Technology
Digital Payment Options Can’t Succeed Without Trust—Lawal
By Modupe Gbadeyanka
One of the things that have had a huge effect on the way human life is technology. It is one tool human has used to make life easier.
From the comfort of one’s home or office, items can be bought on the internet and payments made without having to go to a bank to withdraw cash for the is one of the purchase.
But despite this convenience technology offers, there are some persons who still do things the traditional way and they cannot be blamed.
In this interview, the Divisional CEO of Payments Processing at Interswitch, Mr Akeem Lawal, said stakeholders in the financial technology (fintech) industry must work tirelessly to build trust so as to make the digital payment options to be successful. Excerpts;
The SME sector in Africa is huge. In Nigeria alone, we have over 41 million micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). How important would you say this sector is to the growth and development of the African economy?
The SME sector is a potential game-changer for economic growth, especially in Nigeria. This is why it is important for stakeholders in that sector to provide simple solutions that enhance their ability to generate economic activities that will boost the community and national economy.
At Interswitch, we are committed to providing simple and scalable payment solutions for small and big businesses alike. The Quickteller Business platform is a testament to our commitment to make payments one less thing to worry about for our business users and their customers.
There seems to be a lot of activities within the payment, e-commerce and fintech sectors in recent years, with many new entrants as well as FDIs. What would be your fair assessment of the sectors? What should we expect, going forward?
When accessing the various sectors, we know that the Nigerian economy has been a beneficiary of foreign direct investment inflows since the 1970s. However, there is a need to diversify the Nigerian economy and reduce our dependence on oil. There is no doubt that a thriving industrial sector is pivotal to mass employment, improved skills and better wages, which will lead to a reduction in poverty.
Nigeria’s ICT sector has grown from less than one per cent of GDP in 2001 to almost 10 per cent of GDP today. The country is currently Africa’s biggest technology market and accounts for 23 per cent of internet users in Africa with 122 million people online in December 2018.
Nigeria has surpassed other countries in sub-Saharan Africa to emerge as a premier tech investment destination with 55 active tech hubs raising a total of $94.9 million, while South Africa raised $60.0 million with 59 active start-ups. The growth of the tech sector offers new possibilities for Nigeria’s growing labour force, in terms of employment and entrepreneurship.
Now, these sectors I have mentioned have found gaps to fill and are offering creative solutions to individuals and companies.
However, despite the fact that there are so many new players in these sectors, there is still so much more to be done.
Take e-commerce, for instance, you will be surprised that a good number of people are still not comfortable buying things online – putting in their card details and trusting that what they ordered is what they will get.
The same goes for other digital payment options like PoS. A lot of people would rather spend hours on ATM queues or travel long distances to get to a bank instead of walking up to a nearby money agent to withdraw or deposit money.
This means that stakeholders need to do more to gain the trust of customers. Everyone wants convenience but people also want to trust that convenience.
You can’t blame someone that has had series of failed/declined transactions at a PoS terminal and is referred back to his/her bank, then spends days and even weeks going back and forth with the bank, to be confident enough to want to make use of that channel again.
In the coming years, there will definitely be more growth in these various sectors, especially fintech. There will still be immense additions to mobile consumptions as two-thirds of the global population are mobile subscribers. There will be more adoption of new technology to grow businesses and create jobs. This adoption will provide data and big data is also quite important for decision making and creating smarter innovations.
I also foresee that more organisations will begin to use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to increase efficiency and enhance productivity.
Recently, Interswitch introduced Quickteller Business, which is an upgrade of Interswitch Webpay. Why was the upgrade necessary?
The upgrade was necessary because the enhanced Quickteller Business platform broadens payment management capabilities for businesses and merchants of all sizes, allowing them to access a wide range of integrated payment offerings, ranging from disbursements to value financing.
Also, upgrading to the Quickteller Business platform enables small businesses, including social media entrepreneurs, to take their businesses online to become completely digital without having to go through the hassles of developing digital capabilities themselves.
With the ease of the Quickteller Business, users can focus on creating economic activities for themselves and their communities. One of the values added for using the Quickteller Business platform is that users are exposed to over five million consumers already using Quickteller for a variety of retail payments in countries such as Nigeria, Kenya, and the Gambia.
What are the add-ons and additional features that came with this upgrade?
We have a lot of add-ons and features, such as:
Storefronts – Quickteller Business allows business owners to create customized branded online store, display product images and videos and gives an incredible mobile experience for customers across all devices.
e-Billing and Invoicing – Quickteller Business enables businesses to automatically generate invoices, accept payments via the payment link embedded in the invoice. The invoice also helps the businesses track their sales.
Split Settlements – With Split Settlement, businesses can instruct Quickteller Business on how transactions should be settled into predefined bank accounts.
Developers (Sandbox) – Quickteller Business enables developers to try out the features of their apps on the platform before they are activated for real transactions.
Multiple Integration Plans – Quickteller Business is customizable and offers multiple integration plans for web and mobile SDKs. Explore Pop Up, Page Redirect and Inline for web developers as well as iOS and Android for Mobile integration options.
Detailed Transaction Reporting – Quickteller Business helps businesses have access to detailed reports of their transactions across all collection channels – Web, POS, QR, USSD.
Dispute Management – With Quickteller Business, businesses of all types and sizes can manage their transaction disputes and chargebacks.
Refunds – Where required, businesses can seamlessly initiate partial or full refunds from the transaction details page.
Quickteller Business was designed with SMEs in mind. What are the benefits they stand to enjoy by signing on to the platform?
There are lots of benefits for SMEs, although the benefits are also now extended to both SMEs and large corporate business.
First, they enjoy getting paid online without a website; from creating a payment link that is useful and unique for both single purchases and recurring payments. The link can be shared with their customers via WhatsApp, Instagram, email or SMS.
Secondly, it is compatible with all card types – Verve, Visa, Mastercard; all payment channels, QR, USSD and for integrating payments, it is compatible with WordPress, Web and Mobile SDKs.
Third, they will enjoy fast-tracked outstanding payment with digital invoices. They can generate invoices on the go and get paid from any account via any channel. The invoicing feature has a payment link embedded to help receive payment seamlessly using our multi-payment methods and they can easily track from the portal once payment has been made.
What separates Quickteller Business from the pack?
The Quickteller Business platform is intuitive, robust and secure. Quickteller Business is an innovation and improvement of an already effective platform making it a more tested platform. The platform is built using world-standard fraud management solutions that help mitigate fraudulent transactions.
The Quickteller Business platform exposes its users to a ready market of over 5 million potential customers. The platform gives its users total control over its business, collection and every other thing in between.
What categories of business can sign on to Quickteller Business and how affordable is it for small businesses?
All types of businesses can sign up to the Quickteller Business platform – small businesses, large corporates and individuals. From the platform, businesses and individuals can receive payments from anyone, anywhere and everywhere.
Interestingly, these offers come at no cost. Yes, everything on the Quickteller Business platform is free and if you register your business between now and April 2021, you will also enjoy zero transaction fees.
By Modupe Gbadeyanka
A designed-in-house server known as Nathu La has been launched by a global technology company, Zoho Corporation.
Nathu La is engineered with hardware-rooted security at every layer of the stack. Its indigenous IP-driven approach reduces dependency on external entities for security audits, firmware updates, and licensing continuity.
The solution aligns with open-source software principles and reflects Zoho’s broader commitment to building sustainable, secure, and scalable digital infrastructure. It also supports the growing global focus on digital sovereignty, local innovation ecosystems, and high-performance computing capabilities.
The platform was introduced by the company as part of a pivotal step in its journey towards building its full technology stack, from the hardware layer to software applications.
With Nathu La, Zoho has achieved equivalent performance with 12-18 per cent lower power consumption and 20-30 per cent lower total cost of ownership (TCO), thereby reducing inference costs.
The Nathu La server, comprising Intel® Xeon® 6 processors, was developed collaboratively with Intel, leveraging their enablement capabilities and technical expertise.
The design philosophy behind Nathu La is rooted in the Open Compute Project (OCP), emphasising modularity, thermal efficiency, and ease of maintenance. This enables Zoho’s data centres to significantly reduce total cost of ownership and power consumption.
Zoho plans to host its applications on the Nathu La server platform, enabling the company to optimise the full software-hardware stack for its specific workloads, reduce costs, improve performance, and strengthen data governance for its global customers. This will also help bring down inference costs for Zoho’s AI usage.
The Nathu La server motherboard and chassis platform is the result of five years of R&D across hardware, firmware, and systems management. Based on Intel® Xeon® 6 Processors, the server is designed to optimise performance for virtualisation (VM), High Performance Computing (HPC), AI inference, and storage applications. This results in improved performance of Zoho applications for end users.
The server features customised power delivery subsystems, an in-house DC-SCM (Data Centre Secure Control Module) design, and modular chassis options compatible with diverse end-user environments, offering flexibility across deployment types.
All modular components – including the DC-SCM and NIC (Network Interface Card) – were designed in-house by Zoho’s hardware engineering team and assembled through electronics manufacturing partners, enabling tighter integration and quality control across the platform. Over five patents have been filed covering advanced thermal management and cost-optimised server architecture designs.
“Zoho Corporation has invested in building its own technology stack from the ground up over the last three decades. The Nathu La server launch is in line with that goal.
“With our strategy of using contextual, right-sized models, running on our own platform, on our own servers, in our own data centres, we are compounding the benefits accrued from owning and operating our entire technology stack. This ensures that our solutions are more sustainable and accessible for businesses.
“These long-term R&D investments we are making at every layer of the stack are aimed at delivering customer value,” the Country Head for Zoho Nigeria, Mr Kehinde Ogundare, stated.
In 2020, Zoho established a small R&D team in Nagpur, a Tier 2 town in India, focused on projects such as server design and systems engineering.
Members of the Nathu La R&D team include hires from SETU – short for Students’ Engagement for Transformative Upskilling – an initiative designed to build a pipeline of industry-ready engineers, with a focus on advanced learning in Electronics System Design and Manufacturing (ESDM).
By Adedapo Adesanya
The financial technology arm of MTN is mulling a direct shift into lending after bringing on its parent company, MTN Group, as a major investor to help cushion against losses that have plagued the business.
According to MTN Group Fintech chief executive, Mr Serigne Dioum, the company wants to move beyond helping customers access loans through partners.
He said in markets where regulators allow it, MTN wants to lend directly and use its own balance sheet.
“We’ve expanded access to credit for more people, but we also want to move further up the lending value chain,” Mr Dioum told investors at the company’s capital markets day.
“Where appropriate, we will seek licences that allow us not only to facilitate loans but also to lend directly to customers and deploy our own balance sheet.”
This development is expected to create a shift in its current fintech model which provides financial services, including deposits, payments, transfers and digital wallets to individuals and small businesses via digital and mobile‑based platforms.
The company has applied for Payment Solution Service Provider and Payment Terminal Service Provider licences through MoMo PSB, its Nigerian fintech subsidiary. If approved, the licences would allow MTN to handle more payment processing, build merchant payment tools, deploy and manage POS terminals, and reduce its dependence on third-party processors.
Despite the opportunities present in the credit market, direct lending could give MTN a larger share of revenue, but it would also expose the company to credit risk, regulation and tougher competition with banks and digital lenders.
Mr Dioum said only about 4 per cent to 5 per cent of adults have access to formal credit across the African continent. In Nigeria, the funding problem is especially severe.
A 2025 report by the National Credit Guarantee Company said nearly 80 per cent of Nigerian MSMEs lack access to formal credit, while Stears has estimated the country’s MSME financing gap at about $236 billion.
For traders, small shop owners, transport operators and households, access to small loans can determine whether they restock inventory, pay suppliers, cover emergencies or expand a business.
In April, MTN Nigeria announced that its parent firm, based in South Africa, would acquire a 60 per cent stake in MoMo Payment Service Bank Limited (MoMo PSB) and Y’ello Digital Financial Services (YDFS) Limited.
The fintech units are currently loss-making, and this move will help MTN Nigeria to reduce financial risk and share future losses and investment burden. However, it will still keep a significant minority stake (40 per cent).
By Aduragbemi Omiyale
The reach of the Meta Business Agent is being expanded to Instagram and other platforms of the social media giant.
Meta Business Agent is an artificial intelligence (AI) that allows business owners to attend to customers’ needs with ease.
Customers expect instant responses, but no team can be everywhere at once. This innovation handles such without hassles.
It helps businesses to answer questions specific to the business, makes product recommendations from the catalogue, books appointments, qualifies incoming leads, and closes sales.
More than one million businesses are already using a Meta Business Agent on WhatsApp and Messenger to respond to customers around the clock.
“We’re now expanding our Business Agent to businesses big and small globally, so within minutes you can have yours up and running, responding in your customer’s local language using your tone,” Meta said in a statement.
“We’re also expanding these agents to Instagram since businesses connect with their customers there, too. Businesses can activate their Business Agent here. Getting started with the Business Agent is free. In the coming months, businesses will access the agent through our paid subscription offerings, with options for businesses of every size,” it added.
Meta also stated that it is making it simpler for people to discover businesses powered by a Meta Business Agent directly on WhatsApp. It noted that starting soon, people will be able to find businesses by typing their name in the Search bar, or by sharing their phone number or contact card in chats with friends and family. This way, when more customers reach out, they get a quick, helpful response.
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