Like consumers in Indonesia and India exchanged landlines for cellphones years ago, African institutions are embracing crypto over traditional finance. At Yahoo Finance’s All Markets Summit Plus conference, Elizabeth Rossiello, founder of the Africa-focused fintech platform AZA Finance, said crypto was helping improve issues such as transactions during banking holidays, the dollar-dominated system, issues around Africa’s cross-border payments, and more.
Elizabeth Rossiello said in an interview with Yahoo Finance:
“When we’re trading between continents that don’t involve the dollar, why should we be using dollar legacy infrastructure? That might sound radical, but it really doesn’t make a lot of sense to trade from West Africa to the U.S. and then back to South Africa in almost a triangle.”
More and more financial institutions show a preference for stablecoins
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","restrictedCountries":["CA","MX"],"attributes":{},"tableRowLabel":""}],"displayAttributes":[]}"}Rather than transacting in dollars attached to the traditional banking system, quite a few financial institutions have embraced use of stablecoins. The establishments in the 100+ countries, in which AZA Finance operates are turning to crypto trading more and more often in order to increase efficiency of operations. While stablecoins haven’t become universal, they are another option that some institutions that work with her company are turning to since the latter created the first Africa-based crypto exchange. At the moment, stablecoins are a complimentary option.
“In our basket of over 100 currency pairs that we trade, digital currency pairs are right alongside it. And so when there’s a U.S. dollar holiday, for example, in North America, we don’t need trading to stop in West Africa or South Africa or trade between Africa and China. So digital currencies really provide a necessary solution, not just for investing in a future asset class, but also in infrastructure for settlement of foreign exchange and frontier markets.”
Regulators must embrace rather than stigmatize crypto
It’s interesting to see how crypto is being used and exchanged across the globe at a time when US-based crypto coverage is concentrated on speculation, particularly after El Salvador adopted Bitcoin as legal tender.
To AZA’s CEO, who also co-chairs the World Economic Forum’s Blockchain Council, this is all the more reason to embrace rather than reject crypto. According to her, consumers are going to see the regulatory map turn greener because “it’s too much velocity to stop moving forward.” We’ve come too far to go back. Now is the time to make successful buying and selling of crypto a reality.
