Fresh off the news cycle that saw Nigeria sign the Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement
(AfCfta), Africa’s largest Bank, Access Bank Plc, has announced the launch of a payments
platform called AccessAfrica.
AccessAfrica is aimed at simplifying payments in Africa. It is a money transfer product which allow Access Bank customers and non customers engage in cross border transfers.
AccessAfrica is available in branch and via the Access Bank mobile. Non Access Bank account
holders can also benefit from this platform by visiting any of the 600 branches in Nigeria and
subsidiaries either using local currency or USD.
Part of Access Bank’s 5 year strategy is creating a Universal Payments Gateway to dominate
international trade and inter-African payments.
The traditional payment services have not kept pace with the economic and technological
shifts in this industry as the payment model still operates under a correspondent banking
relationship. Multiple intermediary banks are often required and as the number increases,
the model becomes more inefficient and expensive.
More than 80% of transactions sent from Africa to the US have their final beneficiary in other
regions. The three main region where these payments will eventually be transferred to are
Asia Pacific (42%);Africa (I7% ) and Non Euro Zone (10%).
It then means these payments had no business leaving the shores of Africa in the first place
only to clear in the US and come back to Africa . It becomes more expensive, payments slows
down and one cannot predict the final amount the beneficiary will receive. AccessAfrica
addresses these challenges by providing a cheap, convenient and fast option of making
payments within and outside Africa.
Access Bank is strategically positioned to service cross border flows ,trade, corresponding
banking and remittances.
Customers in Nigeria, Ghana, Gambia, Rwanda, Zambia, DRC and Sierra Leone can
immediately take advantage of this fantastic new AccessAfrica service by downloading the
Access Bank Mobile App, or walking into any Access Bank Branch to get started.
For general information about Access Bank or to arrange an interview, please contact our
Press Office: 0700 CallAccess (07002255222377), +234 1- 2712005-7, +234 1-2802500
