Jumia expands its digital payment services with Jumiapay

By Edlyn Cardoza

As part of its strategic partnership with the National Bank of Egypt (NBE), the leading bank in Egypt, and Jumia, the leading e-commerce platform in Egypt and Africa, announced the launch of JumiaPay ِEgypt as a payment service provider after obtaining the necessary licenses from the Central Bank of Egypt. As a digital payment and FinTech platform, JumiaPay facilitates online payments and the distribution of a broad range of digital and financial services.

Emphasising this success, JumiaPay will act as a payment services provider offering payment facilitation (PayFac) for merchants and as a payment processor allowing merchants to process payments outside Jumia’s main platform. It is worth mentioning that launching the platform, starting with Egypt, will help us explore if the platform is profitable, user friendly and in line with both Egypt’s policy framework and that of our customers.

Tawfik Mahmoud, Managing Director of JumiaPay Egypt, emphasised that via JumiaPay Business, “merchants can properly manage the acceptance of digital payments through a single central digital platform instead of undergoing long and overpriced processes with direct integration for their different local and international payment methods. Referring to our strategic partnership with Zbooni as a payment solutions provider enables us to penetrate and support the SMEs sector and allow us to contribute to facilitating e-commerce and financial services transactions in Egypt by providing convenient, secure, and easy-to-use payment solutions. We just did our first off-platform transaction, we’re currently in the beta phase and the integration of some merchants, after which we will be ready to expand as the number of JumiaPay transactions increased by one third to 3 million in the third quarter of the 2021 year, representing approximately 36% of the platform orders for the group level.”

In addition, JumiaPay will offer unique payment processing models that enable the digital economy via convenient, secure, and easy-to-use payment solutions, which will help to enhance trust between consumers and other businesses, thus enhancing financial inclusion digital transformation in Egypt and Africa in general.

For his part, Eng. Hesham Safwat, CEO of Jumia Egypt, explained that “This milestone comes after the successes achieved by Jumia in the field of digital payments and is in line with the overall direction of the Egyptian state to transform into a cashless society and the move towards financial inclusion in Egypt. Jumia believes in the necessity of providing all the necessary means for customers to accelerate the digital transformation system.”

Mohamed Jamil, Head of Alternative Channels and Retail at National Bank of Egypt, stated that “We are proud of our partnership with Jumia which targets a large number of customers through its pioneering services and we are looking forward through this partnership to provide new services via JumiaPay.”

On the other hand, Jumia recently announced the first beneficiaries of JumiaPay’s financial services, the “Zbooni” company. Ramy Assaf, CEO and co-founder of Zbooni, founded in the UAE in 2016, said that “JumiaPay is a key strategic partner as we launch and grow in Egypt. Through JumiaPay we can seamlessly integrate our platform with their payment gateway capabilities, providing safe and secure transactions for the businesses we serve. Egypt is a highly important market for our strategic growth and this partnership with JumiaPay, as well as our strengthened relationship with the National Bank of Egypt, can provide the catalyst. We look forward to empowering businesses of every size with the opportunities of Commerce.”

The JumiaPay App supports financial inclusion in the country, especially for the unbanked population. It makes it possible for people to make contactless and cashless payments for their daily transactions. This is consistent with Jumia’s aim of digitising financial services and improving accessibility.