Digital banking platform provider, Layer on Tuesday announced it is partnering with United Bank for Africa (UBA) to fuel its digital transformation aimed at providing greater access to a wider range of financial services for its Nigerian customers. Layer is a digital transformation platform that enables large financial institutions to rapidly revolutionize their customer and back-office digital experiences.
 
This new partnership will see the company add an additional 18 million users across 25 different countries to its platform. Through its collaboration with Layer, the financial conglomerate will be able to provide seamless banking services in different jurisdictions from one central platform without altering core banking systems. Layer’s proprietary platform enables banks to offer their customers a blend of traditional and neobank capabilities through one single platform that sits on top of core banking systems and connects through open source technology (API’s). UBA has implemented all of the capabilities available on the Layer platform, to provide end to end digitalisation of their banking services, delivered through a new mobile app and website across 18 markets in 4 different languages…
 
More details through:
https://www.premiumtimesng.com/business/financial-inclusion/467895-uba-fintech-firm-layer-partner-to-boost-financial-services.html
​

A report by Visa has shown that the top market contributors to e-commerce in sub-Saharan Africa over the last three years were South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya, with Ghana also showing growth, having replaced Kenya in the top three contributors in 2020. According to Africa Business Community, SSA may be one of the smallest regions of e-commerce globally, but it shows steady growth potential. During lockdown, the region saw new e-commerce users rise by five per cent when compared to the active base in SSA the previous year.
 
“The three leading markets in SSA are starting to mature, providing the region with an established foundation and, when twinned with the growing penetration of e-commerce, it offers players in the payment space an opportunity they can capitalise on while helping to further accelerate the expansion of e-commerce in the region,” explains Lineshree Moodley, Head of Visa Consulting and Analytics (VCA) in sub-Saharan Africa. Visa’s white paper, entitled e-commerce developments across SSA, confirmed that, as the world becomes increasingly digital, e-commerce has been driving the acceleration of digital commerce…
 
More details through:
https://www.newtelegraphng.com/visa-nigeria-others-top-e-commerce-drivers-in-ssa/
​

Nigeria’s biggest mobile payments company is vying to become Africa’s next unicorn, and its ambitions now stretch beyond the continent.
 
Paga, whose backers include U.S. billionaire investor Tim Draper and former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. economist Jim O’Neill, boasts 17 million unique users including tech entrepreneurs, businesses and individuals in Africa’s most populous nation.
 
Modeled after PayPal, it processed $2.3 billion worth of transactions in 2020 and $8 billion during the past four years, according to Tayo Oviosu, the company’s chief executive officer who founded it in 2009. Paga could reach a valuation of at least $1 billion “in the next year or two,” Oviosu said in an interview…
 
More details through:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-06-11/unicorn-in-waiting-backed-by-draper-maps-transatlantic-expansion
​

Nigeria’s escrow company, EscrowLock has won a $100 million global business grant from the world’s largest social media company, Facebook Incorporated.
 
The local escrow platform based in Anambra State is a trusted third-party that receives and “locks” transaction payments from buyers and only releases payment to the intended seller when the seller has delivered the necessary goods or services in the agreed condition.
 
The middleman service helps to protect both buyers and sellers from online fraud, thereby boosting eCommerce activities and helping more people earn a decent livelihood…
 
More details through:
https://dailytrust.com/nigerian-firm-wins-100m-facebook-grant
​

The volume of peer-to-peer (P2P) cryptocurrency transactions on a weekly basis in Sub-Saharan Africa has remained stable, largely because of countries like Nigeria.
 
A weekly insight by Luno and Arcane Research has found that the weekly P2P volume in the region reached nearly $20 million and now accounts for 24.3 percent of all the P2P volume in crypto globally.
 
Sub-Saharan Africa is by far the second largest region in the market, slightly behind North America which accounts for 26.6 percent of the P2P volumes in the world…
 
More details through:
https://businessday.ng/technology/cryptocurrency/article/nigeria-records-8m-weekly-volume-leads-rest-of-africa-on-p2p-crypto-trading/
​

Nigeria’s diaspora remittances have been projected to rise by five per cent to $22bn by the end of 2021.
 
Agusto Consulting Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of a rating agency, Agusto & Co. Limited, disclosed this in its report titled ‘2021 Nigeria diaspora remittance report & survey’ for May 2021. The report was presented by the Managing Director, Yinka Adelekan, and the Head of Consulting, Jimi Ogbobine, during a virtual event on Tuesday…
 
More details through:
https://punchng.com/nigerias-diaspora-remittances-to-hit-22bn-report/

Nigeria’s diaspora remittances are expected to reach $22 billion by 2021, representing a 12 percent rise compared to $19.7 billion in 2016. This is according to Agusto &Co. Limited, a foremost rating agency, which also estimated a marginal rise of 2 percent in 2022 to $22.5 billion…
 
More details through:
https://businessday.ng/business-economy/article/white-collar-workers-in-canada-uk-to-drive-nigeria-remittances-growth/
​

As the world went into pandemic lockdown in 2020, consumers shifted their spending habits to embrace contactless tap-and-go payments and online shopping. As stores closed and social distancing took hold, retailers worldwide moved their businesses online, embraced e-commerce and explored the potential of new ways to pay.
 
More than a year later, research from Mastercard shows that the adoption of new payment technologies is rising, and consumer appetite for new, fast and flexible digital experiences continues to grow. The Mastercard New Payments Index shows 96 per cent of Nigerian consumers will consider using at least one emerging payment method, such as cryptocurrency, biometrics, contactless, or QR code, in the next year…
 
More details through:
https://guardian.ng/business-services/96-of-consumers-in-nigeria-consider-wearables-biometrics-in-payment-patterns/

Nigerian fintech startup, Paystack, launched in South Africa on Thursday. The payment solution company, which operates in Nigeria and Ghana, is expanding its tentacles to the southern part of Africa.
 
Product Marketer, Paystack, Abdulrahman Jogbojogbo, while speaking with Techcrunch, said, “The opportunity for innovation in the South African payment space is far from saturated. Today, for instance, digital payments make up less than half of all transactions in the country,
 
“So, the presence of competition is not only welcome; it’s encouraged. The more innovative plays there are, the faster it’ll be to realize our goal of having an integrated African market…
 
More details through:
https://punchng.com/paystack-expands-to-south-africa-2/

Paxful, a global peer-to-peer fintech, has said Nigeria is now its biggest market with a volume of $1.5bn.
 
It disclosed this on Tuesday in a statement, titled ‘Nigeria emerges as Paxful’s biggest market, hits $1.5bn in volume with over 1.5 million users’.
 
The Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder of Paxful, Ray Youssef, said, “Our mission at Paxful is to give everyone equal access to finance no matter who they are or where they are so they can control their own money and build the future they want with financial freedom…
 
More details through:
https://punchng.com/nigeria-now-our-biggest-market-crypto-trading-platform/