Video: Exploring Opportunities in Digital Payments in Africa

Valentin Alexeev, Business Relationship Manager, explains why the digital payment and banking market in Africa is so unique, and how OpenWay is addressing the needs and pain points of this market along with those of established players in developed lands.

How is the African payments market different?

I think Africa is totally different. Every day they invent something new, a new type of service, a new thing they try and test. That gives a very interesting perspective, because what we see in Europe you never see in Africa, and what you see in Africa you can never imagine anywhere else in the world. Most interesting for me is how Africans deal with questions of financial inclusion. They never understand the card, it’s hard to explain the card to them. But they know everything about mobile money, and how to work with, behave and how to get the financial services there.

Will cards have a future in Africa?

For Africa, card does exist. But it’s more like a status symbol rather than something that everyone really requires. I think that they will develop something entirely different. I don’t know what. But they came up with all these mobile money payment methods earlier than everyone else. And I’m sure that they will come up with something else in three in four years, definitely.

What financial service in Africa has surprised you recently?

The most unexpected thing for me was the moving branch, which I start to see now in Europe in some small instances, where there is a van coming into a village somewhere in the middle of nowhere. No connection, no infrastructure, but they are there, there is an ATM, a few clerks assisting, collecting data, issuing cards, trying to sell additional financial services, and people use this as a social point as well, because this van comes once a week, or once every two weeks, and it’s a gathering point for the village, to come to see, to chat. It’s kind of a new type of market for them, or social activity.

What payments services are generating revenue in Africa?

Particularly in Africa is how to offer more traditional services like loans, mortgages, insurances, without actually expecting a client to have a stellar credit history when opening a bank account, and things like that.

How does OpenWay help its clients in Europe and Africa?

Both in a very established environment like in Europe and in Africa in this every day new challenge, what we do as OpenWay is that we still have the same platform, the same technology, it’s agile in such a way that it can work both with what the regulation or the market conditions or the legacy of a hundred years of banking brings in Europe, and at the same time it works in an extremely dynamic environment in Africa, in very different conditions with lots of new players coming in every day. And that’s for me the best example where it comes to how agile the platform is and how it can support whatever the requirements of the business comes with.

What valuable experiences did you gain from OpenWay Club?

The networking opportunity is the most valuable and just the most beneficial, both for me and for the clients that we invite here. It’s still about technically the same platform, the same things that we work on, but every single client has a different point of view, and being here you can see a very unique but totally different solution to the business problem that you have. And being able to talk in a less formal way, to concentrate and speak with people in the same industry, who have the same challenges you do, it gives a different perspective and ability to learn, and also to share with the rest of the community.

What do you like about working in the payments industry?

I would say that I like payments now. In the sense that it is interesting that it is under tremendous pressure to evolve right this moment, especially when comparing Europe and Africa with Europe and business being well-established with long histories, with known ways to do things, and then being challenged every single day with fintech startups, new ideas coming right and left, and at the same time looking at Africa and seeing what are the things they came up with in the ways that are totally different from the way Europe develops.