Mastercard forms A2A payments partnership with Nigeria’s Mono

African Open Banking platform Mono has formed a strategic partnership with Mastercard to introduce its ‘DirectPay Pay with Bank’ on the Mastercard ‘Payment Gateway System’ (MPGS) in Nigeria.

The MPGS acts as a “single touch point” for developers and businesses in the country to access payment methods, APIs and fraud protection services, and now Mono’s account-to-account (A2A) payment solution.

Businesses delivering services to Nigerian consumers can use the MPGS solution to gain access to Mono DirectPay to collect A2A payments, which are typically faster and more secure.

Abdul Hassan, co-founder and chief executive officer of Mono, said: “This partnership was also made possible by a sustained relationship between us and Mastercard, after being the first Nigerian Open Banking company to be accepted into the inaugural Start Path Open Banking program in Africa where we had the immense opportunity to access Mastercard’s technology, network and expertise.”

Mono was accepted onto the three-month program in June 2022.

Hassan added: “For Mono, this partnership will allow us to expand the scale of our Pay with Bank account-to-account payment offering, address evolving consumer and business needs, receive valuable feedback from diverse businesses, deepen our Open Banking expertise, and contribute to building the future of digital commerce and payments in Africa.”

At the start of this year, Mastercard selected 15 startups from around the world to take part in the Start Path Small Business and Open Banking programs respectively.

Six companies have been chosen for its Open Banking program, all of which will receive exposure to Mastercard’s Open Banking technology, data connectivity and analytics offerings.