunications operator, recorded a historic surge in network disruptions in 2025, suffering 9,218 fibre cuts as of December 31, alongside 211 base station sites affected by theft and vandalism, incidents that disrupted mobile and data services relied upon daily by millions of Nigerians.
The data was revealed by Dr Karl Toriola, chief executive officer/managing director, MTN Nigeria via a social media post titled ‘MTN Nigeria 2025 Wrapped’.
The scale of the damage highlights the growing vulnerability of Nigeria’s telecommunications infrastructure, which has come under increasing pressure from road construction activities, cable theft and deliberate acts of vandalism.
MTN said 5,478 fibre cuts occurred within just the first seven months of 2025, with 760 incidents recorded in July alone, underscoring the intensity of the challenge.
Some of the incidents had wide-ranging consequences, knocking out connectivity across multiple states simultaneously and affecting voice calls, data services, digital payments and enterprise operations.
The company described the situation as a national infrastructure problem, rather than an isolated corporate issue, given the economy’s deep dependence on mobile networks.
“These gaps were shaped by real operational challenges such as fibre cuts, theft, and vandalism. Their impact is felt directly by customers and reflected in what they tell us,” Toriola,
The disruptions were reflected in customer feedback volumes, as MTN handled an unprecedented number of complaints during the year. The operator said it resolved 1,624,263 customer complaints in 2025, spanning call centres, social media platforms, emails and physical service centres nationwide.
Despite the setbacks, MTN pointed to signs of operational resilience. The company retained its ranking as Nigeria’s best network by Ookla, returned to profitability after a challenging period, declared an interim dividend, and expanded its subscriber base to over 85 million users by September 2025.
The figures show that while Nigeria’s telecom operators continue to invest heavily in network expansion and customer service, infrastructure sabotage remains a major drag on service quality and operating costs.
MTN acknowledged that performance improvements remain a work in progress. “We are not where we want to be yet. We see you. We hear you. We exist because of you. And we will get better,” Toriola said.
As the company enters its 25th year of operations in Nigeria, Toriola said MTN is doubling down on customer-centricity, treating every piece of feedback as a guide for improvement, while also stepping up engagement with government agencies.
The CEO renewed calls for stronger regulatory and legal protections for telecommunications infrastructure, urging policymakers to classify fibre cables, base stations and other critical assets as national infrastructure and criminalise vandalism to deter repeat attacks.
Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has granted operating licences to six new Internet Service Providers (ISPs), effective January 1, 2026, raising the total number of authorised ISPs in the country to 231 from 225 recorded in December 2025.
NCC
The newly licensed firms are Intellvision Technologies Limited, Granet Technologies Limited, Fiber Sonic Limited, Dasol Solution Services Ltd, Boost ISP Limited, and Amazon Kuiper Nigeria Limited.
Five of these companies are headquartered in Lagos, while Granet Technologies Limited operates from Owerri in Imo State, highlighting the persistent concentration of broadband infrastructure in major commercial hubs like Lagos, Abuja, and Port Harcourt.
This development intensifies competition in Nigeria’s broadband market, which faces pressure from dominant mobile network operators such as MTN and Airtel, alongside rapid expansion by satellite providers like Starlink.
Traditional ISPs continue to grapple with shrinking customer bases, aggressive data pricing from telcos, and satellite disruptions, even as NCC data from Q2 2025 showed Spectranet, Starlink, and FibreOne controlling about 65 per cent of the 313,713 active ISP subscribers.
The inclusion of Amazon Kuiper Nigeria Limited marks a significant entry of global satellite broadband competition, building on Nigeria’s recent approvals for other low Earth orbit providers to enhance connectivity in underserved areas.
Industry analysts view the licences as a strategic push to improve internet quality amid rising demand for digital services, though geographic clustering underscores ongoing infrastructure challenges outside urban centres.
NCC’s move aligns with broader efforts to foster a competitive telecoms sector critical to Nigeria’s digital economy ambitions.
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