Following the news cycle that saw Nigeria sign the Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCfta), Foremost and the Largest Bank in Africa, Access Bank Plc, has made a public announcement of the launch of its payments platform called AccessAfrica.
AccessAfrica is aimed at simplifying payments in Africa. It is a money transfer product which allow Access Bank customers and non-customers engage in cross border transfers.
AccessAfrica is available in branch and via the Access Bank mobile. Non-Access Bank account holders can also benefit from this platform by visiting any of the 600 branches in Nigeria and subsidiaries either using local currency or USD.
Part of Access Bank’s 5 year strategy is creating a Universal Payments Gateway to dominate international trade and inter-African payments.
The traditional payment services have not kept pace with the economic and technological shifts in this industry as the payment model still operates under a correspondent banking relationship. Multiple intermediary banks are often required and as the number increases, the model becomes more inefficient and expensive.
More than 80% of transactions sent from Africa to the US have their final beneficiary in other regions. The three main region where these payments will eventually be transferred to are Asia Pacific (42%); Africa (I7% ) and Non Euro Zone (10%).
In that regards, it therefore means, these payments had no business leaving the shores of Africa in the first place only to clear in the US and come back to Africa. It becomes more expensive, payments slows down and one cannot predict the final amount the beneficiary will receive. AccessAfrica addresses these challenges by providing a cheap, convenient and fast option of making payments within and outside Africa.
It is of great note, to say that Access Bank is strategically positioned to service cross border flows, trade, corresponding banking and remittances.
For Access bank customers in Nigeria, Ghana, Gambia, Rwanda, Zambia, DRC and Sierra Leone can immediately take advantage of this fantastic new AccessAfrica service by downloading the Access Bank Mobile App, or walking into any Access Bank Branch to get started on the platform.
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