I wrote this piece – Interswitch’s Innovation And Monopoly Hangover– more than two years ago when Interswitch was going through a redesign. Today, a friend re-shared it asking me a simple question: “can you now answer your question – “Can Interswitch Evolve?”’.
Everything will depend on the attitude of the firm. It can dance even as an e-payment elephant, relatively, at local level. It cannot be obsessed with profitability as a digital company at this level of infancy. It has to focus on growth; profits will come. If it can cure itself of the love of fees and huge margins at the expense of growth, which is very critical for a digital company, it will return back to its glorious innovative past which won Central Bank of Nigeria and all the banks to adopt it as platform of choice. It is a great company and one that has moved Nigeria forward in many ways. Interswitch can do it as it is peerless in what it does, in the region.
My response: Interswitch is amazing and the hangover is over. There are many reasons for my answer. One is that this company is now evolving as an operating system for digital finance in Nigeria, with an eye on Africa. Sure, competitive insurgents are not sleeping but Interswitch seems deepened to battle effectively.
Founded in 2002, Interswitch disrupted the traditional cash-based payments value chain in Nigeria by introducing electronic payments processing and switching services. Today, Interswitch is a leading player in Nigeria’s developing financial ecosystem with omni-channel capabilities across the payments value chain, processing over 500 million transactions per month in May 2019.
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