As Kenya continues to embrace the use of technology in enhancing transactions within and without the country, TerraPay, a global company that provides infrastructure and supports diverse payment instruments around the world, has promised to enhance its relations with Kenyan financial institutions to capitalize on emerging tech and better global transactions.
Backed by the International Finance Corporation (IFC), Partech, and Prime Ventures, the company has a presence in more than 26 global markets where it works in partnership with banks, mobile wallets, money transfer operators, and merchants among others to create an expansive financial ecosystem.
The sentiments came at a time the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) breakdown of remittances by source country showed that inflows from the US fell to $183.4 million from $221.5 million in December 2021. Inflows from the UK were up by 25 percent in June to $26.8 million compared to December, while Saudi Arabia remittances rose by seven percent to $24.4 million in the period for the month of July 2022
Speaking to media at the sidelines of the Seamless Africa event, TerraPay’s East and Central Africa Regional Director, Mr. Willie Kanyeki said that financial inclusion is at the heart of the company’s operations with access to 4.5 billion bank accounts, 1.5 billion mobile wallets across more than 100 receive countries and 202 send countries.
“Kenya has been a leader in financial inclusion for more than 10 years. The country also is among the best in terms of embracing technology in the financial sector, being the pioneer of mobile banking through M-Pesa. There are still many opportunities that the country can capitalize on,” he said.
The sentiments of TerraPay were in line with the released report that showed that the market share of account-to-account (A2A) transactions is expected to increase steadily over the next five years, but the lack of a sustainable income stream for participants calls elements of the A2A business case into question.
Account-to-Account (A2A) payments enable the direct transfer of monies between accounts without relying on third-party intermediaries or payment cards. Although the dominance of the card model in developed countries will be hard to shake, volume growth in card payments will be harder to achieve as alternative payment methods such as A2A grow their market share.
“We believe that the smallest payment deserves a borderless journey as safe as the largest,” he said.
