In an era where digital payments transcend borders, the ability to globally scale and do so quickly is critical to success. To service today’s global market, Pan African fintech enabler Ukheshe Technologies, partnered with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to enhance its ability to scale on demand and enter territories that require fast and secure transactions. By participating in the AWS Partner Network (APN), Ukheshe is also able to enhance its own offering at scale.
Ukheshe now leverages Amazon Elastics Container Service (Amazon ECS) to run highly secure, reliable containers, enabling it to save up to 50 percent on computing costs with autonomous provisioning, auto-scaling, and pay-as you-go pricing. Amazon ECS is ideal as the service integrates seamlessly with AWS management and governance solutions which are standardised for compliance with virtually every regulatory agency around the globe.
Commenting on the scale of the partnership between Ukheshe and AWS, Ukheshe President of Global Partnerships, Donovan Drew, explains how customers can onboard to Ukheshe’s global Eclipse API payment orchestration framework within weeks. Ukheshe enabled Telkom Pay, an embedded finance solution, for one of South Africa’s largest telcos, Telkom.
The Eclipse API also enables cross border remittance services, Drew adds “The unicorns of Africa like Chipper Cash have selected our platform to scale at speed in territories across the globe with the ability to move cash effectively and efficiently, at a fraction of the cost banks typically charge. It’s these unique value propositions that provide cost effective financial inclusion offerings and encourage large African fintech players like Sasai and MTN MoMo to scale with us.”
As more countries facilitate and support individuals with fair regulation, Drew says Ukheshe is increasingly delivering affordable, instant and unified payment solutions that truly support global individual growth and freedom.
"Ukheshe has proudly serviced 474,000 merchants, signed more than 50 enterprise deals, and grown its staff complement to over 100 people and we are really excited about the global growth and scale to follow"
“We do this through established networks and partners that provide sophisticated, personalised and scalable digital solutions. In the end, all of this supports Ukheshe’s move into servicing emerging markets where there is ample opportunity for mainstream institutions to ensure meaningful financial inclusion solutions for their customers,” notes Drew.
Henri Zietsman, Startup & Venture Capital Business Development Manager, “Ukheshe is on a remarkable growth path, and we are delighted to partner with them as they innovate on behalf of their customers. The AWS architected framework looks after the six pillars of success, including: security/regulation, resilience, scale, efficiency, sustainability, and of course, balances the pillars into costs.”
Ukheshe makes use of Amazon ECS, which allows Ukheshe’s financial services enterprises to leverage AWS Outposts to run containerised applications that require particularly low latencies to on-premise systems. Outposts is a fully managed service that extends AWS infrastructure, AWS services, APIs, and tools to virtually any connected site. “With Amazon ECS on Outposts, you can manage containers on-premises with the same ease as you manage your containers in the cloud. What makes this journey so exciting is AWS partners, including Ukheshe, are eligible to leverage AWS Activate to offer real industry-leading innovation.