Nigerian cryptocurrency startup Yellow Card has launched a new service called Yellow Pay, which makes money transfers easier but also aims to open up the continent to more investment, access to credit, and business grants.
Formed in 2018 and launched in Nigeria in 2019, Yellow Card makes it easy for anyone, anywhere in Africa, to buy cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum and USDT Stablecoin using cash, mobile money, card, or bank transfer. The company claims to be “building a new financial infrastructure for the African continent”.
Disrupt Africa reported last year the startup had raised US$15 million in Series A funding to ramp up hiring and continue its expansion across the continent, and in May it made Ivory Coast its 16th market.
Yellow Card has now launched payment feature Yellow Pay, which makes it easier for customers to send and receive money through the Yellow Card crypto exchange platform, without any extra charges, instantly all from the comfort of their home.
Oparinde Babatunde, Yellow Card director of operations, said one of the biggest challenges in Africa is the difficulty in money transfer.
“Yellow Pay simplifies money transfer between African countries by building a solution that understands the way Africans already interact with financial products. We’ve managed to simplify it further by reducing costs and waiting time of remittance across the continent drastically compared to traditional money transfer rails. With Yellow Pay, Africans can send money across borders using their phones,” he said.
“The people that will benefit from Yellow Pay the most are the unbanked and underserved people living in peri-urban areas and rural parts of the continent. They usually do not meet the necessary requirements to open a dollar account with banks and as such are cut off completely. Yellow Pay will service this market.”
