MultiChoice Group, a Africa’s leading entertainment company, Rapyd and General Catalyst have hinted of their plans to launch a joint venture (JV) company aimed at developing an integrated payment platform for Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).
The JV, which will operate under a new company, called Moment, will offer expanded payment infrastructure for businesses across Africa to help them collect and make payments easier, quicker, and more affordable in any manner that their buyers or suppliers prefer.
Also, the JV partners disclosed that the new company would also offer additional options for consumers to spend and save money more wisely with the aim of transforming the African payments landscape by making digital payments more accessible and reliable for domestic, cross-border and global payments.
Some of Moment’s long term service offering include payments across 40+ countries in Africa through 200+ locally preferred payment methods to collect, disburse and manage risk; drive adoption of PayShap, TCIB, NQR, and other real-time payment methods across all markets.
In addition, the JV will support global-Africa trade for importers and exporters with virtual accounts in 40+ currencies and local payments in 130+ countries; payment tools, deep inventory to sell and financial services for micro-entrepreneurs and SMEs; and offering consumers payments, savings and rewards.
Speaking on the company and its benefits to the continent’s economies, MultiChoice Group CEO, Calvo Mawela, said: “We are excited about our venture with Rapyd and General Catalyst. It will address the need for an accessible and reliable payment platform for many small businesses and millions of consumers in Africa.
“Investing in this venture is a logical progression for us, as we already process payments every month from 22 million households across 50 countries in Africa. Moment fulfills our strategy to expand our ecosystem, by investing in adjacent businesses that provide scalable services, underpinned by technology”, he added.
Commenting on the JV, the CEO of Rapyd, Arik Shtilman, enthused: “We are thrilled to be able to partner with MultiChoice and our network partners to provide Africa’s most complete payment platform for businesses through Moment. Africa is one of the most exciting markets in the world – with tremendous opportunities to expand the use of digital payments, drive cash payments to real-time digital payments, and to capitalise on the tremendous entrepreneurial drive of African businesses.”
This is even as the Managing Director at General Catalyst Partners, Adam Valkin, noted that Africa represented one of the most exciting investment opportunities for global investors and projected that “over the next 20 years, most of the population growth of the world will be happening in Africa, along with increasing urbanization as African consumers and businesses are not only moving business online, but will be the labour force for the world.”
The partners maintained that the long-term plan for the company was to provide the infrastructure for pan-African payments for the 44 million small businesses operating on the continent and migrate the 90% of retail transactions that are currently taking place in cash into digital payments.
