Africa is getting a lot of traction from investors lately, given the opportunity created by its financial inclusion rate. If you are familiar with the digital payment space, you would also notice that partnerships in this space are also on the rise.
One company that has been active in Nigeria's payment space lately is Interswitch, as the company partners with Interstellar, an enterprise blockchain infrastructure services company. According to Interswitch, the long-term strategic partnership agreement is to develop blockchain-powered infrastructure services and solutions jointly.
Last month, Quicktelller PayPoint, a service under Interswitch Financial Inclusion Services, added 35,000 agents to its existing customer. It also partnered with Codebase Technology to scale digital banking in Africa.
Interswitch said it would integrate Interstellar's Blockchain technology stack (STARGATE) into its industry-leading payments and digital commerce technology. According to Businesspost, "Both companies have been preparing for the blockchain revolution in the African market with several ongoing initiatives including a Pan-African Payment Ecosystem (PAPE) powered by a private permissioned blockchain network which includes a consortium of Banks and Fintech players."
What they are saying
"We are excited to partner with Interstellar on this journey and we look forward to the amazing things we will achieve together in the African market. This new alliance underscores the directional evolution of our blockchain innovation strategy which is premised on our strategic intent of developing a native, proprietary enterprise-grade distributed ledger technology stack that is practically tailored to the African context."
“This enables us to progressively digitize multiple industry value-chains across African markets whilst also supporting the actualization of the Pan African Payment Ecosystem, riding the wave of opportunities created by such initiatives as the AfCFTA,” the Divisional Chief Executive Officer for Transaction Switching and Payment Processing at Interswitch, Mr Akeem Lawal, stated.
“We are delighted to have established this strategic partnership with Interswitch, one of Africa’s most valuable fintech businesses. This marks the genesis of an innovative and collaborative partnership aimed at delivering impact-focused and enterprise-grade blockchain-powered services across the African continent.” Mr Ernest Mbenkum, founder and CEO of Interstellar said.