Ripple and MFS Africa partner to bring crypto-enabled payments to Africa

By Edlyn Cardoza

Ripple, one of the leaders in enterprise blockchain and crypto solutions, announced its entry into Africa in partnership with MFS Africa, a leading digital payments gateway. The new partnership will see MFS Africa using Ripple’s On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) solution for crypto-enabled payments to make it easier than ever for consumers and businesses in Africa to make real-time payments with their mobile phones across borders – all powered by Ripple’s financial technology, RippleNet.

“Despite market turmoil, 2022 has been an unprecedented year for crypto’s usage in enterprise use cases. Since Ripple’s inception ten years ago, our goal has been to help enterprises – whether large financial institutions or local payment service providers – move money around the world the way that information does today,” said Brooks Entwistle, SVP of Global Customer Success at Ripple. “Our partnership with MFS Africa comes off the back of our expansion into a dozen new markets this year alone. Crypto can and is eliminating the traditional problems associated with cross-border payments such as lengthy transfer times, unreliability and excessive cost, while complementing our formerly purely fiat financial infrastructure at low cost.”

Digital payments innovation in Africa is evolving rapidly, making this the right time for Ripple’s long-awaited move into the region. Africa boasts a rapidly-growing population – set to hit 1.7 billion by 2030 – and the continent’s uptake of digital payments is among the fastest globally. According to GSMA, Africa accounts for 70% of the world’s $1 trillion mobile money value. In 2021, the value of Africa’s mobile money transactions reached $701.4 billion, a 39% increase from the prior year.

MFS Africa is a leading payments FinTech that has the most significant and most expansive mobile money movement footprint across the region at a time when mobile money is a powerful driver of financial inclusion and has revolutionised access to financial services across Africa. ​​The FinTech’s payment hub connects over 400 million mobile wallets across 35 African countries and operates across over 800 payment corridors on the continent, promoting regional payment interoperability and seamless cross-border payments.

Dare Okoudjou, CEO at MFS Africa, said, “MFS Africa’s mission is to make borders matter less when it comes to payment within, to, and from Africa. We’re delighted to advance this mission through our partnership with Ripple to enable fast, secure and low-cost remittances, at scale. The Ripple MFS Africa partnership represents a confident, important and bold first step for our crypto strategy to leverage blockchain technologies to amplify our impact on consumers and businesses on the continent. growth in a new economy.”

Ripple’s partnership with MFS Africa comes on the back of several new ODL customers and entry into new markets, including Lemonway, a Paris-based provider for online marketplaces; Travelex Bank, the first exclusive bank for foreign exchange transactions regulated by Brazil’s central bank; and Singapore-based payments institution FOMO Pay.