The African continent has a lot of immense potential for economic growth and development which could enable it to compete with Asia and Western Nations. However, one of the major challenges that hinders its progress is the lack of efficient and affordable cross-border payment solutions.
According to the World Bank, the average cost of sending money to Africa is 8.9%, which is the highest among all regions in the world.
Moreover, many African countries have strict currency controls, complex regulatory frameworks, and low financial inclusion rates that make cross-border payments even more difficult and costly.
There are multiple opportunities for remittances and cross-border payments in Africa. According to a report by McKinsey, the e-payments industry in Africa generated approximately $24 billion in revenues in 2020, across domestic and cross-border payments. The domestic electronic payment revenue of $15 billion was generated from 47 billion individual transactions totaling just over $800 billion of transaction values.
There are some innovative companies currently working to solve the problem of cross-border payment for Africans. One of them is Kora, a leading fintech company that offers fast, secure, and low-cost cross-border payments for businesses and individuals in Africa.
Kora: The Pan African Payment Infrastructure for Businesses
Founded in 2017, Kora’s mission is to build a safe, secure, and seamless payment engine that will empower local merchants, as well as global merchants, to scale across Africa. The company’s solutions play a pivotal role for businesses that want to grow and expand across different markets in Africa, especially Nigeria, Ghana, and Kenya.
Kora makes digital payments easy for business owners by prioritising convenience, flexibility, and affordability.
By leveraging its presence in multiple jurisdictions, Kora is able to hack multicurrency support for its merchants. For example, due to its presence in Kenya and Ghana, Kora can enable a business owner in Kenya to receive payments in Kenyan Shillings from customers in Ghana, through a local payment channel like mobile money, while simultaneously providing the same payment collection service to a Ghanaian business owner who has Kenyan customers.
The company aims to help SMEs, businesses, and startups in Africa to grow their businesses, expand their customer base, and increase their revenues by facilitating easy and convenient cross-border payments. Kora also supports gaming and betting, hospitality, e-commerce, travel, and other sectors that require cross-border payments.
Kora provides payment services to multiple companies and entities including MyXalary in Nigeria by helping with its payroll, as well as logistic company GIGL by enabling their customers to fund their online wallets using Kora’s payment infrastructure.
What Differentiates Kora from Other Payment Providers?
Kora has several features that make it stand out from other cross-border payment providers in Africa. Some of them are:
Security: Kora is PCI DSS compliant, ISO 27001 & ISO 22301 certified which means that it complies with the latest global industry standards and regulations when it comes to security. This translates to safe and secure transactions for businesses who use Kora to accept payments from their customers.
Convenience: With features like its Pay-In feature, Kora enables businesses to create flexible payment experiences like “Checkout” which helps customers incorporate single or recurring payments options for their customers.
Businesses can also use “Payment Links” to enable their customers to make payments through a simple URL link without going through the trouble of building a website.
Customer service: Kora provides 24/7 customer support via phone, email, chat, and social media.
By offering fast, secure, and low-cost cross-border payments, Kora is helping SMEs, businesses, and startups in Africa to access global markets and opportunities, and ultimately contribute to the economic growth and development of the continent.
