Ecommerce Transformation in Africa Conference and other News on Payments

EFSA spoke on the rapid changes in payments at this event on 27 July.

A recording of the presentation is here: https://c2.floor.bz/10t-recording/odashs3/bcdhdgi/hdddef/fjfdce/recording/ca2b542b5d46d165efb65ca64c0c0752_595324.mp4

Meanwhile, Xend Finance, an Africa-founded global crypto bank, announced the launch of payment API XendBridge and SwitchWallet, a free public wallet infrastructure. Backed by Binance and Google Launchpad, Xend Finance recently achieved 100,000 savers on its crypto banking app.

Ivorian-based fintech startup Bizao has raised $8.2 million in Series A funding to help it scale commercialisation and expand into more African markets. Founded in 2019, Bizao facilitates the processing of end-to-end payment flows to and from the main digital payment systems in Africa – airtime, mobile money wallets, and credit card. The startup’s modular and scalable platform allows clients to collect and issue payments online and in-store via point-of-sale (POS).

Within 3 years, Bizao has expanded its operations into nine African countries, mostly in Francophone Africa, and built a robust and cutting-edge infrastructure that processes over 350m payment requests per month. The startup has over 30 partnerships with telco operators, banks, and mobile money service providers. It is now set for further expansion after raising a EUR8m Series A funding from investors including AfricInvest, Adelie, and Seedstars Africa Ventures. With this funding, Bizao will scale the commercialisation of its payment hub, and expand its operations to more new countries.

By the way, have you noticed that Apple has taken a big step into the buy now, pay later industry. The company recently announced Apple Pay Later, a new feature for Apple Pay that will let users pay for purchases in 4 installments over 6 weeks. This puts it into direct competition with BNPL players like Affirm, Klarna, PayPal, and others vying for the growing market. So far, the Apple solution is not available in Africa.