By Modupe Gbadeyanka
One of the few challenges some Africans have encountered in trading digital assets is safety and an American financial technology company, Yellow Card Financial, is filling the gap.
The firm has introduced a technology platform that empowers consumers in African countries to buy and sell the world’s leading digital assets.
In a statement, the organisation noted that it came up with this system because of its concerns about providing space for consumers in Africa to trade digital assets in a safe environment.
The company follows the American and international Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) processes to offer safety of digital assets transactions.
In the statement, Yellow Card disclosed it also continuously invests in multiple layers of data security and supports customers with 24/7 live customer service.
It is no doubt that there is a thriving and growing market for cryptocurrencies throughout the continent, including in Nigeria, where the monetary authorities, through the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), has made efforts to frustrate it.
African consumers are using Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to transfer digital assets across borders, as a hedge against currency devaluation, to make payments and as an investment.
However, the high demand for cryptocurrencies is met by an informal market of WhatsApp groups and street traders. Consumer protection is minimal with scams and Ponzi schemes quite common.
But Yellow Card says it is in the ecosystem to provide safety, boost the confidence of consumers so as to further thrive the industry.
“The company’s product is a technology platform that empowers consumers to buy or sell the world’s leading digital assets in a safe and secure manner,” the company explained in the statement.
It noted that the new financial infrastructure put in place for the continent will enable African consumers interested in cryptocurrencies to buy from and sell to an American company safely.
The introduction of Yellow Card’s technology platform, according to the statement, will protect consumers against such schemes.
In 2019, Yellow Card Financial launched a digital wallet and cryptocurrency exchange in West Africa’s most populous nation, Nigeria.
It is rapidly connecting its digital wallet to a wide range of cash load and unload endpoints including bank accounts, mobile money accounts, ATM networks, retail store networks and the world’s leading digital assets including Bitcoin.
The company has so far processed over $25 million in cryptocurrency volumes in Botswana, Cameroon, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa alone and recently launched its operations in Uganda, Ghana, Cameroon and Zambia.
Aduragbemi Omiyale 
Adedapo Adesanya