Pay-TV group MultiChoice Group, Rapyd and General Catalyst have announced a joint venture aimed at developing an integrated payment platform for Africa.
The joint venture will operate under a new company called Moment.
Moment will consolidate the USD 3.5 billion in payments that the MultiChoice Group processes annually to expand options for subscribers and make payment processes efficient, as well as extend the payment network to African and global businesses.
Moment offers expanded payment infrastructure for businesses across Africa to help them collect and make payments easier, quicker, and more affordable in any manner that their buyers or suppliers prefer.
The new company will also offer additional options for consumers to spend and save money. The aim is to transform the African payments landscape by making digital payments more accessible and reliable for domestic, cross-border, and global payments, according to Calvo Mawela, MultiChoice Group CEO.
MultiChoice said the long-term plan is to provide the infrastructure for pan-African payments for the 44 million small businesses operating on the continent.
It is also to turn 90 per cent of retail transactions that are currently taking place in cash into digital payments.
Moment aims to make digital transactions more accessible to the 350 million consumers that are underbanked or not banked at all.
