Interswitch, the integrated payments and digital commerce company in Africa, has introduced new solutions aimed at ensuring a robust payment ecosystem across the continent and beyond. Some of these solutions include Tokenization; Fintech Card Issuance; Interswitch Security-as-a-Service; Banking-as-a-Service; Payment-as-a-Service; Card Fusion; and Agency Banking.
According to Interswitch, these solutions will help bridge the digital payments gap as they are inclusive , solve critical challenges, including the protection of customers against digital payment fraud, providing effective value financing tools for lenders, seamless integration to payment channels, and enhancing customer experience, among others.
In Sierra Leone, where one of the sessions, themed “Accelerating Growth and Profitability – Leveraging Technology to Win”, was held recently, Interswitch shared about its commitment “to the advancement and penetration of digital payments in Africa as a whole.” Olubunmi Aina, Group Head of Sales, Payment Processing and Switching, Interswitch Purepay, said. “We are in the Sierra Leone market to provide customers and businesses with secure and convenient digital payments products and to enhance customer experience.”
Aina added , “At Interswitch, our core objective is to deliver an Africa where payments are a seamless and invisible part of everyday life, and we have carried this vision with us for the past 20 years.”
With these solutions ,Interswitch’s seeks to ensure that African businesses enjoy seamless operations, including in their payment capabilities, that will enable them to achieve growth and profitability.
The company stated that the products are designed to address prevailing issues within the payment ecosystem and financial industry, enhance business development, foster partnerships, and boost customer experience.
The benefits of the solutions are modular and highly composable, dynamically flexible and agile, cloud-ready and containerized, cost-effective, efficient and offering rapid time-to-market deployments,.
The solutions are targeted at banks, microfinance banks, fintech and other financial institutions, according to Interswitch, “will enable financial institutions to rapidly integrate with newer payment channels with intuitive technologies.”
Beyond developing these products, Interswitch conceived and initiated a series of engagement sessions across Nigeria and beyond, to onboard its clientele and prospects onto the solutions. The roadshow, tagged Interswitch Regional Breakfast Session, underscored the payment company’s determination to show leadership in the digital payment space.
With the growth of digital payment comes to the threats of cyber fraud, therefore payment security is particularly crucial to the adoption of digital payment solutions in rural Africa. For banks such as the Sierra Leone Commercial Bank, reputed for its community-based relationship banking strategy, the Interswitch solutions could not have come at a more opportune time as governments across the continent, including in that region, continue to push for financial inclusiveness. Solutions such as Tokenisation and Interswitch Security-as-a-Service are calibrated to address digital payment security and give peace of mind to customers as they transact.
A recent survey by McKinsey further underscored the need for strong digital payment security across Africa. The survey showed that in five years, between 2020 and 2025, the digital payments industry will grow by around 150% to reach almost $40 billion in revenues from domestic payments alone, with about 188 billion in transaction volumes.
