Airtel Nigeria hosts inaugural customer forum to tackle data depletion concerns - ITREALMS Online

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Airtel Nigeria has concluded its first-ever Customer Forum in Lagos, reports ITREALMS.

The event, which brought together high-volume data subscribers, 5G users, and industry regulators, represents a coordinated national framework to address the growing conversation around data transparency and usage control.

Held at the Lagos Travel Inn, Ikeja, the forum served as a mechanical necessity for the telecommunications giant to foster trust within Nigeria’s rapidly evolving digital theater, especially as data consumption becomes as essential as electricity and water.

Optimus AI Labs unveils Omnis, targets Nigerian banks with AI against fraud, uplifts customer service - ITREALMS

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The Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Optimus AI Labs, Mr. Lanre Basamta, has unveiled a suite of artificial intelligence innovations poised to transform Nigeria’s financial services industry, directly aligning with recent Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) directives on consumer protection and fraud prevention, reports ITREALMS.

Basamta, speaking with ITREALMS at a media parley in Lagos, announced that the company's flagship product, Omnis, is redefining customer engagement in banking by serving as a sophisticated virtual assistant embedded within mobile applications.

Airtel Africa reports strong growth in customer base, data usage despite currency headwinds - ITREALMS

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The Airtel Africa plc has recorded strong growth in customer base and data usage despite currency headwinds, reports ITREALMS.

These indications was contained in the financial results for the year ended March 31, 2025, available to ITREALMS, which demonstrated robust operational growth despite the impact of currency devaluations across its markets.

PAFON 2.0 to address customer experience in AI-driven payment ecosystem - ITREALMS

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The highly anticipated Payments Forum Nigeria (PAFON) 2.0 is set to convene industry leaders, policymakers, fintech innovators, and key stakeholders to discuss the evolving landscape of digital payments, with a special focus on cybersecurity, trust, and regulatory compliance in the AI era.

PAFON 2.0, scheduled to take place on April 10, 2025 at the Function Room 1, Oriental Hotel, Lagos, builds on the success of its inaugural edition, solidifying its position as Nigeria’s premier platform for thought leadership in payments innovation.

PAFON 2.0 set to address customer experience in AI-driven payment ecosystem - ITREALMS

ITREALMS ... making leadership SENSE with digital news!

The highly anticipated Payments Forum Nigeria (PAFON) 2.0 is set to convene industry leaders, policymakers, fintech innovators, and key stakeholders to discuss the evolving landscape of digital payments, with a special focus on cybersecurity, trust, and regulatory compliance in the AI era.

PAFON 2.0, scheduled to take place on April 10, 2025 at the Function Room 1, Oriental Hotel, Lagos, builds on the success of its inaugural edition, solidifying its position as Nigeria’s premier platform for thought leadership in payments innovation.

Privacy right: Court orders UBA to pay customer N8m for gross violation - ITREALMS

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The United Bank of Africa (UBA) Plc in Nigeria has been ordered to pay its customer N8,000,000 only for gross violation of her right to data privacy in a matter funded by Paradigm Initiative (PIN) through its digital rights reporting platform Ripoti, reports ITREALMS.

The bank was found liable for unilaterally opening a domiciliary account for Miss Folashade Molehin without her consent, breaching her right to data privacy.

Samtec wins Bishop European customer service survey - ITREALMS

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Samtec has been ranked #1 in the 2023 Bishop and Associates European Customer Survey of the Electronic Connector Industry, reports ITREALMS.

This is Samtec’s 12th consecutive win for the survey. From standard cataloged interconnects to unique high-performance designs, Samtec’s comprehensive product line supports interconnectivity needs across many industries, including industrial, military/aerospace, computer/semiconductor, automotive, datacom, medical, and instrumentation.

Fintech startup, Zoto, soars in customer adoption

ITREALMS:

Fintech startup, Zoto, has witnessed a soaring customer adoption through transacting user base and order volume in the last one year, reports ITRealms.

The transacting user base and order volume, ITRealms gathered, grew by 56 per cent and 200 per cent respectively, in the last financial year.

Zoto, which is a product of Hedonmark Management Services Limited and Nigeria’s fastest growing payment solution, promises to replicate an even higher growth curve in the financial year 2018 -19.

The fintech startup, ITRealms reports, processed 5 million orders in the last year which is expected to grow 300 per cent to 15 million orders in the financial year 2018-19 due to growing volume of electronic payments by Nigeria’s young and digitally savvy mobile users. Zoto has scaled quickly with over one million downloads and an app rating of 4.6. 

Nigeria has one of the fastest growing population in the world most of whom are mobile and digitally savvy due to prices of Android phones dropping by as much as 45% and data prices reducing by as much as 80%. The accessibility to mobile phones and data has led to an explosion in electronic payments, with 117 billion USD worth electronic transactions processed in Jan – Dec 2016. 

Reacting to this development, Oshone Ikazoboh, Co-Founder & COO of Zoto expressed delight at the rapid progress made by Zoto with a short time.

“These milestones will motivate us to work even harder and achieve the goal of becoming West Africa’s preferred digital payments solution. In near future we plan to expand vertically and horizontally by adding more categories and increasing the number of merchants in each category, this will help us provide better payment experience to our users and make us an indispensable channel for payments,” he said.

Chuks Egbune/GEE

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$109bn market: Angonix, i3D.net in remote peering deal

ITRealms:

The Angola’s largest Internet Exchange Point (IXP), Angonix has welcomed i3D.net as its first remote peering customer, in anticipation of exploring the $109bn online gaming market, reports ITRealms.

i3D.net, ITRealms gathered is a managed hosting provider specialising in online gaming that hosts tens of millions of players for game publishers on the Microsoft Xbox and Sony PlayStation networks. i3D.net joined 17 other companies at Angonix, Africa’s third largest IXP.

The Project Manager at Angonix, Darwin Da Costa, said that with the ‘Remote Peering’ services from Angola Cables, online gamers in Angola will enjoy an improved gaming experience with a much reduced latency.

“It is the first phase as we look forward to eventually having i3D.net establish a local infrastructure in the country” Da Costa said.

ITRealms also reports that this year, global revenues in the games market including Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) games that support thousands of players at a time playing over the Internet – will total $109 billion, a growth of 56 per cent over the past five years.

This, industry observers noted accounts for the majority of the online gaming market, MMOs are expected to have a value of $27 Billion (USD) by 2025.

“Whether on smartphones, PCs or consoles, the growth of the global online gaming market is expected to consistently be above 10 per cent until 2023 with the availability of better gaming infrastructure as one of the primary drivers propelling the growth prospects of this market,” according to Technavio.

“i3D.net provides services to a variety of online video gaming publishers, aggregating a large number of games that can be played on our infrastructure. We are always working to bring content as close to the end user as technically possible and welcome the opportunity to partner with Angola Cables and the Angonix Internet Exchange Point. i3D.net continues to build a stronger presence in Africa as one of the few truly global providers with extensive local presence throughout the African continent,” i3D.net CEO Stijn Koster said.

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Abuja hosts DStv customer forum

ITRealms:

The Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja at the weekend played host to the subscribers of pay TV service, DStv, a brand of MultiChoice Nigeria, reports ITRealms.

The forum, ITRealms gathered was held on Saturday, 22 July to interact with a session of DSTv customer in the central business district area of Abuja.

The Public Relations Manager, MultiChoice Nigeria, Caroline Oghuma, told ITRealms that the Customer Forum, is a regular customer engagement initiative by MultiChoice Nigeria aimed at having face-to-face interactions with customers in a bid to deepen relationships.

She also said, the forum provides a platform for valuable discourse with customers through constructive feedback on their experiences from using various DStv services and products.

“We value every opportunity to meet with our customers to receive their feedback on our services”, she said.

While acknowledging series of challenges in any business, she said what is important is that the business finds ways to address and proffer solutions to them.

“We have heard our subscribers and will work on enhancing the quality of our services based on the issues raised today. At MultiChoice Nigeria, we are reshaping our business to improve our customers’ experience, whenever and wherever they engage with us” said Oghuma.

Pointing out that issues raised and addressed at the forum included signal loss, subscription disconnection at due date, customer care services, content scheduling, program repeats and other hardware related issues.

On the issue of subscription disconnection, subscribers were advised to make renewals on or before their due dates to avoid interruptions in their DStv services.

“You can either pay through the Quickteller online platform or simply walk into any of our offices or dealer offices and make over-the-counter payments”, Oghuma said, stressing that it was not all complaints however as some customers had some commendations to give the company.

One of such commendations came from Victor Nwoyi. He said: “I would like to use this forum to appreciate DStv for its upgrades. As a business entity, it is not easy to thrive in a country like ours. For DStv to thrive this hyper-inflation and economic recession; DStv is not doing badly in Nigeria. God bless DStv”.

Present at the forum included DStv dealers and sales representatives as well as representatives of the Consumer Protection Council (CPC) and National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), regulatory agencies of MultiChoice Nigeria.

Chuks Egbune/GEE 

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Etisalat hosts customer forum in Kaduna

ITRealms:

Etisalat Nigeria has deepened its commitment with subscribers on its network by hosting its customers in Kaduna at the quarterly Etisalat Customer Forum, reports ITRealms.

At the Etisalat Customer Forum, attended by hundreds of customers shared their experiences with the network, asked questions, and commendations. In return, the Etisalat team, which included heads of service units, answered all questions and resolved all concerns raised by the customers on the spot.

Addressing the Forum, Director, Brands and Experience, Elvis Ogiemwanye, said the forum underscores the fact that Etisalat holds its customers in high esteem and seeks to engage them at every opportunity in order to deepen its relationship with them.

Ogiemwanye said, “We at Etisalat Nigeria consider the customer forum as extremely important because this is the platform from which we get feedback that helps us improve on our products and services and develop new ones. Also, at the customer forum sessions, we get to interact face-to-face with subscribers on our network; know them better and learn how to serve them better.

“We are passionate about engaging with our customers to know how they feel; what they think; and what their experiences are with our products and services. This is because we recognise our customers as number one in everything we do and our goal is to keep delighting them.”

One of the customers at the forum, Elijah Dodo, a banker, commended Etisalat for seeking feedback from its customers, saying he was satisfied with how his complaints were resolved at the forum.

He said, “The customer forum is a rewarding experience. I like the fact that customers that came for the forum participated actively. On a general note, I’ll say that the customers here seem quite happy with Etisalat”.

Another customer, Patience Madlion, a farmer, said the sincerity with which the Etisalat team answered questions at the forum was commendable.

“The customer forum was awesome and for me, it came at the right time. I’m glad I came for this forum. Though the Etisalat customer care unit has been doing very well, obviously, some issues cannot be easily resolved over the phone. By coming here today, I’ve got my complaint resolved and I have a better understanding of the Etisalat products and services that I use” she said.   

Ahead of the customer forum, the Etisalat team, led by Ogiemwanye, visited Rimi College, Kaduna as part of its community engagement efforts. The team held a career counselling session for students of the college, where Ogiemwanye, an old student of the college, enjoined the students to work hard for a bright future. Etisalat also presented books and other educational materials to the school. 

The Etisalat Customer Forum has been held in several cities including Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Enugu, Ibadan, Benin, Calabar, Uyo, Warri, Onitsha, Akure and Ilorin.

Nonye Dom/GEE

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Fortune smiles @ Uadiala as Yudala rewards customer with Kia Rio

ITRealms:

Fortune has smiled on Samuel Uadiala family as they emerged the winner of a brand new Kia Rio in a raffle draw conducted at the Yudala Head Office in Gbagada on November 29^th 2016, reports ITRealms.

Uadiala, a frequent shopper at Yudala, ITRealms gathered, had beaten thousands of other contenders drawn from attendees at the Yudala Zero Gravity Concert held in the three cities of Lagos, Abuja and Enugu as well as shoppers from the company’s Black Friday sales which ran from Thursday November 24^th till Monday November 28^th.

Uadiala had received a raffle ticket after he purchased a Lenovo device and a Tecno phone from Yudala about a month ago.

Of the thousands of customers that qualified for the raffle draw, 100 were randomly selected and the list later pruned down to 20 for the grand draw. Five customers from the Yudala Zero Gravity Rock Gospel Concert held at the Federal Palace Hotel on November 20th volunteered to witness the raffle draw and ensure proper authentication of the proceedings. 

Also on hand to witness the draw was Pastor Remi Morgan Senior Pastor at Christ Church Parish of The Redeemed Christian Church of God in charge of Lagos Province 35.

A visibly elated Uadiala, who was accompanied by his wife, Jummai and other members of his family, was full of effusive praise for Yudala during the official presentation of the car which took place on Thursday December 1st.

“I am short of words. In fact, it is still like a dream to me. When I received the call from Pastor Remi Morgan on Tuesday, I thought someone was trying to play a prank on me. But no, it turned out to be true. Today, I am proud owner of a brand new Kia Rio.

“I am grateful to the Management of Yudala for living up to their promise. This is a clear case of what you see is what you get, which Yudala has always held up as one of its marketing promises. I pray that every staff of this great company will be richly rewarded and will continue to benefit from working in a Godly organization such as this. This is a day that God has made and I will rejoice so gladly in it,” he enthused.

Also speaking during the presentation, Founder/Vice President, Yudala, Prince Nnamdi Ekeh reiterated the company’s status of dependability, as seen in the transparent process that produced the winner and the guarantee of genuine products for which Yudala is renowned.

“At Yudala, we have a mantra: What you see is what you get. We are a corporate giant with a conscience and this was made clear from inception. Our customers are assured the guarantee of genuine products, whether they shop on our online platform or in any of our Offline Experience Store nationwide. This is one of the unique factors that set us apart in the marketplace. The transparent process from which the winner of the Kia Rio emerged is also a major justification of our status as a dependable company. You can always count on us at Yudala.”

In his contribution, Kia Motors representative, Mr. Moses Oguntimehin congratulated the winner, Mr. Uadiala, noting that Kia Motors’ partnership with Yudala is a mutually rewarding one which is set to progress long into the future. According to him, Yudala is one of the fastest growing brands in the country and with a clear vision and customer-centric mandate, factors which make it easy to identify with the brand.

Chuks Egbune/GEE

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Pix: PROUD WINNERS: (R-L) Chief Executive Officer, Yudala, Mr. Dave Ibelegbu, raffle draw winner Mr. Samuel Uadiala and his wife Jummai, Kia Motors representative, Mr. Moses Oguntimehin and Founder/Vice President, Yudala, Prince Nnamdi Ekeh during the official presentation of a brand new Kia Rio to Mr. Uadiala at the Yudala Headquarters in Gbagada, Lagos…recently. Mr. Uadiala emerged the lucky winner of the grand prize in a raffle draw conducted at the end of the Yudala Zero Gravity Concert and Black Friday Sales on November 29^th 2016.

PIC 2:

HERE ARE THE KEYS: Founder/Vice President, Yudala, Prince Nnamdi Ekeh (R) presents the key of a brand new Kia Rio to Mr. Samuel Uadiala who was accompanied by his wife, Jummai (L). Mr. Uadiala emerged the lucky winner of the grand prize in a raffle draw conducted at the end of the Yudala Zero Gravity Concert and Black Friday Sales on November 29^th 2016.

Etisalat improves customer experience with super recharge offering

ITRealms:

Etisalat Nigeria has introduced Super Recharge Offer, which guarantees real bonuses that could be used across all networks, reports ITRealms.

The Director, Consumer Segment, Etisalat Nigeria, Adeolu Dairo said Etisalat Super Recharge is available to new and existing subscribers on some four plans.

This, Dairo said, include Easy Starter, Easy Cliq, Talkzone and Cliqlite plans, with a 250 per cent instant bonus on all recharges above N100 and 150 per cent on all recharges below N100 with a simple flat tariff of 40 kobo per second billing for all national calls.

“With the Super Recharge Offer, new subscribers on the Etisalat network will get an additional 1 Giga Bytes data plan at just N500,” Dairo said.

Explaining that the offer reflects both the transparency and integrity with which Etisalat Nigeria prides its business on, as well as its commitment to creating innovative solutions that can improve the experience of its customers.

“The Super Recharge Offer is tagged ‘Real Bonus’ because it is a unique statement of transparency, integrity, simplicity, freedom and authenticity. It is a clear departure from the prevalent order in the market now. It is a huge statement of our loyal commitment to offering our customers best experiences on the network,” he said.  

In addition, he said, Etisalat Super Recharge, unlike any other recharge bonus offer in the telecoms market, is void of hidden charges and restrictive terms and also comes with a competitive off-net tariff.

ITRealms notes that new customers will enjoy the offer automatically while, existing customers on Easy Starter, Easy Cliq, Talkzone and Cliqlite are required to dial *611*1# to enjoy the Super Recharge Offer.

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