PawaPay raises $9M seed backed by MSA, 88mph and Mr Eazi’s Zagadat Capital –

The concept is ubiquitous in East Africa, but since mobile money is a telecom operators-led initiative, there are technical complexities in creating a unified infrastructure for businesses that need it. The company takes the technical integrations from telecom operators like AirtelTigo, Econet, MTN, Safaricom, Orange and Vodafone and collapses them into one API for businesses. It has become quite obvious that this is a very significant financial infrastructure and there’s a lot of it that’s been missing if you want to work serious volume and businesses on mobile money.” PawaPay handles local operations, compliance, regulatory cover and bank accounts, making it simple to receive payments in a new market. The company claims to be handling over 10 million transactions on its rails per week, with beta operations in 10 African countries — Cameroon, DRC, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia. However, the CEO states that while regulation slows down processes, it’s important for pawaPay because many unregulated companies operate without licenses and unstable technologies, some with the intention to commit fraud.