Interswitch East Africa has partnered with UnionPay International (UPI) to advance the payment digitisation. The partnership means that Interswitch becomes a Third-Party Service Provider (TPSP) for UPI in East Africa.
Background
Interswitch Group was founded in 2002 and is headquartered in Nigeria. The company is an African focused digital payments and commerce company. The firm facilitates the electronic circulation of money, they use switching infrastructure to connect different banks and also provide technology for ATM cards.
Interswitch Group has a number of subsidiaries in the payments space:
- Verve International, a Pan-African and multinational financial technology and payment card brand.
- Quickteller, an online payment platform.
- VANSO (Value Added Network Solutions) International Corporation, mobile banking and payments company
- Interswitch East Africa Limited, the East African chapter of Interswitch Group.
UnionPay, also known as UPI (or China UnionPay) is a Chinese financial services company that is headquartered in Shanghai. UPI provides bank card services that enable card acceptance in 179 countries and regions with card issuance in 61 countries. UnionPay is a company we in Zimbabwe have encountered before. In 2019 UnionPay formed a partnership with Steward Bank. The partnership enabled UnionPay cardholders to make payments at Steward Bank terminals.
Interswitch East Africa and UnionPay partnership
As mentioned earlier the partnership will make Interswitch East Africa a TPSP (Third-Party Service Provider). This means Interswitch will facilitate UnionPay cardholder payments across ATMs, POS (Point-of-Sale), QR Payments and online payments. This relationship with Interswitch East Africa completes the partnership that Interswitch has with UnionPay in West Africa.
Speaking on the partnership Interswitch Group founder and CEO Mitchell Elegbe said:
“We are delighted to expand our existing partnership with UPI, this time to East Africa”
“The region presents great opportunity following significant transformation in recent years with the rapidly increasing adoption of digital technologies. This new agreement is aligned with our vision to make payments a seamless part of everyday life in Africa, and we look forward to consolidating our relationship with the UPI team.”
The General Manager of UnionPay International Africa branch said the following on the partnership with Interswitch East Africa:
“The region presents great opportunity following significant transformation in recent years with the rapidly increasing adoption of digital technologies. This new agreement is aligned with our vision to make payments a seamless part of everyday life in Africa, and we look forward to consolidating our relationship with the UPI team.”
