Blockchain payment network Zone uses ThetaRay to screen transactions
Zone (formerly Appzone), Africa’s first regulated layer-1 blockchain network for payments, and ThetaRay, a leading provider of AI-powered transaction monitoring technology, today announced that they will collaborate to implement ThetaRay’s cloud-based SONAR solution to monitor and screen Zone’s transactions in Nigeria for illegal activities and sanctions violations.
Headquartered in Lagos, Zone serves major commercial banks, payment fintechs, digital banks and OFIs with real-time, low-cost settlement of both fiat and digital currencies for domestic and cross-border payments.
Through the agreement, ThetaRay will provide Zone with the SaaS-based SONAR AI solution that can detect and prevent the earliest signs of sophisticated attempts to launder money or circumvent financial sanctions and watchlists. The solution will help Zone ensure it fully complies with regulatory AML requirements and increase growth opportunities by offering a reliable and secure service.
The new collaboration highlights ThetaRay’s expansion into Nigeria’s fintech payments market.
Zone is Africa’s first decentralized or peer-to-peer payment network based on blockchain technology, allowing payment transactions without reliance on an intermediary switch. The decentralized architecture and underlying technology increase reliability, eliminate customer disputes, reduce operational costs and automate back office reconciliation. The network is a true online infrastructure with a transaction processing capacity of over 50,000 transactions per second.
“We are excited about our partnership with ThetaRay, a collaboration that represents a significant step forward in our vision to become one global network to pay anyone, in any way, in any currency, in the most efficient and secure the ways possible,” said Elendu Uche, Co-Founder/Operating Director.
“By integrating with ThetaRay, we have improved our security measures and improved our regulatory compliance, while providing faster transaction processing for our users within our decentralized payment network. We look forward to working even more closely with ThetaRay to continue to deliver frictionless operations and reliable transactions to our customers.”
As Africa’s largest economy with a population of 200 million, Nigeria is home to Africa’s largest fintech ecosystem and more than 200 fintech companies. The country’s youthful population has fueled Nigeria’s booming fintech sector, increased smartphone penetration and a focused regulatory effort to boost financial inclusion and cashless payments, according to research firm McKinsey.1 The booming fintech market is helping to improve financial inclusion in Nigeria, where more than 40 percent of the population is unbanked.
“Zone is leading Nigerian fintech innovation with a platform capable of revolutionizing the financial system through inclusive services that positively impact people’s lives,” said Mark Gazit, CEO of ThetaRay. “By deploying sophisticated AI technology to monitor and secure payments, Zone will integrate trust into its services, allowing it to grow volume, revenue and ecosystem partners.”
ThetaRay’s award-winning SONAR solution is based on a proprietary form of AI, Artificial Intelligence Intuition, which replaces human bias, giving the system the power to recognize anomalies and find unknowns outside of normal behavior, including entirely new typologies. It enables fintechs and banks to implement a risk-based approach to effectively identify suspicious activity and create a complete picture of customer identities, including across complex cross-border transaction paths. This allows rapid detection of both known and unknown money laundering threats.
