Limonetik Sees Huge Post-Acquisition Payments Growth In Africa And Asia

Playing in the big leagues. That is the new environment French payment platform Limonetik finds itself in, according to CEO and Co-founder Christophe Bourbier, following its acquisition by cross-border payments leader Thunes in July.

In an interview with PYMNTS, Bourbier said the Thunes-Limonetik alliance is an ideal match, given how both companies complement each other in the solutions they provide: “It is the ability both companies have to collect money from anywhere and send money anywhere, with a strong focus on very fast-growing countries, markets and clients.”

See also: Thunes Acquisition Of Limonetik Brings Two Global Pain Points Under A Single Solution

Thunes’ “entrepreneur mindset” also adds strength to the merger, which geographically presents huge opportunities for Limonetik outside Europe. Launched in 2017, the cross-border payments firm is used globally outside of its home base in Singapore and reaches over 100 countries spanning more than 60 currency types.

Emerging Markets Rife With Opportunities

Unlike developed countries that have long relied on credit card schemes for their payments needs, emerging markets like Africa and Asia claim large shares of the global unbanked population. And the absence of a credit payment system has made these markets rife with opportunities, giving way to the development of a mobile money system that has been serving people in the regions for decades.

“It started with mobile airtime top-up — that was the only way for people to communicate and convert their cash into some digital type of money. And now it has become a type of super-payment that can compete against any type of wallet and credit card payment,” Bourbier told PYMNTS’ Karen Webster.

Cash-in and cash-out transactions still represent most mobile money flows in these emerging and developing markets, with only about 40 percent of funds going into a mobile wallet modality. And that percentage goes primarily to bill payments as opposed to merchant payments, hinting at an acceptance challenge on the part of businesses when it comes to mobile wallets.

Tackling The Merchant Challenge

Small businesses drive most of the activity in developing regions, so tackling the merchant onboarding challenge head-on is key. But this can be a challenging feat in highly fragmented markets like Africa, where moving from one country to the other means dealing with different types of mobile wallets, as well as different legal infrastructures and legal constraints.

“It’s a bit like Europe — from the outside, it feels like one single zone, but when you go into detail, you realize that every country has its own payment methods and its own rules on everything, and that compliance is different from one country to the next,” Bourbier explained. It remains possible to get small business owners to warm up to a digital payments environment.

As Bourbier noted, “that is where the marriage with Thunes makes so much sense.” The merger will give both companies access to those markets, where they can work to ensure that all mobile wallets are converted into real wallets that will serve users beyond simply making calls or sending money to peers. The end goal is to have customers making merchant purchases in a marketplace, and possibly to introduce the usage of a QR code payment process.

Moreover, getting merchants to see the opportunities to expand their geographic footprint with cross-border selling is another way to persuade them of the benefits involved beyond simply enabling a transaction via a mobile wallet.

For instance, a Kenyan merchant selling products to an Egyptian customer should not have to worry about encountering cross-border complexity simply because his goods are being transported from East Africa to someone in North Africa, said Bourbier.

“You have to aggregate technology, and you have to aggregate legal and compliance complexity and make this very simple for every merchant, so that thanks to one API, they will in a way have access to the entire Africa zone,” he added.

Eliminating Integration Complexity

Bourbier noted that different players will be important, and merchants will have to take them all into account when venturing into digital payments solutions. But with hundreds of alternative payment methods coupled with integration complexity that goes along with it, Limonetik’s single API integration will stand out.

Today, the European payment methods platform supports over 285 local payment methods in 60 different countries, making it a single entry point for merchants seeking easy access into the growing payment solutions space.

“Our job is to make sure that access to payment methods will be as evolved and as simple as we know it in Europe, in the U.S. and in all other countries where online payment is a must,” said Bourbier.