Africa: Interswitch Advocates for Innovative Local Currency Payment Solutions

Interswitch Group, a leading payments and digital commerce company, has highlighted the urgent need to develop local currency payment solutions to foster inclusive growth and facilitate cross-border trade across Africa.

At the recently concluded Nigerian Fintech Week in Lagos, Akeem Lawal, Managing Director of Payment Processing and Switching (Interswitch Purepay), stressed the importance of establishing strong infrastructure to enable seamless transactions for African businesses across the continent.

During his keynote address titled, “Leveraging Commerce to Accelerate Inclusive Growth – The Role of African Fintech Innovation,” Lawal outlined the challenges posed by current payment systems, which often rely on non-African intermediaries for processing intra-African transactions. He called for solutions that support the use of local currencies, eliminating the reliance on foreign currencies and external intermediaries for settlement.

Lawal emphasized that for Africa to enhance its cross-border trade, there is a need to build an ecosystem comprising developers, integrators, liquidity providers, and financial institutions. This ecosystem would serve as the backbone of a more interconnected and robust payment framework across the continent.

In a separate panel session titled “Global AI Regulation: The Role of Africa and the Global South,” Oremeyi Akah, Chief Customer Experience Officer at Interswitch, reiterated the company’s commitment to regulatory compliance, particularly in the development of AI-driven products. She emphasized the need for financial institutions to incorporate African perspectives into AI development, urging collaboration between fintech companies and regulators to co-create solutions that empower users and foster trust in the financial ecosystem.

In another panel discussion, Chijioke Eze, Head of Banking Technologies at Interswitch, discussed the growing risk of fraud due to the rise of digital payments. He stressed the importance of investing in advanced fraud prevention technologies to protect businesses and customers from the increasing threats of digital payment fraud.

Interswitch’s focus on innovation and security underlines its vision of driving financial inclusion and enhancing the efficiency of cross-border transactions across Africa.