25 Nov African Online Payment Trends We Can Expect for eCommerce Companies Entering the Territory - Part 2
Continuing the thread on the awesome article describing the emerging fintech trends which I believe are influencing paytech and online payments for eCommerce companies expanding across Africa and looking for payment at the checkout . . . Cashless society. From my readings, Africa is still awash with cash although many governments are making a concerted effort to digitise finance in their countries. This is for various reasons like reducing costs, promoting trade, reducing corruption and fraud, growing their tax base. There is a definite move to cashless societies albeit some of them with nefarious reasons of Orwellian control although, strangely enough, this is to a lesser extent in Africa currently. Instant payments Real time payments are growing rapidly globally and make a lot of sense when it comes to eCommerce and eCommerce payments. Nigeria has taken the lead in this with NIBBS bank transfers being available to a relatively well banked population who can use even their feature phone to transfer money instantly between parties at any bank. Real time payments have the benefit of timing, irrevocability, “accounting-ability”. The ability to combine real time payments with APIs, DLT, IoT and AI makes them a simple and effective means of payment and facilitates the building of cool user-useful, user-friendly technology and functionality on top of it. Instant payments are great for eCommerce as they are immediate and irrevocable as opposed to cards which take time to settle and can be charged back. Crypto. We could write a whole series of articles based on our research into how blockchain, smart contracts and digital currencies are going to transform and reposition the African continent (government, business, consumers) at the forefront of fintech and paytech globally. Government CBDCs (Central Bank Digital Currencies); new payment rails on crypto such as bitcoin, XRP and Stellar; identity management levelling the playing fields for African consumers; alternative banking via exchanges like Binance, Luno and Huobi; instant and seamless cross border transacting with crypto; stablecoins, for example USDC and Binance’s BUSD to provide currency stability and easy international transacting. African countries like Nigeria and South Africa are top of the pops for bitcoin searches, transacting and ownership. Africa has the need, it is mobile-connected, mobile-savvy, hungry for tech, hungry for business - Watch this space! Please contact us if you are a multinational eCommerce company looking for payment across Africa. Thank you to BBVA for these keen insights: https://www.bbvaresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/2018-12_Watch-Payments_ENG.pdf