A Challenge to Big Brands
Rolling out into the African continent can often be quite challenging to international brands wishing to launch across multiple countries or regions. The primary challenge outside of their core business is localization or aggregation, the first being their registering in potentially large markets with a local entity they control, whilst the latter refers to partnering with various locally licensed payment companies to act on their behalf. Both models have their troubles, but a blend of the two can help brands plan long-term market consolidation properly.
Payment Integrations
Often the reality of the Western perception of Africa is that it is one big country, whereas it consists of 54 countries and various other states & territories at any one time, each usually with its own laws and regulations.
Its size is also massive in comparison to other continents and countries, with various challenges that come with that size. Power provision can be an issue for local payment partners, and the internet for the entire continent relies on a few fibre cables undersea, often precariously positioned where they are exposed to wars or shipping accidents that leave the entire continent either offline or severely hampered with connectivity.
Integrations to these payment companies are available, but most are often based on very custom or mobile money-derived design only. Whilst our customers may choose to integrate to these companies one by one, the resources and cost could rather be combined to consuming a single API covering the entire continent. CoralCommerce has made it our goal to find and secure every possible payment flow across this region to ensure ease of use, reliability, and flexibility for our brands and their customers.
Embedding CoralCommerce Africa
We built our payment orchestration and routing platform to enable brands the opportunity to rapidly roll out into new territories and countries with the minimum effort and cost. Once integrated to our API, our brands focus on product development and commercial engagement with locally licensed payment companies on CoralCommerce. Since the entire flow is entirely in the control of our brands, the effect for them is one of owning their own embedded payment gateway for online transactions.
Once embedded, all upstream payment services that our brands wish to access and engage with can be consumed via virtual channels easily called in their payment requests through aliases. All the actual connections and technical testing are done by CoralCommerce teams directly under the management of our brands. Product and operations teams within a client would direct our technical and operational teams concerning payment priorities and commercial processes.
All payment types are available, some up to 18 different types in payment-sophisticated markets like South Africa, but mobile money is still the most used payment type across the continent. The demographic sought by a brand really determines what payment types they should be focused on, and CoralCommerce attempts to reflect those requirements as closely as possible where it makes commercial sense for us to do so.
Merchant-Owned Commercials
Whilst the embedding of CoralCommerce APIs and services is executed via a commercial agreement between our clients and Coral Commerce Limited, all merchant agreements are negotiated directly between the client and their chosen payment sponsors. Clients sign their own agreements and negotiate their own payment terms outside of CoralCommerce's influence or control.
Costs vary greatly as many payment companies bear the full risk for payment aggregation on behalf of brands who wish to enter their market/s. Therefore, the independent nature of these agreements allows brands to tailor their requirement payment flows to further enable them to negotiate strongly for a good commercial outcome with each of their relevant chosen payment partners in Africa.
In Summary
Working with brands across the continent of Africa has been exhilarating as the market explodes across regions from north to south, from east to west. This is a market that should never be ignored, with over 60% of the continent's population younger than 30 years old; it represents an exciting market for all global brands. Whilst there are certainly challenges, both technical and commercial, the primary reason why CoralCommerce chose Africa as its first market to roll out into was this buzz of innovation, the explosion in commercial opportunities as markets grow, and countries continue to prosper. CoralCommerce and many others in the payment and fintech space would love to welcome you into Africa, as we all have made it easier and smoother for brands to onboard and operate in the continent.
We very much look forward to introducing you to our partners across the region.