[Transcript] #17: Interswitch - How the pioneering Nigerian FinTech & payments platform became one of the most valuable private companies in Africa
Recorded Nov 9 2020
Bankole here,
Sharing a lightly edited transcript of our Interswitch episode.
The Nigerian payments OG is facing competition everywhere, however it’s still early in African payments. Also, Interswitch faces well-funded competitors in all their markets and business verticals. Na every fintech startup for Lagos now dey push POS.
There’s clearly a huge opportunity here. Yes, Cash still dominates Africa’s payments transactions, but digital payments continue to grow. Africa’s fintech stocks are also doing well: Fawry has come down from its pandemic highs, but is trading well above its pre-pandemic share price. eTranzact is up 170% YTD!!! Perhaps we’ll see an Interswitch listing soon, or maybe Flutterwave? If you ask me, na who I go ask?
Can’t wait to see how all this turns out. As always, paid subscribers can access the full transcript below.
Have a good week,
Bankole
[00:00:05] Olumide Ogunsanwo: Welcome to Afrobility, a conversation about African business and technology. Today we're going to talk about Interswitch, the African fintech payments company. We'll discuss its founding, early history, growth over time, its place in the broader African fintech ecosystem, and then we'll end with our views on its future outlook.
This episode was recorded on November 29th, 2020. What's up?
[00:00:40] Bankole Makanju: Yeah, I'm good. Yeah. You always throw me off with the names you come up with. I'm fine. I'm, I'm all right. Thanksgiving break last week. It was good. Had this week off, well rested, well prepared. Also as I was preparing for this, I came across like in a previous life, I did a bunch of stuff on payments that are public and it was pretty cool to research like, Oh, payments and how does this work?
[00:00:55] Bankole Makanju: And it's like. Oh, I wrote this. I was like, we didn't decide that. This is cool. I was like, Oh, I did this. That was, that was a pretty cool
[00:01:00] Olumide Ogunsanwo: feeling. Was it good? What you did was crap?