GET TO KNOW with deep regional expertise who can help them overcome these barriers and drive meaningful digital transformation across their operations.
Which generic technologies and innovations can make a difference to your end customers business?
EFTCorp’ s product strategy is built on four key pillars, all foundational to payments and financial services: Banking-as-a-Service, BaaS, acquiring, issuing, and payment orchestration. Unlike other fintech within the market who focus on individual products, EFTCorp is a full-suite payments solutions provider, offering end-toend solutions through a modular approach. This allows clients to customise EFTCorp’ s product offerings based on their needs rather than being locked into a single system.
EFTCorp also ensures that its products support financial inclusion by being price-sensitive and marketrelevant. Especially in markets like the Democratic Republic of Congo or Ethiopia, where legacy systems dominate, these technologies can dramatically reduce costs, improve customer experience, and accelerate financial inclusion. EFTCorp aims to bridge the gap between legacy banking infrastructure and nextgeneration digital payment solutions, empowering financial institutions with scalable, seamless, and customer-centric products.
How can a channel partner in your industry disrupt the regional market and gain a leading competitive position?
To truly disrupt in this space, a channel partner must deeply understand local market dynamics and regulatory conditions. Simply importing a global solution doesn’ t work. Disruptors are those who cocreate solutions with banks, fintech and regulators, who invest in local data centres for compliance, and who ensure interoperability with national switches and card schemes. Partners who enable fast timeto-market and support scalable digital strategies, especially in high-growth but low-digital markets, are the ones who gain a competitive edge.
Which non-competitive business in the region do you admire for innovative usage of technology?
Safaricom is a stand-out example – particularly for their role in revolutionising the financial landscape in Kenya with M-PESA. They identified a gap that the traditional banking system couldn’ t fill and built a mobile-first solution that met people where they were. It was not just innovative; it was transformative for Kenyans. That is exactly the kind of thinking we need more of in Africa: locally relevant, scalable, and impactful.
Which aspects of your job role do you find rewarding and which challenging?
What I find most rewarding is seeing the tangible impact our work has on financial inclusion. Being able to empower financial institutions and people directly who previously had no access to banking or digital services is incredibly fulfilling. It is not just about payments; it’ s about giving people tools to improve their lives and contribute to their economies.
On the challenging side, each market in Africa is vastly different, and navigating regulatory hurdles, building trust with stakeholders, and dealing with infrastructure gaps can be complex. But that is also what makes the work exciting, solving real-world problems in creative, collaborative ways.
How do you best like to de-stress and re-charge off work?
For me, it is all about being around family. I really enjoy spending time with my wife and my son; it keeps me grounded and reminds me why the work we do matters. Whether it is taking our dogs for a walk or just sitting down for dinner together, that time recharges me more than anything. Having that balance makes it easier to tackle the demands of work and stay focused on our bigger mission. p
72 INTELLIGENTCIO AFRICA www. intelligentcio. com