Interswitch, Compass Plus Partner To Ease Payments Across Africa

Interswitch and Compass Plus Technologies have announced a partnership to further strengthen Interswitch’s payment card processing capacity in Africa.

The strategic partnership will see Interswitch utilise TranzAxis, an award-winning, token-based, cloud-native and API first open development payments platform developed by Compass Plus with innovation at its core, for Verve, Visa and Mastercard credit card processing.

This collaboration forms part of Interswitch’s comprehensive response to the evolving and constantly expanding demand by the African market and will boost its presence across the continent as it continues to deliver on its promise as the gateway to Africa’s payment ecosystem.

Currently, six banks across Africa have been onboarded on the new platform, resulting in a major collaboration with Sterling Bank of Nigeria to launch the first Verve credit card in the country.

Commenting on the collaboration with Compass Plus Technologies, the managing director, Payment Processing and Switching (Interswitch Purepay), Akeem Lawal said: “we are pleased to announce this partnership with Compass Plus Technologies which aligns with our commitment to making payments easy and convenient.

“Migrating our card processes to the TranzAxis platform will allow us to further improve our service offerings as we remain focused on providing cutting-edge solutions that optimize service delivery.”

Lawal said Interswitch will continue to leverage strategic partnerships like this that will position the company for greater impact on the African continent.

Vice president & deputy managing director, MEA at Compass Plus Technologies, Adil Ahmed, said: “we are delighted to partner with Interswitch, one of the biggest processors in Africa. Interswitch has always strived to drive positive change in the region, and now that they have TranzAxis to support their ambitions, they will continue to revolutionise Africa’s payments space in the region, further strengthen the Verve payments network, and manage their Visa and Mastercard credit card business more efficiently.”

By utilising TranzAxis, Interswitch can rely on its extensive API capabilities for seamless integration, which significantly accelerates time to market.

It also provides operational workflows to segregate system set up in compliance with rules and controls required to scale and meet unique market requirements.

The new platform has been deployed in one of Interswitch Group’s technology hubs domiciled in Nairobi, Kenya, and will have the capability to process transactions for Interswitch clients across Africa, with localised instances for each country carefully tailored to meet clients’ unique needs.