Interswitch & Finastra: Inside The Partnership for Digital Payments in Africa

Interswitch, Africa’s leading technology-driven company focused on the digitization of payments in Africa, has announced its partnership with Finastra, one of the world’s largest fintechs, to deliver innovative, world-class technology-based solutions for digital payments, corporate banking, treasury and trade finance, to financial institutions in Africa.
Consistent with Interswitch’s market expansion strategy, the partnership will enable the company to deliver on its vision to transform Africa’s wholesale and transaction banking business by building world class products and solutions, thereby, delivering innovative and trusted technology to banks and the communities they serve.
With this strategic partnership, Interswitch becomes Finastra’s lead technology partner in the Nigerian market. This enables Finastra to bring the broadest set of financial software solutions to financial institutions in Nigeria and across Africa, in conjunction with Interswitch’s strong understanding of the local banking and payments landscape, as well as the ability to deploy solutions across these markets.
Mitchell Elegbe, Founder and Group Chief Executive Officer at Interswitch stated that the company is committed to continually explore opportunities, including partnerships, with leading brands such as Finastra, to deliver world-class technology, innovative products and digital solutions to African financial institutions.
He said: “Our partnership with Finastra is consistent with our strategic growth plan and we both share the vision of deepening access to financial services by providing world-class technology and innovative solutions. The partnership enables Finastra to seamlessly deploy its technology in this market. For Interswitch, we will be leveraging our proven success and expertise in delivering transaction banking solutions to support Finastra in localizing and implementing their technologyin this region.
The partnership positions Interswitch as the go-to business for financial solutions, including treasury and trade solutions, to banks and other financial institutions in Africa. Two of the Finastra solutions now available via Interswitch include Fusion Kondor and Fusion Trade Innovation.
Fusion Kondor, Finastra’s treasury solution provides a low-risk system for bank treasury operations to grow and expand their businesses at the pace and complexity level required.
In addition, it enables increased automation, improved efficiencies and reduced costs through the removal of fragmented data sets and tighter integration.Finastra’s Fusion Trade Innovation provides market-leading functionality for digital trade and supply chain finance.
It provides banks with the electronic submission and processing of information required by customs, uses risk-based inspections and promotes efficiency inproduct-specific inspections.
Hamid Nirouzad, Head of Partner Ecosystem MEA & CIS at Finastra said, “Interswitch has a proven track-record of delivering solutions to commercial banks, as well as a strong understanding of the local banking landscape across Nigeria and sub-Saharan Africa.
Finastra is committed to providing its solutions to financial institutions across the world, and partnerships such as this result in successful projects, with rapid delivery at reasonable cost.”
Finastra delivers technology to financial institutions of all sizes across the globe, including 90 of the world’s top 100 banks.