Kenyan fintech firm inks deal to provide payments in Asia

A Singaporean company has partnered with WAPI Pay to provide payment solutions between Asia & Africa.

FOMO Pay signed the deal with WAPI Pay on the sidelines of the Afro-Asia FinTech Festival held in Nairobi.

The two companies look to build the first Africa – Asia payment gateway through partnerships and platforms integrations to allow easier, cheaper and faster payments and remittances for purchase of goods and services, salary payments and trade between the two corridors.

Speaking on the partnership, FOMO Pay Co-Founder Zack Yang said: “This initiative will open up to US$1 billion of trade between Africa and South-east Asia for traders and entrepreneurs with faster and more efficient rails to make payments.”

Wapi Capital Executive Director Paul Ndichu said: “These new payment rails will open up Kenyan and African market to the billion Asia market, facilitating women and youth employment via e-commerce, accelerate trade to close the deficit gaps and enhance further business relationships.”

The services have started in Kenya, and will launch in Ghana, Zambia and Uganda this month and Nigeria in August.”

Payments and remittances contribute to the import and export receipts for the country and are a major source of African countries revenue. Kenya alone traded US$3.5 billion last year with Asia while the rest of Africa did about US$204.2 billion.

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According to UN Comtrade, Singapore’s main destination markets in Africa in 2015 were Liberia and South Africa, while for Thailand the main export markets were Egypt and South Africa. Exports to African economies from Southeast Asia mainly consist of vehicles and their parts, electronic equipment, refined petroleum, chemicals, rubber, rice, and metals.