From its pioneering facial recognition technology to enabling corporate clients make bulk payments through its mobile-based application, AlexPay hopes to realise its goal of being the best in whatever it does through new inventions that prioritise efficiency, speed and cost.

“We are not going to be the first in what we do but we want to be the best in what we do,” the Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, Mr Jacques Blinbaum, said in a media interaction in Accra.

The company also aims to build the relevant inventions and structures that enable people across Africa to make payments through its AlexPay App under a project dubbed ‘One Africa, One Payment’, Mr Blinbaum said.

In line with this, he said the company had introduced a feature that allowed customers to pay their bills in different countries using the variety of currencies offered.

Priorities

Mr Blinbaum said although AlexPay aimed to give customers the best experience in the fintech business, it was conscious of price and efficiency.

“Just because someone said it should 1.5 per cent does not mean it has to be 1.5 per cent.

“So, efficiency is important and we have a great history of success in Brazil in working with the banks,” he said, noting that the company was working to cut out third parties in the aggregation process in a bid to reduce cost.

He said the company’s direct relationship with banks also offered it the benefits of economies of scale, making it possible for AlexPay to service customers at relatively lower prices.

“Imagine that you are doing a 1,000 billings per month through a bank, the bank will negotiate a fee but if you go through my platform, I can go to that same bank and negotiate for five million transactions and you know that I will be given lower prices than they will give you for 1,000 transactions.

“So, by going through our platform, I can charge you at a price that is substantially lower than the one you will get if you go to the bank yourself,” he said.

Range of services

Co-founded in Ghana by Mr Blinbaum and Mr Moses Kanduri, the Chief Operating Officer, AlexPay is a multinational brand with more than two decades of experience in the global payment ecosystem, which it sweats to the benefit of its two-year old branch in Accra.

The company started operations in the country in 2017 and came with a range of products that, it said, were meant to set it apart in the relatively competitive industry.

Its App was web-based, making it less heavy and more user-friendly, Mr Kanduri said during the press briefing.

He explained that the company provided mobile money interoperability and platform for suite of billing and payment solutions across all networks.

It also undertakes mobile money, banking, credit/debit cards through a three-pronged approach meant to help create a diverse community.

He added that the platform also allowed customers to request their friends and loved ones to make payments on their behalf.

Such requests, he said, could be made in the form of invoices to the prospective payers.

“In the international perspective, AlexPay will connect to Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, DRC and Liberia as first stage growth,” he said, adding that customers in any of these countries were at liberty to choose the currencies they wanted to use in doing business.

Feature products

Touching on plans for the future, Mr Kanduri said the company was working at introducing features on its app that would allow crowd funding platform, contribution for charitable causes and collection by individuals and institutions.

He said the company was also in discussions with Power Distribution Services (PDS) to make it possible for customers to pay their electricity bills using the platform.