Interswitch is an electronic payment and digital commerce solution hub. It is a payments platform which has received acceptance across Africa. Interswitch Limited has proven itself as a leading technology-driven company focused on the digitisation of payments in Nigeria and other countries in Africa. Interswitch is a payment processing company headquartered in Lagos.
Interswitch in 2002 acknowledged that the penetration of electronic payments in Africa was relatively low, they saw this as an opportunity to create platforms that will drive commerce and improve the quality of life on the continent.
Mitchell Elegbe, is the founder and group managing director of Interswitch, he founded the company in 2002. Interswitch also owns Verve – the largest domestic debit card scheme in Africa – and Quickteller, a consumer payments platform that enables money transfers, bill payments and mobile and internet air time purchases. Elgebe has said expanding outside Nigeria to elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa is a main aim.
Information has it that Quickteller processed over 42 million transactions monthly as of 31 July 2020- the equivalent of more than 560 billion naira ($1.82 billion).
The value of mobile money payments in sub-Saharan Africa grew by more than 15% from 2017 to 2018, according to industry group GSMA, to $26.8 billion.
The group, which represents mobile operators worldwide, also expects that regulatory reforms in Nigeria, Ethiopia and Egypt could see more than 110 million new mobile money accounts added there in the next five years.
Rating agency Moody’s in September assigned Interswitch a B2 corporate family rating, noting that it processes some 90% of total electronic transactions in Nigeria – where electronic payments rose by 32% in 2018 and are expected to keep growing.
Moody’s said Interswitch posted an average net revenue growth of 17% from 2017-2019 and an average EBITDA margin of 40% over the same period.
The Founder, Mitchell Elegbe is a graduate of Electrical Engineering from the University of Benin. He worked with Schlumberger Wireline and Testing, and Telnet, an ICT engineering and consulting company until 2002, when he started Interswitch Group where he is currently the Group Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer. In 2012, he was awarded the West Africa Business Leader Award at the All African Business Leaders Awards (AABLA) organized by CNBC Africa.
Mitchell is an Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award recipient and he won the Harvard Business School Association (Nigeria) Leadership Award in the General Management Category in 2015. He is a Bishop Desmond Tutu fellow of the African Leadership Institute. An alumnus of the IESE/Wharton/CEIBS Global CEO Program.
His company recently announced a strategic partnership with Visa Limited, the world leader in digital payments, saying that this will further advance the digital payments ecosystem across Africa.
Though Interswitch and Visa did not provide financial details but sources confirmed that Visa would buy a 20% stake for $200 million.
That would value Interswitch at $1 billion, giving it “unicorn” status – a term for tech companies with a valuation of a billion dollars or more.
Visa will join Helios Investment Partners, TA Associates and IFC as the primary shareholders in Interswitch.
The leading digital payment and commerce providers in Nigeria, Interswitch, announced its corporate rebrand recently.
The company says its new brand identity is a statement aimed at affirming Interswitch’s leading position in the payments solution market, and reflects its ambition to continue growing and spreading its service across the African continent.
Interswitch’s new logo and brand is a confident statement of its leading position in the market. Its vision is to continue to push the boundaries of digital payments in Africa.
Interswitch currently has a current transaction volume of 350 million transactions per month, and more than N6.4 trillion a year across its ‘Verve’ and ‘Quickteller’ platforms.
