Cross Border Payments and the Alchemy of Price and Volatility
On this episode of The Trajectory Africa, we’re talking to Ola Oyetayo, Co-Founder and CEO of Verto, the first "all in one" cross-border payments platform for corporate treasuries in emerging markets. He’ll help us understand the mechanics of cross-border payments, why they're so expensive in Africa, how to improve price transparency and manage volatility, and how supporting cross-border payments evolves into accounts payable workflows.
We're picking up a theme that emerged in Episode 2, when Samora Kariuki highlighted intercontinental money movement as an “unlock” for the rest of the (digital) financial system. Similarly, Wiza Jalakasi from Episode 3 argued that money should move the way Africans and their business activities do—across borders. Finally, in the last episode with Sassoum Niang on building payments infrastructure, she emphasized that the tech isn’t the hardest part. It’s the financial operations—reconciliation, accounting system integration, and currency settlement.
We're picking up a theme that emerged in Episode 2, when Samora Kariuki highlighted intercontinental money movement as an “unlock” for the rest of the (digital) financial system. Similarly, Wiza Jalakasi from Episode 3 argued that money should move the way Africans and their business activities do—across borders. Finally, in the last episode with Sassoum Niang on building payments infrastructure, she emphasized that the tech isn’t the hardest part. It’s the financial operations—reconciliation, accounting system integration, and currency settlement.
So, we’re pulling on all those threads in this conversation with Ola.
Tune in to hear about:
[2:14] - Sharing Verto’s origin story during a product launch
[7:08] - The problems in cross-border payments that Verto solves
[28:49] - How cross border payment facilitation evolves into supporting business operations
[49:37] - The business of moving money across borders
[56:17] - Counterintuitive first principle
Recommendations:
- Chasing Outliers. Why Context Matters for Early Stage Investing in Africa, a report I co-authored on VC investing in Africa.
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