By Mark Kawalya
NALA, an African payments company that mainly offers money transfer services, has received Payment Service Provider (PSP) approval, giving the firm direct integration with banks and mobile money players such as M-Pesa.
This milestone was achieved after the company received a major license from the Central Bank of Tanzania following a collaboration between NALA and financial regulators in Tanzania.
Following the licensing, the fintech will make an investment of $1 million that will go towards product innovation and job creation in Tanzania. NALA has experienced tremendous growth in geographical expansion and production differentiation by boosting existing infrastructure.
According to thefintechtimes, Tanzania’s President H.E. Dr. Samia Suluhu Hassan awarded NALA the license in line with her efforts of empowering young people and fostering an environment that is conducive for businesses to invest in the country.
The license will allow NALA to offer new products like merchant services, outbound payments from Tanzania, business payments, and integration with financial institutions and telcos.
“Two of NALA’s biggest goals in the last year have been enabling direct integration with banks and telcos and tackling the challenges that businesses face in moving money across borders.” Benjamin Fernandes, the company’s founder and CEO said.
“We have worked closely alongside the Bank of Tanzania to complete the appropriate steps to receive our license as a Payment Service Provider. With this new license in hand, NALA is making a commitment to invest $1 million to build our most ambitious projects ever in our home market of Tanzania.” He added.
Although there are many money transfer options from abroad to Africa, the rates charged are the highest in the world. The World Bank places the average money transfer flow to Africa at about nine percent. The other problem is that existing transfer options have hidden fees that make it difficult to determine the true cost of sending money to Africa. NALA hopes to change this by offering fair and transparent services that will empower people.
