Global payments fintech Ebanx eyes Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya for expansion
Ebanx, a global payments fintech company has announced plans to expand its operations and payment solutions for the first time in Africa.
The 10-year-old Brazilian company already present in 15 Latin American countries revealed this last month, at the sixth edition of the annual Latin America Summit run by EBANX in Mexico City.
The fintech unicorn that has processed over $1 billion in payments believes the three African countries (South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria) are the next major growth frontier for digital payments and the digital market during the 2020s.
– Africa is now full of growth potential. Digital adoption and consumption of online goods and services has accelerated rapidly in the countries, and investment capital has flowed into the region, Paula Bellizia, president, Global Payments at Ebanx said in a statement.
“After studying the region and building a deep understanding of its local players, entities and challenges, we are diving into Africa to provide local payment solutions that will help build the digital economy at a rapid pace,” Bellizia further said.
He also added that it will more broadly drive financial inclusion for the population, providing greater access to a range of goods and services from global merchants interested in building their market share there.
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João Del Valle, CEO and co-founder of Ebanx, noted that Africa’s fast-growing digital economy is only in its early days and is projected to grow up and to the right in the coming decades.
“Together with local players, Ebanx will be a catalyst to realize the many benefits of a digital economy even faster.”
According to a June 2022 Endeavor report with contributions from McKinsey & Company, Africa’s digital opportunity is estimated at $115 billion and is expected to reach $712 billion by 2050. Growth is driven by strong underlying fundamentals, accelerated by COVID-19.
On how the company plans to penetrate Nigeria, it disclosed that it will experiment with Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD), a session-based protocol that goes over the GSM signaling channel to query for information and trigger services.
In South Africa, it will use Instant EFT by OZOW, a payment method that allows line customers to access online banking to make an electronic funds transfer (EFT) that is confirmed instantly.
And in Kenya, Ebanx will trial M-Pesa, a mobile banking service that allows users to store and transfer money.
