Appzone rebrands to ‘Zone’, to power global payments with regulated blockchain network

APPZONE, one of Africa’s leading Fintech Software Providers, has rebranded to ‘Zone’, a regulated blockchain payment infrastructure company.

Zone’s regulated blockchain network enables direct transaction flow between financial service providers without an intermediary, bringing reduced transaction costs, instant dispute resolution and absolute reliability across Africa’s payment borders and beyond.

As part of its evolution, Appzone is pivoting from its cloud-based SaaS infrastructure to offer payments processing services that support both fiat money and digital currencies, with the intention to enable a hybrid interim period in finance where TradFi and DeFi will coexist seamlessly.

In the case of fiat payments, Zone connects some of Africa’s most prominent banks and fintechs within and across countries and utilises a native stable coin to provide real-time settlement for cross-border transactions.

In 2022, Zone was issued a ‘payment Switching and Processing Licence’ by the Central Bank of Nigeria, making it the first payment infrastructure company based on Blockchain to be licensed in Africa.

Following the rebrand, Appzone’s Banking-as-a-Service business has been carved into a separate standalone company, known as Qore, so it can continue serving existing clients and growing the SaaS platform’s reach.

This new standalone business will be led by some members of its elite leadership team, including Emeka Emetarom, Co-founder and Executive Director of Appzone and Mudiaga Umukoro, co-founder and CEO of Appzone’s subsidiary, Appzone Core.

Appzone’s products currently process over $2 billion annually for 500 plus banks, Fintechs and MFIs in seven countries – this includes payments processing for six of Africa’s top 25 banks.

Speaking on the rebrand, Emetarom said, “We have led Africa’s fintech sector in global firsts for over a decade. As Appzone, we launched the first core banking and omnichannel software on the cloud as well as the first multi-bank direct debit service based on single global mandates.

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“With this transition to Zone, we are utilising the power of blockchain technology to connect every monetary store of value and enable reliable, frictionless and universally interoperable payments.

“In doing this, we are building one global network to pay anyone through any means, in any currency, which will ultimately maximise financial inclusion and accelerate economic prosperity for Africa and the rest of the world.”

Co-founder and CTO for Zone, Wale Onawunmi, added, “Our next-generation decentralised payment technology, which is the first of its kind, will challenge the status quo and become the future of payments for the world.”