Nigerian startup “Paychant” strives to become the Stripe of Africa

Nigerian startup “Paychant” strives to become the Stripe of Africa – Nigerian startup known as Paychant, a cryptocurrency payment gateway is striving to simplify online payments in Africa on popular e-commerce platforms such as woocommerce, Magento, PrestaShop and an array of other online stores with a single line of code to give retailers access to a growing number of consumers who want to pay using cryptocurrencies.

Financial Watch gathered Paychant which started since 2019 offers a simple infrastructure, secure, convenient and is geared toward small and large businesses alike. Nonprofit organizations can also accept crypto donations with ease. Customizable widgets are offered that can be embedded directly into a fundraising campaign’s website with little fuss.

According to information available on their website, Paychant is made up of people who have worked in top technology and finance companies; “While we have a small office in Lagos and London, some of our teams are working remotely from all around the world”, information found on the about page read.

“The Paychant team comes from diverse backgrounds and are united with the same passion to upgrade the world to a more reliable financial system”.

“We are building solutions where cryptocurrencies are spent like cash, a platform where businesses can offer cryptocurrency as a payment method to their customers. Our solutions are used and trusted by businesses of every size and shape”

The project’s founders were inspired to take action after encountering difficulties when trying to receive cross-border payments from clients abroad.

The startup joined Celo’s virtual accelerator program last year — and during the eight-week program, its passionate team built a decentralized web wallet that allowed CELO and cUSD to be stored, sent and received on the Celo blockchain.

That partnership remains in place today, and both of these digital assets have been embraced alongside Bitcoin, Ether and Tether — giving businesses and individual’s new opportunities.

As well as giving the business community a helping hand, Paychant wants to make cross-border remittances far less expensive than they are now. The project cites research that suggests sending $200 in sub-Saharan Africa attracts fees of 9.4% — substantially higher than the global average of 7.1%.

Over a 10-month period, Paychant says it has processed 15,000 transactions for more than 5,000 merchants in Nigeria. What’s more, it has also rolled out an all-in-one platform that enables crypto users to purchase everything from airtime and internet data to airline tickets and TV subscriptions using virtual currencies.