Significant improvement will be achieved for cross-border payment with regards to quicker and less expensive online payments across 13 African countries. This is made possible with the recent collaboration of Access Africa and Thunes in their bid to assist global e-commerce transactions.
The 13 markets in which the collaborative move will boost inbound and outbound cross-border transactions are Botswana, Cameroon, Congo DR, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Africa, and Zambia.
Robert Giles, Senior advisory retail revealed that “this strategic partnership reinforces Access Africa’s commitment to providing customers and non-customers with access to top-quality remittance services.”
He added that “Thunes is a cross-border payments network founded in 2016 that enables corporates and financial institutions to move funds seamlessly and provide financial services in emerging markets. Our partnership will significantly expand the reach of Access Africa’s payment and remittance services to over 100 more countries, and expose Thunes to all 60 million plus customers of Access Africa with over 600 branch locations.”
He further noted that, with the collaboration, basic international transactions will be possible for users of Access Africa, as well as receipt of dollar payments from overseas. This will be in the form bank deposits from countries in Africa, the Americas, APAC, Europe, Greater China, and MENA.
The Senior Adviser described that “the partnership between Access Africa’s Payment and Remittance services and Thunes will bring the benefits of modern digital payment technology to the parties involved.
Also addressing the frictions of the traditional bank-based cross-border payment flows, and making payments faster, easier, and more transparent. This collaboration will bring significant improvements to the African Fintech ecosystem and payment infrastructure.”
About the partnership, Aik Tan, Executive vice president for Thunes, stated that “Access Africa has been at the forefront of innovation in the African banking sector, and is one of the largest banks on the continent. We are excited for the future of our partnership with Access Africa as we aim to enhance the connections between Africa and the rest of the world, bringing major improvements to customers who need to make regular cross-border payments to and from African markets.”
It is worth noting that Access Africa is a payment facility created to make basic peer-to-peer (p2p), business-to-business (b2b), person-to-business (p2b), and government-to-business international transactions.
