Visa has joined the African Fintech Monomoid As a new investor. The Platform and Payment Platform has confirmed to TechCrunch that it has received a “strategic investment” from the worldwide payment giant, and both companies want to lead to economic integration and support the development of small and medium -sized enterprises (SMEs) throughout Africa.
Sources close to the deal say Fintech – which announced an investment of $ 110 million last October, received more than $ 10 million from Visa. Fintech, whose C series currently exceeds $ 120 million, refers to talks with other investors and can attract more funding in the coming months, while maintaining the valuation of billions of dollars, sources say. Moniepoint declined to comment on the size of Visa’s control or interest from other investors.
Moniepoint provides businesses and people with bank accounts, credit, payments and other financial tools through an application and a network of dealers. Fintech is now processing over 1 billion transactions per month, with total volumes of payments reaching $ 22 billion – an increase of over 25% in less than three months. Its rapid rise began during the central bank of Nigeria at the Central Bank without cash in early 2023 and continued consistently, placing it as an important player to shape the future of digital payments in the country.
Moniepoint has only one fraction of the total market. Nigeria’s digital payment market covers multiple channels, including electronic transport, ATMs, POS devices, mobile dealers and web payments. In 2023, businesses and consumers completed transactions worth about $ 400 billion, according to The Country Payment Payment Switch. Electronic transfers, powered by the direct payment network – comparable to Brazil’s UPI and PIX – dominate the market, representing almost 90% of these transactions, According to Stears’ details. Other channels, such as mobile agents, ATMs and sales points, paths far behind.
While Moniepoint operates on most of these channels, Visa’s investment highlights Fintech’s position and potential in the Nigerian card value chain both as an important publisher and as a buyer.
“We are present in Nigeria today, leading the diagram to Merchant from acquisition and consumer banking,” CEO Tosin Eniiolorunda told Techcrunch. “With Visa as our investor, we can strategically work together to continue to increase the ecosystem of payment and expand to more countries, which is a key goal for us.”
One way in which both companies will look for the “development of the payment ecosystem” is the importing of non -contact payments, Eniolorunda said. “Central Bank has shown the need to drive without contact to improve accessibility and carrying out micro-syllables. These are some things we expect from the partnership. It is progress in the right direction.”
The Nigerian Central Bank showed its latest intention to lead to payment adoption without contact plans for trading limits in 2023. As soon as they are addressed, non -contact payments could significantly enhance transactions and undoubtedly overcome others methods of payment in the country.
Worldwide, Visa notes that Use without contact with card exceeds mobile wallets in many markets. Moniepoint is at this sweet spot to drive this transition to Nigeria by offering payment terminals capable of contacting businesses and chip cards to people, setting the stage for further adoption.
On the other hand, Moniepoint will use Visa’s Cybersource system to gain better visibility in transactions. In addition, it plans to integrate with Visa Direct for remittances and money transfers, as it appears to be expanding into markets inside and outside Africa.
Visa has a history of investment in African payment infrastructure, supporting players such as Interswitch, Flutterwave, Paystack and Jumo in the last decade. With Moniepoint, Visa makes its entry into the Nigerian media market, with the aim of digitizing payments for them and in part in the hope of increasing its share of the country’s card system market. Currently, it lag behind the Verve and Mastercard of Interswitch. The latter two have also begun inviting the opportunity to pay.
“Visa’s investment in Moniepoint is the last example of our long -term commitment to promoting digital economies in Africa,” said Andrew Torre, regional president, Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa in Visa. “We will even allow smaller businesses to thrive through innovative payment and software solutions that allow SMEs to escalate and open new revenue opportunities while rationalizing their activities.”
Visa will participate in the Moniepoint Board of Directors after its investment. Other prominent supporters in Fintech include Development Partners International, Google’s African Investment Fund, QED Investors, Lightrock and British International Investment (BII), among others. We also mentioned that a first supporter, Oui Capital, recently returned his first fund after investing in the African unicorn six years ago.
