Lazerpay launches new crypto payment innovations and improves commerce in Africa with its latest updates

Trade and commerce are the most important drivers of economic growth and also form a critical part of human existence. In Africa, the absence of a generally accepted local currency and the volatile nature of individual currencies make trade difficult, thus hindering economic growth. Because of this challenge, cross-border payments in Africa are mainly made in dollars. But dollars are usually in the firm grip of large corporations and governments, so small and medium-sized businesses—the backbone of any economy—have little or no access to them for business.

In recent times, with greater efficiency, greater financial inclusion and more innovation, digital currencies and payment systems have been of immense benefit to consumers and society as a whole. Stablecoins in particular are gradually gaining ground as the most acceptable means of payment due to their fast, secure, affordable and easily transferable nature, with more than $185 billion worth of stablecoins circulating in the global market.

In 2021, Chainanalysis, a blockchain data platform, reported that cryptocurrency adoption exploded across Africa with a 1,200% increase from 2020. This adoption was driven by the use of stablecoins for savings, transfers and commercial transactions, with transfers across regions reportedly made up a larger share of Africa’s cryptocurrency market (96%) than all other regions combined (78%).

But despite this recent progress in the adoption and use of crypto, especially stablecoins, for trade, savings (to hedge against inflation) and cross-border money transfers in Africa, businesses on the continent still struggle to integrate crypto offerings into their platforms. This ultimately reduces their ability to scale and tap into the opportunities of the global market.

This is where Lazerpay comes in, to help African businesses tap into this future of commerce powered by stablecoins.

Lazerpay, popularly known as Stripe for crypto, is a Nigerian crypto payment gateway startup that helps businesses accept crypto payments quickly and securely from anywhere in the world. In October 2021, Njoku Emmanuel, a 19-year-old highly sought-after Nigerian blockchain engineer, co-founded Lazerpay with Abdulfatai Suleiman and Prosper Ubi when it launched in beta testing, giving access to over 1,000 businesses in Africa.

Before Lazerpay, accepting crypto payments was such a complex and risky venture as businesses have to set up a wallet address on a crypto exchange, accept payments from limited crypto assets, and then maneuver P2P hurdles to convert crypto to fiat. Alternatively, they have to get someone to provide a wallet address and pay that person to convert crypto assets received on their behalf into fiat.

But with the launch of the beta version of the crypto payment startup, all businesses need to do is integrate a collection widget into their apps or collect payments via a link. Both options support payment with each crypto asset so that any business or enterprise using both solutions can receive crypto payments from anywhere in the world within seconds. Once the crypto-asset is received, it is immediately converted into stablecoins in the user’s Lazerpay wallet. This is to protect users from the highly volatile nature of most crypto assets. Customers/users can then decide to withdraw stablecoins to crypto wallets or a bank account of their choice.

“The first version of Lazerpay was simple in that all businesses could do was accept and pay out in stablecoins. It currently serves over 2,000 businesses across five continents. However, we quickly realized that an additional layer of converting stablecoins to fiat was necessary.To improve the user experience, we decided to build the second version of our payment gateway to allow merchants to withdraw their crypto payments in fiat, directly from their dashboards, said Njoku Emmanuel, Lazerpay CEO in a statement about the new updates.

In February 2022, the startup came out of private beta and will introduce a new set of features based on feedback from the previous version to further improve the customer experience on the platform. The new solutions that have been tested in recent weeks and will be launched for the benefit of customers include:

Withdrawals from Lazerpay – move your money on your terms

“Commerce has evolved to the point where many sellers can now offer products to a global audience and receive payments from anywhere in the world. Despite these developments, some businesses, particularly those in Africa and the Middle East, are still barred from this global expansion drive With the addition of payments, we are equipping businesses to drive growth by receiving and making global payments without exchange barriers, said Amara Uyanna, Head of MEA Partnerships, in a statement about the new updates.

One major upgrade coming to the Lazerpay platform is how it processes payments. Previously, the platform paid out earnings to its customers or business owners in whatever stablecoin they earned, regardless of whether they needed to trade with another stablecoin. But in the new version (2.0), users can exchange stablecoins between USDT, USDC, BUSD and DAI, which are all supported stablecoins to earn on the platform.

Additionally, Lazerpay has also added fiat payout options for its users. While users could only receive payouts in stablecoins before, they can now cash out to multiple currencies in countries such as Nigeria, Ghana, the US, the UK, India, China and the UAE. Lazerpay merchants can now pay out in USD anywhere in the world, and in Nigerian naira and Ghana cedis in Africa. They can also send money to other businesses in the desired currency, thus providing more freedom and flexibility to move the money as they wish.

Products from Lazerpay – help sellers sell faster

Products is Lazerpay’s solution for an adaptable yet powerful online store for business owners and digital creators. This offer allows users to upload and create multiple product listings using products, letting customers know how many of each item they have in stock.

The game changer in this particular feature is that previously business owners used to create a payment link for each product they wanted to sell. But with the new Lazerpay version, merchants can create orders for their customers using any combination of their product listings and generate a single payment link that customers can use to pay for all their purchases. They can also customize the descriptions that appear with their orders and preview it to get an idea of ​​what customers see after clicking the link.

An additional feature of Lazerpay products is the option of a “thank you” message when payment is received and the ability to collect delivery details and other standard transaction details for record or analysis purposes.

A data-informed dashboard for better decision-making

Considering the importance of data in business decision-making, Lazerpay has introduced a data segment on the dashboard of every business registered on the platform to provide more data on their wallet balance, financial performance of the past months, and a summary of recently completed transactions.

The transaction dashboard gives users access to all their transactions, which they can export if necessary for further analysis of their finances. While on the customer dashboard, salespeople can access customer details collected and filter them to learn more about their customers to make better data-driven business decisions.

In addition to solving payment problems for businesses, Lazerpay understands that businesses need to increase their funds and increase their market share at scale. For this reason, the platform provides business owners with investment options and a token system to reward their customers.

Without requiring any special knowledge of crypto, Lazerpay allows users to increase their earnings through a secure algorithm that aggregates the best crypto investments. They can earn up to 10% per year in interest and also borrow for an urgent need without collateral. For tokens, it provides liquidity and acts as a loyalty bonus that businesses can use to reward their customers.

All in all, the new updates at Lazerpay ensure that no one, including non-techie customers, is left behind as the startup continues to lead the way in improving commerce across the continent by building simple, user-friendly, customer-centric crypto payment solutions. In the future, the platform will also work on adding more analytics to the data dashboard to help business owners make the best decisions for their businesses.