NAIROBI, KE 21st August 2024: The Africa Fintech Summit is pleased to announce Interswitch Group as Gold Sponsor for the Africa Fintech Summit (AFTS) 2024, to be held in Nairobi, Kenya, from 4-6 September 2024. 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 payments processing and switching services. It also launched Verve, Africa’s premier and leading domestic EMV-standard chip and pin payments card scheme.
Since 2021, Verve has controlled more than 50% 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.
Today, Interswitch is a leading player with critical mass across Africa’s developing financial ecosystem and is active across the payments value chain, providing a full suite of omni-channel payment solutions. Interswitch’s vision is to make payments a seamless part of everyday life in Africa, overarching the company’s drive to facilitate intuitive transaction solutions that enable individuals and communities to prosper across the continent. Interswitch’s broad network and robust payments platform have been instrumental in the development of the payments ecosystem across the continent and provide Interswitch with the infrastructure to expand across Africa.
Commenting on the partnership with the Africa Fintech Summit for this year’s edition, Interswitch Founder & Group CEO, Mitchell Elegbe remarks, “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. 22 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’.
“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 2 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. All sectors stand to benefit from being powered and served by fintechs – including insurance, saving & investments, cross-border trade, e-commerce, mobile money & digital banking, utilities, mining, trade, healthcare, and education. We will also see non-fintech companies leapfrogging digitally and providing these services embedded in their own product offerings as many service providers have done across the continent,” said Zekarias Amsalu, Co-Founder of AFTS and MD of Ibex Frontier.
Since its first summit in 2018, the Africa Fintech Summit has become the largest annual financial technology gathering on the African continent. In addition to its partnership with Interswitch, AFTS will be supported by a diverse cohort of partners and sponsors. #AFTSNAIROBI2024 will bring Keynote Speeches from Kenyan policymakers & AfCFTA as well as a VIP dinner for Speakers and invited guests on the night of 04 April; panels, workshops and fireside chats on 05 & 06 September; a delegation from Prosper’s Tech for Trade Alliance along with AfCFTA’s Digital Protocol, Alpha Expo Pitch Competition & Ecosystem tours on the 06th September. The event will conclude with a happy hour for delegates and attendees on both the 5th & 6th of September.
Join Africa’s largest community of financial technology innovators, investors, and regulators at the 12th edition of AFTS coming for the first time to Nairobi, Kenya on September 4-6, 2024. Supported by an advisory board of thought leaders and fintech pioneers, the AFTS is a unique space where ideas are explored, investments are mobilized, and collaborations are formed across sectors and geographies.
More than just a conference, AFTS brings the issues, entrepreneurs, and opportunities revolutionizing finance in Africa to the world’s stage. AFTS has hosted ten previous summits having hosted 5 editions in Washington, DC and 5 more editions in Lagos, Addis Ababa, Cairo, Cape Town, and Lusaka.
Over the past 10 summits, AFTS has supported Over USD 125M in capital raise efforts for African fintech startups, Groundbreaking launch of US-government funded Prosper Africa Tech for Trade Alliance, Public discourse and debate surrounding industry trends, brand building and awareness opportunities across global fintech media, knowledge sharing between banking/fintech operators with regulators, active engagement and inclusion of regulatory authorities in continental fintech conversation, and bring the largest source of truth for announcements of financial technology innovation, and strategic partnerships across the continent and globally.
With an information-packed agenda, AFTSNAIROBI 2024 will feature regulatory roundtables, bilateral meetings, collaborative partnerships, workshops, demos, pitch competitions, ecosystem tours, whitepapers, awards, and plenty of opportunities to collaborate with the investors and entrepreneurs shaping the future of African fintech, and we are glad to have Interswitch at the forefront of these conversations with leading names within the business like Akeem Lawal (MD, Payment Processing & Switching), Jonah Adams (MD, Digital Infrastructure & Managed Services, Peter Kawumi (MD, East Africa) & Bernard Kinara (Country VP, Kenya)
As in the past years, the event will be hybrid, with live streaming provided for remote attendees via our website. Limited tickets to the 12th Edition summit are now available. Secure your passes now on our website: https://www.africafintechsummit.com/.
