It seems it is (nearly) here – Interswitch with Microsoft is unveiling blockchain banking in Nigeria. And three key banks (GTBank, UBA and Zenith Bank) and the alpha conglomerate (Dangote) are part of the party. Sure, they did not mention banking; it remains a blockchain service. But when you have the leading banks supporting the initiative, it is safe to extrapolate that banking would be part of the applications.
According to CNBC Africa, the focus at the moment is improving processes for supply chain. But I promise you that it would move from supply chain to payment and more. When you provide a service for trade services and financing, you are supporting one of the most critical elements in banking. Over time, there would be more integration and just like that, we would have blockchain banking in Nigeria. (Personally, it will not do much as the challenges we face in Nigerian banking cannot be fixed by technology alone. So, whether blockchain or not, for a very long time, it is going to be all the same.) Certainly, Interswitch has gotten over its hangover and innovating at scale.
Interswitch is exploring a blockchain-based supply chain financing service in partnership with Microsoft Azure that aims to digitise the process between corporates and banks when providing trade financing to entrepreneurs and business owners in the Supply Chain sector. Akeem Lawal, Divisional Chief Executive Officer, Payment Processing at Interswitch, joins CNBC Africa for more insight on this platform.
It surely needs to do that because companies like Paystack are coming: the startup just hit $28 million monthly transaction volume in Nigeria.
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In mid-2017, we shared that for the first time, customers were using Paystack to pay over N1 billion in monthly transaction value to Paystack merchants. …
A year and three months later, we’re thrilled to announce that we’ve hit our next transaction milestone: customers are now using Paystack to pay over N10 billion naira (~$27.5 million) to Nigerian merchants, every month.
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