E-Financial
Appzone Group Launches new Blockchain Solution
Sub-Saharan Africa Fintech software company Appzone Group has announced the launch of Zone, which it describes as the continent’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.
According to Appzone Fintechs and banks across Africa have traditionally performed inter-bank payments through centralised Electronic Financial Transaction (EFT) switches which serve as single points of contact between financial institution 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 decentralised 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, the company stated.
“Zone significantly reduces transaction processing costs and improves the customer experience for end-users while ensuring that beneficiaries always get instant value for each transaction and that settlement can happen in real-time.
“For Intra-African payments, Zone provides a real-time settlement layer with a fiat-backed digital token for settlement that allows Banks and payment companies to process transactions across countries without worrying about how, and in which currency, to effect settlement,” it added.
According to Appzone ten commercial Banks in Nigeria already connected to the network.
Zone provides Banks and Fintechs with simple APIs for various types of transactions including account-to-account transfers, merchant payments, and cash transactions at ATMs or agent locations.
The platform’s architecture achieves high through-put and record transaction success rates, while eliminating typical reconciliation issues that delay refunds to customers where necessary.
According to Uche Elendu, CEO of Appzone Switch:“Zone Switch represents the cashless and borderless future of payments in Africa. With an unprecedented level of network redundancy and security, the platform will eliminate the systemic risk associated with centralised payment systems while delivering the uptime and throughput required in a truly cashless society.”’
In addition to core functionality like payments authorisation, and real-time settlement, the team at Appzone Switch are looking to evolve the platform’s digital token for settlement into a stable Pan-African digital currency that is fully compliant, approved by central Banks, and backed by a basket of fiat currencies in Africa.
The idea will be for Zone to manage stablecoin wallets for regular individuals on the same distributed ledger that currently facilitates payment authorisation and settlement.
Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) has called for comments from financial services industry stakeholders in the country, policy makers and the general public towards the ongoing revision of the International Association of Deposit Insurers (IADI) Core Principles for Effective Deposit Insurance System.
The proposed revision launched by IADI in May 2025, is a significant step towards enhancing the resilience and relevance of deposit insurance frameworks in the face of an evolving global financial landscape.
Specifically, the revision is aimed at comprehensively addressing structural changes, including digital innovation, the growing role of deposit insurers in resolution, and lessons learned from the banking turmoil in March 2023, which is the most significant systemic stress event since the 2007-09 global financial crisis.
The IADI Core Principles are used by jurisdictions, including Nigeria, as a benchmark for assessing the quality of their deposit insurance systems and for identifying gaps in their deposit insurance practices and measures to address them.
The Core Principles are also used by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank in the context of the Financial Sector Assessment Programme (FSAP), to assess the effectiveness of jurisdictions’ deposit insurance systems and practices.
The first set of the Core Principles was issued jointly by the IADI and the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) in June 2009 while the document is subjected to periodic revision order to keep it up-to-date with evolving trends on the global financial system landscape.
As a founding and committed member of IADI, NDIC recognises the importance of the ongoing revision and hereby invites stakeholders and the general public to actively participate in the process by reviewing the document on the lin
Onafriq, Africa’s largest digital payments network, has celebrated a major milestone, connecting nearly 1 billion mobile money wallets and 500 million bank accounts across the continent.
According to a statement released by the company, Onafriq has evolved from a mobile money switch to a comprehensive omnichannel payments network, facilitating seamless transactions and financial inclusion.
The company’s network now connects 961 million registered mobile wallets and 464 million registered bank accounts, with over 2,000 cross-border payment corridors supported.
Speaking on the achievement, Dare Okoudjou, Founder and CEO of Onafriq, said, “We remain fully committed to connecting every individual and business in Africa with each other and the world.”
Okoudjou noted that the company has grown in lockstep with the continent’s digital evolution, from mobile money to bank accounts, remittances, and real-time trade.
As Onafriq embarks on its next chapter, the company aims to develop infrastructure with local relevance while maintaining the scale of its pan-African infrastructure.
A prime example is Nigeria, where Onafriq is developing a unique payments stack that combines the strength of its cross-border network with the regulatory and foreign exchange realities of one of Africa’s most dynamic economies.
The company is also exploring blockchain infrastructure and stablecoin integrations to facilitate near-instant, programmable payments, aligning with the objectives of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
“We are increasingly focused on creating infrastructure with local depth,” Okoudjou said.
With extensive experience, wide reach, and a proven execution track record, Onafriq remains dedicated to building a payment infrastructure that unlocks prosperity across borders and within local communities.
United Bank for Africa (UBA) has informed its customers that, in compliance with a new directive from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), charges for USSD banking services will no longer be deducted from bank accounts, effective June 3, 2025.
In a notice sent to customers, the bank explained that the charges would now be deducted directly from users’ mobile airtime balances, in line with the NCC’s newly introduced End-User Billing (EUB) framework.
It said the new model aimed to ensure transparency in USSD transactions and shift billing responsibility to mobile network operators.
According to UBA, each USSD session would now cost ₦6.98 per 120 seconds, saying that customers initiating transactions would receive a prompt to provide consent at the start of each session, and airtime would only be debited if the bank is available to process the request.
The bank advised customers who are not comfortable with the new billing arrangement to opt for other digital banking alternatives such as the UBA mobile app and internet banking platform, which remain fully operational and user-friendly.
UBA reaffirmed its commitment to providing secure and accessible digital services, and encouraged customers to choose the channel that best suits their banking needs.
The policy marks a significant shift in Nigeria’s digital banking ecosystem and is expected to address longstanding disputes over USSD service charges between telecom operators and financial institutions.
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