Fintech unveils new solution for Africa on blockchain

Fintech software firm, Appzone Group, has announced the launch of Zone, Africa’s first blockchain platform for payment processing that facilitates local and intra-African payments in fiat and digital currencies.
   
Developed by Appzone Switch, a subsidiary of Appzone Group, Zone forms the foundation of Appzone’s plans to build out Africa’s first decentralised payment network, which will allow inter-bank transactions to be processed directly between banks without the involvement of any intermediary.
 
Fintechs and banks within countries across Africa have traditionally performed inter-bank payments through centralized Electronic Financial Transaction (EFT) switches, which serve as single points of contact between financial institutions and handle settlement at defined intervals, although they usually cause major downtime when they fail and generate reconciliation issues in certain situations.
   
Zone enhances this by providing a decentralized architecture where each participating institution connects directly with all others so that there is no need for central infrastructure and no single failure can affect the entire network.
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