Ghana’s PAL Announces Proprietary Payment Processing Platform

Founded in January 2020 by Dady Maël and Kader Saka, PAL creates its own payment infrastructure for cash-in and cash-out to mobile wallets, without the need for a third-party technology component integration.

It offers this service as an open API with a web interface that can be used for inbound remittance, payment, loans, and many financial services by the government, banks, financial institutions, and big brands worldwide to disburse cash in multiple currencies instantly at a very low cost to mobile wallets in Africa.

“Many African countries do not have the proper payment infrastructure built to connect unbanked individuals owning mobile wallets to the international financial stream. In some countries where the infrastructure is in place, it is challenging to deal with the telecoms and can take literally three-to- seven months before getting the API,” Mal told Disrupt Africa.

MFS Africa and Zeepay are two African firms tackling this problem, but Mal claims they take the technical integrations from phone operators and combine them into one API for enterprises. Meanwhile, PAL is constructing the entire infrastructure.

Despite being bootstrapped to date, the company is now operational in Ghana and Benin, with plans to expand into four more countries — Ivory Coast, Mali, Niger, and Senegal – in the near future.

“We have seen a huge interest from companies willing to access the Benin market and have started working with them. Benin has received more than US$200 million in 2017 from other countries, and has seen significant growth in the last two years and the arrival of COVID-19,” Maël said.

PAL has already connected 80 million mobile wallets to its own payment system and received a mobile money distribution license, charging a modest percentage fee on each transaction done over its platform.

“We have 11 companies onboard from Benin, Ghana, the US, Nigeria, and France, and we have done a total of 50,000 transactions,” Maël said.