Africa Fintech Summit is pleased to announce Interswitch Group as Gold Sponsor for the Africa Fintech Summit 2024 to be held in Nairobi, Kenya from 4-6 September 2024.
According to a statement, the partnership comes at a time of significant expansion of Interswitch’s operational footprints across the continent, on the back of notable milestones such as the recent consolidation of its strategic partnership with ACI Worldwide to drive the modernisation of real-time payments across 32 markets in Sub-Saharan Africa, as well as its foray into other industry verticals including Healthcare, Energy & Transportation, among others.
Since commencing operations in 2002 out of Nigeria, Interswitch has remained at the forefront of driving innovation in the financial technology and digital payments industry, facilitating payments, and leveraging innovative technology solutions to shape the future of trade and digital commerce in Africa.
As one of the pioneers of digital payment innovation in Africa, Interswitch, at its inception, disrupted the traditional cash-based payments value chain in Nigeria by supporting the introduction of electronic payment processing and switching services. It also launched Verve, Africa’s premier and leading domestic EMV-standard chip and pin payments card scheme.
The statement read in part, “Since 2021, Verve has controlled more than 50 per cent of the Nigerian card market, courting deepened relationships with banking partners and fintech startups operating in Nigeria.
“Additionally, a recent change in consumer behaviour and macroeconomic conditions has led more Nigerian banks and fintech startups to issue Verve cards to customers as a locally relevant and reliable alternative.
“For instance, OPay, one of Nigeria’s largest digital banks has issued 13 million Verve cards, while Moniepoint has issued about 4 million, further solidifying Verve’s position as a leading card and payment chip provider.
Commenting on the partnership with the Africa Fintech Summit for this year’s edition, Interswitch Founder & Group CEO, Mitchell Elegbe, said, “As an Africa-focused integrated digital payments and commerce leader, and an important gateway to Africa’s Fintech Ecosystem, we are extremely delighted to support ecosystem engagement and valuable thought-leadership through the platform of the Africa Fintech Summit.
“Twenty-two years ago, we set out, with a clear vision to solve social problems, starting by digitizing the use of cash. Today, on the realization of the tremendous transformative potential of technology to create value and unlock prosperity for Africa, we’ve set our sights on leveraging technology and innovation to digitize transactions and unlock value in other key social service sectors, just as we continue to do in the sphere of financial services, and we are excited to see that our roadmap and perspective aptly align with the theme of this year’s AFTS, which is ‘Fintech In Every Industry’.
He added, “It is with immense gratitude and great delight that we welcome Interswitch as Gold Sponsor for the Africa Fintech Summit in Nairobi this year. It’s warming to have Interswitch grace the big stage this year, and share detailed insights, trends and expert perspectives as a revered player in the African Payments Space. After two decades of building innovative
African payment solutions for most payment touchpoints across the continent, we are deeply humbled to have Interswitch’s wealth of experience at this year’s summit. This is particularly important because it fits into our 2024 AFTS in Nairobi Theme: ‘Fintech in Every Industry,’ underscoring our expectation that in the mobile-first continent of Africa, we will see fintech penetrating through all industries.”
Since its first summit in 2018, the Africa Fintech Summit has become the largest annual financial technology gathering on the African continent.