IPT Africa launched at the recent Africa Fintech Festival (AFF) as it seeks to position itself as the platform for Frictionless African payments, delivering a continent -wide, multi-channel payment platform tailored to the needs of global corporations doing business on the African continent.

The AFF was held as a hybrid event in Mauritius from 13-15 October 2021. The event highlighted the opportunities the island has to offer to the global audience.

Global corporations face a multitude of issues in accessing the African payment space, which could be holding them back from entering new markets.

With the establishment of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) there will be increasing opportunities in the areas of trade and investment, as the global economy emerges from the pandemic.

At the same time, mobile payments have been gaining significant traction on the African continent, with the GSMA’s State of the Industry Mobile Money Report 2021 highlighting that there are over half a billion registered mobile money accounts in Africa, and that Sub-Saharan Africa represented the majority of growth in 2020, with 43% of all new accounts globally.

In this context, IPT Africa will focus on providing global corporations with a payment platform, from which they can access and create payments in local African currencies and credit ongoing beneficiaries using local in-country banking networks.

With this platform, corporations can operate globally, transact locally, which underlines IPT Africa’s belief that transacting in Africa should be transparent and straightforward.

As more corporations embrace the ESG agenda and consider how they can make a difference in Africa, finance and payments are areas that are attracting more focus.

Commenting on this new strategy, Mark O’Sullivan, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of IPT Africa, said: “Covid-19 provided the opportunity for the original business to completely rethink its strategy and positioning, taking into account the target client market, the issues they face and how the business can support and continue to promote Mauritius, where we are based, as a FinTech hub for Africa.

“Our offering is unique as it gives corporations the opportunity to make instant, seamless and cost-effective cross-border payments in real-time. It also provides them with a mechanism to make mobile payments in a frictionless way.”

Explaining how IPT Africa can help, O’Sullivan added: “Global corporations typically experience high transaction costs, fragmented banking networks and inability to make payments in local currencies which can be a barrier to new markets being entered. This should not be the case and with African economies continuing to grow the opportunities are immense.

“The ability to offer a platform that can provide live transparent local currency pricing bank or mobile onward payment delivery will be key to supporting this growth.”

IPT Africa highlights continuing growth potential for markets in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania and Egypt.