Can Africa leap into instant payments?

Nium, a leader in real-time cross-border payment infrastructure, has partnered with Ecobank Transnational Incorporated, a pan-African financial services group to streamline cross-border payments, reaching 32M African customers with faster, efficient international transactions

This partnership will enable seamless cross-border payments across 35 African markets, reaching over 32 million Ecobank customers and transforming the region's payments landscape by making international transactions faster and more efficient for both businesses and consumers.

Through this collaboration, Nium’s real-time payments infrastructure will integrate into Ecobank’s existing banking systems, empowering Ecobank to deliver enhanced services, particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). By connecting its Swift workflows to Nium’s system, Ecobank gains real-time access to transfers, updates, clearing, settlement, and payment tracking, all without complex API integration. This integration will significantly reduce waiting times for cross-border payments, enabling faster payments to over 220 global markets, including more than 100 countries with real-time payment capabilities.

Boosting Africa’s Payments

Ecobank, a critical financial partner in sub-Saharan Africa, will now be able to offer its regional customers faster and more efficient cross-border transactions, unlocking new opportunities for SMEs to expand in global markets.

Anupam Pahuja, general manager and executive vice-president for APAC, Middle East, and Africa at Nium, expressed, “We are thrilled to partner with Ecobank and introduce Nium’s cutting-edge real-time payment capabilities to Africa. This collaboration represents an important step forward in expanding our global payments network, and we are proud to support Ecobank in delivering faster, more efficient payments for its customers across the region.”

Jeremy Awori, CEO of Ecobank Group, commented, “Partnering with Nium allows us to enhance our service offerings and provide our customers with faster, more efficient cross-border payment solutions. By leveraging our unique API-based payment platform, this collaboration is a significant step towards advancing financial inclusion and connectivity across Africa and enabling businesses to thrive in a global marketplace.”

Ecobank will exchange SwiftMT and ISO20022 messages with Nium to facilitate real-time payments, accelerating business growth and improving the speed and accuracy of cross-border transactions for African businesses.

Aligned with Nium's mission to promote global financial inclusion, this partnership enables real-time payments in regions where traditional banking systems are often slow or unreliable. With Nium's support, Ecobank can now offer an unparalleled cross-border payment experience, while Nium advances its goal of democratising access to the world’s largest real-time payments network.