Condia Insider: Mastercard Giveth, 54 Collective…?

We have prepared context and insights about this week’s leading news. The stories are:

• 54 Collective faces liquidation over misused grant
• CBN maintains interest rate at 27.5%
• M-KOPA faces lawsuit over equity disparity

54 Collective faces liquidation over misused grant

What started as a nonprofit meant to fund African SMEs somehow morphed into a self-funded rebrand, shady transfers, and thousands of backdated journal entries, all without Mastercard’s blessing.

The 54 Collective is now facing liquidation after allegedly misusing more than $42 million from a Mastercard Foundation grant.

What went wrong? The group, originally registered as Africa Founders Ventures, got $42M of the grant and allegedly rerouted $4.59M to its for-profit cousin Founders Factory Africa. Then it spent nearly $700,000 on a name change, without permission. Once Mastercard started asking questions, the books suddenly flooded with 2,000+ “adjusting journal entries”, with no audited financial statement.

After AFV failed to clean up, Mastercard pulled the plug on the grant agreement. The company then attempted to quietly wind itself down under the guise of “business rescue,” requesting $1.2 million to pay staff and $ 500,000 for office closures.

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The South African court wasn’t having it. The judge called the whole rescue plan a “legally invalid” stunt. Per TechCabal, Bongani Sithole, 54 Collective’s CEO, denied any wrongdoing on the firm’s part and maintains that the agreement with Mastercard was not terminated due to a breach. 

The final hearing’s set for August 11. But for now, it’s looking less like a temporary wind-down and more like a permanent liquidation.

CBN maintains interest rate at 27.5%

For the third meeting in a row, Nigeria’s Central Bank is keeping interest rates right where they are, firmly parked at 27.5%. With inflation cooling for a third straight month (now at 22.22%), the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) is choosing to watch and wait.

CBN Governor Olayemi Cardoso says the decision was aimed at “sustaining the momentum of disinflation and containing price pressures,” which, translated, means: “let’s not mess with the small wins just yet.” Inflation may be slowing, but it’s still high. The MPC isn’t convinced the storm has passed, especially with fuel prices and FX uncertainty.

Back in January, the statistics bureau revamped the consumer price index, giving policymakers some much-needed clarity on what direction prices were actually headed. Since then, the CBN has dialled back its record rate hikes, opting instead for a “we’ll see how this plays out” approach.

Most analysts had expected this hold. But whispers of a future rate cut are growing louder. As Norrenberger analysts put it in a note to clients: “While a hold at 27.5% remains the likely outcome, the possibility of a small measured cut cannot be ruled out.”

M-KOPA faces lawsuit over equity disparity

When M-KOPA restructured its equity in 2019, it probably didn’t expect to be at the center of a legal firestorm in 2025, but here they are.

Elizabeth Njoki, a former manager at M-KOPA Kenya Limited, claims that back in 2019, M-KOPA introduced a new class of shares, “Growth Shares,” with attractive perks such as anti-dilution protection, exit guarantees, and board influence. But instead of spreading the love, the company allegedly gave the best pieces of the pie to white expatriates and foreign investors. Local staff? Pushed into a “Minor Holders” group with less than half the privileges.

How skewed was it? Court documents showed that out of 48 early Growth Shareholders, only 7 were African. None were Kenyan, in a company headquartered in Nairobi with a Kenyan-majority workforce.

M-KOPA, for its part, says the allegations are false, third-party consultants designed the equity plan, and that most Growth Shareholders today are of African descent. They also argue that the case is in the wrong courtroom, since M-KOPA is UK-incorporated, the company wants the matter heard in London, not Nairobi.

By the Numbers

2.5 billion

ChatGPT now handles 2.5 billion prompts from users worldwide each day, according to CEO Sam Altman. That’s more than double the 1 billion daily queries Sam Altman mentioned in December.