After strengthening its presence in the Latin American market, where it operates in 15 countries, Brazilian cross-border payments firm Ebanx announced its new focus of expansion this week: the African continent. The plan is to prioritize global expansion from the region, which the company believes will be the next big growth frontier for digital payments and the digital market in the coming years.
The announcement was made during the company’s annual event, the Latin America Summit, which also brought other launches to the company, such as the creation of new payment models for SaaS products and micro-transactions for content players, among others.
The African operation is already underway in 3 countries, which are precisely the three largest economies in the region: Kenya, South Africa and Nigeria. The firm’s plan involves bridging the gap between online sales networks and global names, with some of the popular payment services in each country.
In South Africa, the company was able to process payments using the Instant EFT solution, the second largest online payment method in the country. In Kenya, Ebanx will accept M-Pesa, a mobile banking service aimed at the unbanked population. Finally, in Nigeria, it will accept transactions using the USSD, a payment protocol that uses the GSM signal.
The choice of Africa as the focus of international expansion for Ebanx comes two years after the Uruguayan dLocal made the same move, as Startups reported at the time. The international expansion also comes at a time when Ebanx has realigned its strategy, turning to its original and main business, international payments. The reorganization prompted the company to cut 20% of its workforce in June. Earlier this week, Brazilian startup iugu announced the purchase of Juno’s customer portfolio, a fintech that Ebanx had purchased at the end of 2021.
I bless the rains down in Africa
According to Paula Bellizia, president of global payments at Ebanx, the launch in African countries is the result of a study of local challenges and potential.
According to a report by Endeavor with McKinsey, there is currently a $115 billion digital economy in the region, resulting from the combination of a young and digitally savvy population. “We are diving into Africa to provide local payments solutions that will help build the digital economy at a rapid pace, drive broader financial inclusion for its population, and provide greater access to a variety of goods and services from global companies interested in building their own. market share in the region”, Bellizia said in a statement.
For Ebanx CEO João Del Valle, Africa is the main promise in the global economy, with the potential to become the new focus of economic development based on new technological solutions, as was the case in much of Latin America at the turn of the 2010s.
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“Africa’s fast-growing digital economy is just getting started and is projected to grow further and consolidate in the coming decades. Alongside global players, Ebanx will be a catalyst for the many benefits of an accelerating digital economy.”
Despite talking about expanding to other continents for at least three years, Africa has in fact become the first unicorn move to take its services beyond Latin America. The move comes in the wake of the arrival of Bellizia, formerly a Google executive, who joined in February with plans to accelerate the internationalization.
With the entry into the three African countries, the fintech now operates in 18 countries, serving more than a thousand global customers. Among the list of big names using the solutions of the Brazilian company are Amazon, Shein, Shopee, Spotify and Uber.
New opportunities
In addition to the geographic moves announced at the Latin America Summit, Ebanx announced three other products to increase its reach in markets where it is already established.
Two new products are high-value transaction processing for SaaS and cloud products, something that will be seen first in Brazil. Another is micro-transactions, in order to serve content producers in their cross-platform digital product offerings.
Regarding the SaaS platform, the solution allows the automation of charges above US$ 10,000, within compliance rules to ensure the safety of those involved. With the new feature, the fintech wants to be well positioned to take advantage of the growth in the adoption of cloud services, where the market is expected to reach US$ 11 billion by the end of 2022, according to IDC.
The latest innovation announced by the company is an easy checkout tool, which allows buyers to pay for purchases from different sellers of a marketplace, using just one transaction – Ebanx settles the various payments on the backend.
