Eversend: Enhancing cross-border payments for financial inclusion and intra Africa trade.

In 2021, Africa accounted for 70% of the total value of mobile money transactions globally. In recent years, the continent has experienced a rapid proliferation of digital instant payment solutions. However, many of these are not interoperable with each other, and even less so across borders. As Africa works towards building the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), interoperability of cross-border instant payment solutions will be vital to increasing trade. Furthermore, ensuring cross-border interoperability of low value instant payment systems, will be an essential step in making sure that the AfCFTA is inclusive, and that its benefits extend to small-scale traders, many of whom are women.

One of the leading Africa focused platform for cross-border payments, crypto, cards and stock trading is Eversend. In this insightful interview, Stone Atwine (CEO, Eversend) provided great insights on the significant impacts of Africa’s digital transformation drive, potential opportunities and some of the associated challenges.

What problem is Eversend trying to solve, and why is it important?

More than 350M Africans, about 60% of the bankable population, do not have access to bank accounts.

Although 43% of the $40B+ received in remittances in Sub-Saharan Africa is from other African countries, most solutions like Wise and WorldRemit consider Africa as a receiving side but not a sender location. In addition, there is massive currency devaluation, high-interest rates, predatory pricing of up to 15% in hidden forex fees, inadequate payments infrastructure, and mediocre digital banking experiences.

What products and services do you provide to your customers, and how do they get value out of it? What are the key markets for your solution(s) address?

Our first product in any market we go to is cross-border money transfer. But our philosophy is to solve multiple problems by providing a one-stop shop for financial services for Africans in Africa and abroad. So we add virtual cards, bill payments, multi-currency accounts, donations, and other financial services. Lately, we are super excited by our payments platform for businesses that provides essential business banking and APIs for collections, payouts and currency exchange. We discovered a significant problem on the continent while building Eversend for retail. Now we are also monetizing the infrastructure we built along the way.

We focus on English-speaking African countries, but we are soon expanding to Europe, the United States and Francophone Africa.

With the transformative changes taking place in the financial sector, how has Eversend been able to keep up with the trends, and what has been the major challenges faced?

One of our most significant advantages is a team with deep domain and market knowledge. We are at the bleeding edge of financial service innovation, which gives us an advantage against the competition.

We have a solid crypto research and development team that builds products in that space. We are building and ready for when regulation becomes friendly. Regulation, especially for new tech like crypto, is our biggest challenge. We must sit back and wait for regulators to give a green light even though we see obvious advantages in the space. But we have to respect regulators and partners.

Recently, many “life-saving” virtual card companies, including Eversend, have come under scrutiny as leading providers pull the plug. What could have made them suddenly pull the plug?

While this has negatively affected our users, the problem has been blown out of proportion.

One provider had to halt their card program and resolve issues with the card network. These are compliance issues that finance companies must deal with.

What I think it shows is the massive opportunity we have in Africa. Suppose one provider goes offline and 80% of the companies cannot provide a service. In that case, we need to do more, faster to solve these infrastructure problems.

How big is the problem, and how soon will the services be reinstated?

I am not privy to the seriousness of the situation, but I know the team is working hard to sort this out. We are working hand in hand with them to provide whatever support they may need. I am not sure about the timelines.

What are the alternatives for consumers and fintechs alike? And what does it portend for the fintech industry on the continent?

Some fintech companies are still offering card programs on the continent. But I believe the problems facing one player are the same as all others. We have to build better, faster and more companies.

Clearly, virtual cards offer shortened issuance times and lower costs when compared with traditional cards and are speedy, cheap, and convenient even for those residing in rural areas. How will this specifically impact cross-border commerce and financial inclusion drive in Africa?

It’s harmful to our users. That’s the group affected the most. Many of them now cannot pay for their services online. Or they are spending 5-15% more on forex fees charged by traditional banks. This is what we are trying to solve. We are speaking to multiple vendors to sort this out, but it is challenging to solve.

Some industry analysts say this event calls for better regulation, especially around KYC/AML compliance checks in the card-issuing space as inconsistent due diligence for cardholder chargeback claims could invoke more fraudulent activities. What’s your take on this?

KYC, AML and Countering of Financial Terrorism systems are critical, and companies started by founders like us that understand the space think about this from day one.

We probably have the most robust Compliance systems amongst startups. We are better than some traditional banks in some cases.

The reason for this is that we take it seriously. That cannot be said for all the startups building across the continent. We must work collectively with partners and regulators to ensure solid compliance systems.

What do you think is the future of Virtual Cards for digital financial services in Africa? Any final thoughts on how you or your organization will be a part of this future?

Virtual cards will be re-introduced for those startups that have suspended their programs. But we must realize that compliance is getting tighter as fintech becomes more engrained in the ecosystems and markets. We will continue to work with the different partners to bring back services. Still, we are also working on issuing to other startups.

About:

Stone cut his teeth in fintech with Pretoria-based loan management vendor Payment Solutions International. He went on to become Business Development Manager, Africa and Country Manager, Kenya before consulting for multiple banks like Stanbic Bank, Barclays Bank, and Standard Chartered Bank in Kenya and Uganda on using technology to improve loan collections.

He then co-founded Yetu Credit Finance, a USSD-based micro-lender for government employees in Uganda. He co-founded useremit.com, a remittance company delivering mobile money to Uganda, Kenya, and Rwanda. He is a 5-time laureate of the Paris-based Institut Choiseul as one of the young African leaders 40 years old and under, who have a major impact on the continent’s economic development.

In 2017, he was selected by the government of France as an exceptionally talented entrepreneur and moved to Paris to found Eversend, the leading platform for cross-border payments, crypto, cards, and stock trading.