A Wordline Playbook for Africa: from Payments Infrastructure to Solutions

The Trajectory Africa

On the previous episode of The Trajectory Africa, Wiza Jalakasi, Africa Market Development Director at EBANX suggested that infrastructure-building consumer payments businesses create value because of the sheer number of payment methods available, from mobile money to bank transfers and cards.

With all these options, businesses taking consumer payments need a neutral third party to provide a single point of aggregation. But what does it *actually* take to build this type of infrastructure? What are the mechanics behind aggregating and routing payments? Is tech the hardest part, or is it business, finance and operations? And how do you transition from aggregator to b2b super app? On this episode of The Trajectory Africa, we’re talking to Sassoum Niang, Director of Product & Marketing at InTouch about how you build pan-African “air traffic control” that allows businesses to collect payments in whatever form they come in.

Tune in to hear about:

[1:25] From film and e-commerce to payments at InTouch

[5:34] About InTouch and the problems it solves

[11:54] InTouch’s core infrastructure

[30:36] How partnerships help adapt to market and distribute strategically

[46:02] The business of infrastructure building

[51:00] Pressing problems remaining to be solved for payments to be functional

[1:05] Counterintuitive first principle for building a high growth payments infrastructure business

Recommendations:

• Chasing Outliers. Why Context Matters for Early Stage Investing in Africa, a report I co-authored on VC investing in Africa

Connect on social media:

• Sassoum Niang on LinkedIn
• Sassoum Niang on Twitter
• The Trajectory Africa on LinkedIn
• Tayo Akinyemi on LinkedIn
• Tayo Akinyemi on Twitter