Open Banking Nigeria has announced a partnership with Africa's Talking to develop open APIs for banking.
"Africa’s Talking has joined [other] companies partnering with Open Banking Nigeria in the development of Open APIs for the Nigerian financial industry," wrote Open Banking Nigeria.
The announcement was made a week ago in a blog post by Open Banking Nigeria.
According to Open Banking, this move is in line with what Africa's Talking does. And, it will also strengthen the companies value proposition not only in Nigeria but across the continent.
"To further strengthen their objectives of unlocking the potential of mobile communication networks across Africa by simplifying the process and technologies required to exploit them, the organization has teamed up with Open Banking Nigeria to help extend this innovation."
Africa’s Taking Country Director, Simon Aderinlola, said that Open Banking Nigeria has a "huge potential to drive financial inclusion" as well as "boost innovation in Nigeria". They have also struck the partnership to "create security and safety for customers to share their financial data with banks or third parties."
He added that this "would open the doors to millions of Nigerians currently out of the financial market”.
Africa’s Talking provides communication APIs for SMS, USSD, voice, and more. This helps technology startups and large companies communicate with their customers across Africa.
Founded in 2010 by Kenyans Sam Gikandi (CEO) and Eston Kimani (Director), they have raised at least $14.6 Million in funding.
The latest round was $8.6 Million which they closed in April this year. Led by IFC Venture Capital Group with participation from Orange Digital Ventures. The company recently announced expansion plans into West African markets.
Open Banking says that besides Africa's Talking, they have also so far secured Open Vector, TeamApt, and other companies.
As a not-for-profit, Open Banking Nigeria gets its funding from partner companies. But, it doesn't specify if they have packages like Gold, Silver etc. at which the partner companies join. Though, all the products developed are free for use by everyone including banks, OFIs, developers and more.