Pan-African payments startup, Kora, has launched USD card-acquiring service, allowing merchants on its platform to accept payments in US dollars.
By introducing USD card-acquiring, Kora plans to enable its merchants to create global businesses and contribute to accelerating Africa’s participation in global trade.
Speaking on the launch of the new service, Kora’s head of product Sandra Israel-Ovirih disclosed that it will be a game changer for African businesses selling to a global market.
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In her words, “Incorporating USD card payments has been a priority for a while now. We understand that many businesses operate in a global marketplace and need a seamless payment system to handle cross-border transactions. This will be a game changer for African businesses selling to a global market.”
Also commenting on the service is the company’s CEO Nsofor Dickson who said,
“We want the merchants we serve to scale globally. Giving them the option to accept USD is an important milestone in this effort. The focus is on Africa. But despite an increase in Africa’s participation in global trade, our contribution is still only around 3%. Giving African businesses the ability to accept global payment will accelerate Africa’s contribution to global trade. Our next step is launching a multicurrency bank account product that allows our merchants to access banking solutions currencies like EUR, GBP and USD via the Kora platform.”
The USD card-acquiring product is the latest in a series of merchant-facing initiatives launched by the company this year. Experts believe that Kora’s latest product launch will have a significant impact on Africa’s participation in global trade.
Founded in 2018 by Dickson Nsofor and Bryan Uyanwune, Kora was built to help Africans in the diaspora make remittances into the African continent. So far, the startup has evolved into a payment infrastructure that fosters payments made by indigenous and international businesses in and out of Africa.
With a single integration, Kora powers businesses to accept payments, make payouts to customers and settlements across multiple payment channels. As a pan-African payment infrastructure, it offers a robust payment API for payment collections, disbursements, and cross-border settlements with offices in Nigeria, Canada, and the United Kingdom.
Earlier in 2022, the company received a commercial PSSP license from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). Later in the year, Kora expanded to the United Kingdom by partnering with the municipal government in Birmingham to open its first fully operational UK office.
At the 2022 Commonwealth Games opening ceremony, Kora was announced as a new Commonwealth-sourced foreign direct investments (FDI) project for the West Midlands. Since its launch, it has onboarded top locals and international brands like Payfuture, GiG, Juice Africa, and dLocal. The company said in a statement that it’s currently available to businesses across 25 African countries