#17: Interswitch - How the pioneering Nigerian FinTech & payments platform became one of the most valuable private companies in Africa

Overview: Today, we’re going to talk about Interswitch, the African fintech payments company. We'll discuss its founding, early history, growth, place in the broader African fintech ecosystem & end with our views on its future outlook. This episode was recorded on Nov 29, 2020. Companies discussed: Interswitch, Telnet, Visa, Helios Investment Partners, Stripe, Flutterwave, Paystack & Jumia Pay Business concepts discussed: Nigerian Payments ecosystem, payments partnerships strategy, card networks, payments infrastructure, low-end disruption, banking regulation & payments M&A strategy Conversation highlights: (02:40) - Why Interswitch is important (10:50) - Nigeria payments ecosystem and pre-Interswitch context (18:12) - Interswitch founding (22:40) - Interswitch fundraising from Helios, Visa etc and expansion (34:24) - Interswitch competition across Nigeria’s payment landscape (40:34) - Interswitch today - size, financials, margins (45:17) - Interswitch relative to competitors (56:37) - Bankole’s general thoughts and outlook (1:02:15) - Olumide’s general thoughts and outlook (1:04:15) - Recommendations, small wins and open questions Olumide’s recommendations, small wins & open questions: Recommendation: Reddit FATFIRE thread: "What asymmetric bets are you currently placing? Good discussion. A little bit of crypto, a little bit of leveraged investments, some talk about options, individual stocks, etc Small win: Using Fitbit Inspire 2 for sleep tracking (switched from Oura ring) Other content: Visa's 2020-Feb Investor day (slide 124) (from Visa's investors site) Open question: What can we learn from the founding of interswitch? Bankole’s recommendations, small wins & open questions: Recommendation: Invest Like The Best podcast ft Nick Kokkonas Small win: Easy does it in my Fantasy Premier League this season. Not doing exceptionally or doing well. Other content: Interswitch 2019 Bond Prospectus Open question: What do you think? Are you bullish on Interswitch vs the competition? Why? Let us know via email / twitter. We’d love to hear from you. If you have feedback, topics you’d like to hear, or just want to say hello, please email [email protected] Join our insider mailing list where we get feedback on new episodes & find all episodes at Afrobility.com