In our August 2021 feature, we sit down with Sefinah Hussein, the driving force behind Zone Switch at AppZone, Africa’s first regulated Layer-1 blockchain network dedicated to payments. Under her stewardship, Zone Switch has evolved from a bold concept into a cornerstone of seamless, cross-border value exchange across the continent. Today’s conversation, guided by our tech journalist, explores how Sefinah’s vision and hands-on leadership shaped the product’s journey from whiteboard to live deployment.
Interviewer: Sefinah, thank you for taking the time to walk us through your role at AppZone. To start, what first drew you to the challenge of building Zone Switch on a Layer-1 blockchain?
Sefinah: Thank you. From my early days as a product manager, I’ve been fascinated by how infrastructure choices shape user experiences. When AppZone decided to pioneer a regulated blockchain layer tailored for payments, I immediately saw the potential to redefine trust and speed in African remittances, and that challenge was too exciting to pass up.
Interviewer: In shaping Zone Switch, how did you balance compliance requirements with the need for a frictionless user journey?
Sefinah: It was a dance between two worlds. On one side, we had regulators insisting on auditability, settlement finality, and clear KYC/AML guardrails. On the other hand, our customers expected near-instant transfers with minimal clicks. We bridged that gap by embedding permissioned nodes that run compliance smart contracts under the hood, so the end user never feels slowed down, even as every transaction stays on-chain and fully auditable.
Interviewer: You often speak about “designing for real-time value.” Can you unpack what that meant when you first sketched Zone Switch’s architecture?
Sefinah: Real-time value meant more than low latency. It was about guaranteeing that once a payment is initiated, both sender and receiver can trust that the funds are irrevocably settled without intermediary delays. That dictated everything from consensus algorithms to how we handled transaction finality, even cross-chain liquidity adapters had to respect that core promise.
Interviewer: Pivot moments are inevitable in product journeys. Can you tell me about a turning point during Zone Switch’s early development?
Sefinah: Absolutely. We initially built our testnet assuming liquidity pools would spontaneously form once we launched. Reality hit when partner banks hesitated to seed those pools. We had to pivot fast. We introduced an incentive program, tightly coordinating with our regulatory partners, to bootstrap pools. That pivot taught us to build incentives directly into protocol design rather than add them later.
Interviewer: What was the most surprising feedback you received from early adopters?
Sefinah: Surprisingly, it wasn’t about speed or cost. Many businesses told us they loved the granular transaction metadata Zone Switch exposed. They were pulling that data into their own analytics to better understand customer cash-flow patterns. That insight pushed us to enrich our data model and release a dashboard API sooner than planned.
Interviewer: Collaboration across functions is key in a regulated environment. How did you foster alignment between engineering, legal, and compliance teams?
Sefinah: Daily stand-ups evolved into multidisciplinary huddles. I encouraged engineers to shadow compliance calls and invited legal experts to join sprint reviews. That cross-pollination broke down the “us versus them” mentality when a developer knows why a compliance checkbox matters, they design around it rather than grudgingly bolt it on.
Interviewer: Launching a Layer-1 network is as much an operational feat as it is a technical one. How did you prepare for mainnet go-live?
Sefinah: We treated the mainnet launch as a product release with three pillars: technical readiness, partner readiness, and crisis planning. We ran fully simulated “black-swan” drills that tested everything from node take-downs to KYC audit requests. On the day, switching support channels to 24/7, pre-positioning on-call experts and handing out clear decision-trees made all the difference.
Interviewer: In Africa’s diverse payments landscape, local context matters deeply. How did you adapt Zone Switch for different regional banking realities?
Sefinah: We built modular settlement adapters, essentially plug-ins for each country’s rails. That lets us respect local clearing cycles, currency controls, and even network downtimes, without rewriting core protocol logic. Our product team partnered with regional experts to map those nuances, ensuring each adapter felt native to banks and PSPs.
Interviewer: Looking back, which metric or milestone made you feel that Zone Switch was truly succeeding?
Sefinah: When a telecom operator in East Africa processed its first million-dollar remittance run using our API, I realised we had gone from proof-of-concept to real economic impact. It wasn’t just about volume; it was that trusted usage on a regulated chain, with zero reconciliation disputes afterwards.
Interviewer: Product setbacks can be as formative as wins. Was there a bug or outage that challenged your team, and what lessons emerged?
Sefinah: During a testnet stress test, a memory leak in our consensus client caused nodes to drift out of sync. It disrupted our testnet for hours and surfaced gaps in our monitoring. That incident drove home the value of end-to-end observability, so we overhauled our telemetry stack, adding self-healing scripts that detect and restart misbehaving nodes instantly.
Interviewer: Beyond the technical build, how did you cultivate trust among banks and regulators to embrace a blockchain-native payments layer?
Sefinah: Trust came from transparency. We opened our sandbox environment to central bank auditors, walked them through transaction flows in real-time, and co-authored our compliance playbook. By inviting regulators into the process, we turned them into allies rather than gatekeepers.
Interviewer: How have you woven user-centric design into a protocol-level product like Zone Switch?
Sefinah: Even at the protocol level, every feature starts with a user story. We built out personas, treasury managers, remittance platforms, micro-merchants and mapped how each interacts with settlement finality, liquidity sourcing, and reconciliation. That kept our spec meetings grounded in real human needs, not abstract tech capabilities.
Interviewer: As Zone Switch moves toward broader adoption, what’s next on your roadmap?
Sefinah: We’re working on atomic swaps with other regulated chains, unlocking cross-platform liquidity. We’re also rolling out multi-signature wallets that let corporate treasuries set tiered approval flows. And finally, we’re packaging our data analytics as a plug-and-play module for enterprise dashboards.
Interviewer: If you could offer one piece of advice to the next product manager tackling blockchain infrastructure, what would it be?
Sefinah: Never lose sight of the human element. Blockchain can feel like abstract code and consensus protocols, but at its core, it’s about trust between people and institutions. Design every feature to strengthen that trust, and then the technology will follow.
Interviewer: Thank you, Sefinah. Your journey with Zone Switch is an inspiring example of product leadership in a rapidly evolving tech frontier. We look forward to watching how AppZone continues to reshape payments across Africa.
Sefinah: Thank you. It’s been a pleasure sharing our story.
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