Africa’s financial landscape has long faced fragmentation challenges, high costs, and inefficiencies in cross-border payments. CSL Pay, with its vision of seamless and inclusive transactions, needed a powerful solution to unify diverse systems and stakeholders.

FinCode stepped in to transform this vision into reality. By developing the Songhai Exchange Platform (SHE), a cutting-edge payment hub, FinCode empowered CSL Pay to revolutionise the Pan-African payments ecosystem, delivering reliability, scalability, and financial inclusion at an unprecedented level.

Challenges

CSL Pay wanted a robust financial technological infrastructure to execute their vision of facilitating seamless payments into and across Africa. The lack of a scalable platform hindered their ability to integrate directly with banks, mobile money operators, and local payment partners.

This limitation resulted in delayed remittance processing, high operational costs, and an inability to manage critical processes such as payment processing, KYC (Know Your Customer), and transaction monitoring. Without a comprehensive technological solution, CSL Pay’s ability to scale its operations and meet the growing demand for cross-border transactions was severely restricted

Solution: The Songhai Exchange Platform (SHE)

To address these challenges, CSL Pay turned to the industry-leading financial incubator, FinCode. Working with multi-disciplinary professionals, FinCode built the Songhai Exchange (SHE) platform, a state-of-the-art Pan-African payment switch that transformed CSL Pay’s operational framework. SHE facilitates bank transfers, cash pick-up, mobile money, and bill payments across Africa.

FinCode designed and built SHE with scalable, secure, and innovative architecture that seamlessly integrates with banks, mobile money operators, and other partners. The platform leverages advanced technology to process millions of transactions annually, ensuring efficiency, reliability, and financial inclusion.

SHE also incorporates a compliance-first approach, meeting the highest standards of security and regulatory requirements to build trust and ensure smooth operations. Furthermore, the platform’s success is supported by 24/7 intercontinental client support, enabling CSL Pay to offer uninterrupted service across multiple regions.

SHE stands as a benchmark in the Pan-African payments ecosystem, embodying FinCode’s commitment to innovation, intuitive design, and robust functionality.

Results

The implementation of the Songhai Exchange (SHE) platform brought transformative results for CSL Pay, fostering financial inclusion and advancing its mission of affordable, efficient payments across Africa.

• 1. Enhanced Financial Inclusion: The SHE platform bridged gaps in financial services, enabling millions of Africans to access affordable remittance channels, pay bills, and receive aid seamlessly.
• 2. Impact on African Trade: By reducing transaction costs and processing times, SHE facilitated cross-border trade, strengthening economic connections within the continent.
• 3. Enabling Seamless Payments: SHE’s innovative framework reduced transaction times from days to seconds, offering unmatched efficiency for Bank Transfers, Mobile Money, Cash Pickups, Bill Payments, and Airtime, NGO Aid Disbursements.
• 4. Operational Success Metrics:
  • 4.1 Over $1 million in annual transactions facilitated through the SHE platform.
  • 4.2 The throughput success rate exceeds 95%, ensuring user reliability.
  • 4.3 Delivery rates are among the highest in the industry, reducing failed transactions and improving customer satisfaction.
• 5. Empowering Financial Institutions: By fostering direct relationships between remittance companies and banks, SHE enhanced CSL Pay’s ability to deliver competitive and sustainable services.
• 6. A Unified Pan-African Payment Hub: SHE’s comprehensive range of services—bank transfers, mobile money, cash pickup, bill payments, and aid disbursements—enabled CSL Pay to meet diverse customer needs across Africa.
• 7. Enhanced security and compliance, ensuring CSL Pay meets regulatory requirements across multiple African markets.

SHE, built by FinCode, positioned CSL Pay as a leader in the Pan-African payment ecosystem, enabling it to scale its services and meet the growing demand for seamless, secure, and cost-effective cross-border payments.

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