MultiChoice, the owner of DStv and GOtv has launched a new unified platform for Africa in partnership with Rapid and General Catalyst. Multichoice said the initiative aims to transform the African payments landscape by making digital payments more accessible and reliable for domestic, cross-border and global payments.
MultiChoice Group will establish Moment, a pioneering payment infrastructure platform dedicated to businesses throughout Africa.
Moments will be an extensible payment infrastructure for businesses across Africa. MultiChoice said it will provide an easier way to make and collect payments, as well as provide additional options for consumers to spend and save money.
It will also consolidate the $3.5B in payments that the MultiChoice Group processes annually to expand options for subscribers and make payment processes efficient, as well as extend Africa’s most complete payment network to African and global businesses to ultimately make digital payments more accessible, reliable, and efficient for domestic, cross-border, and global transactions.
Speaking on the joint venture partnership, Calvo Mawela, MultiChoice Group CEO, said,
Investing in this venture is a logical progression for us, as we already process payments every month from 22 million households across 50 countries in Africa. Moment fulfills our strategy to expand our ecosystem by investing in adjacent businesses that provide scalable services underpinned by technology.
The overarching goal of Moment is to establish a robust pan-African payment infrastructure catering to the needs of the 44 million small businesses operating across the continent. Also, it aims to facilitate the shift from cash-based to digital transactions, transforming the current 90% of retail transactions conducted in cash.
The mission goal is to enhance accessibility to digital transactions for the 350 million underbanked or unbanked consumers in Africa.