Mastercard, the second-largest payment network in the world, has once partnered with Flutterwave and has collaborated with a Nigerian YC-backed open banking startup, Mono, to enable direct payments into bank accounts without the use of cards or USSD codes.
In his statement, the founder and CEO of Mono, Abdul Hassan, said this partnership is a stepping stone toward profitability among other startups. He shed more light on the rise of the banking startup from a negative to a positive gross profit in 2023. However, the startup hopes to have a similar record in the last quarter of 2024.
He further said the brand has profitable partnerships to scale the adoption of its open finance tools.
Like its competitors, the startup has focused on providing lenders with open banking APIs to a wide range of fintechs to increase revenue.
As mentioned earlier, Mono once partnered with Flutterwave, one of Nigeria’s largest payment providers, to enable merchants to receive payment via the account-to-account (A2A) option called DirectPay Pay with Bank. This payment option has enabled over ₦5 billion since it launched in 2022.
Mono hopes to facilitate a volume of transactions by collaborating with MasterCard, whose payment gateway system serves numerous merchants across several African countries, including Kenya, Ghana, South Africa, and Nigeria, where Mono currently operates.
The partnership will also assist MasterCard in digitizing spending. This initiative might be the beginning of fresh air for launching card networks like Mastercard and Visa, whose deployment of account-to-account payment in developed markets like the US and UK has been restricted from users.
The CEO of Mono reiterated that the partnership and success of the payment gateway system is a dream come true for Mono to be at the forefront among startup communities.
According to Hassan, “The four-year-old startup hopes to gain familiarity with the larger consumer market and eventually launch the web app as a mobile app with added features”.
