Until recently, all micropayments in Nigeria, that is transactions under 10 dollars, occurred in cash exchanges, allowing no record for transactions, inconveniencing users with securing access to cash in a country that has had cash crises, and costing the government often more to move the cash than the value of the cash itself. This is why indigenous IT company Touch and Pay developed Near Field Communication technology to allow for digital and off-line micropayments between businesses and individuals as well, tackling, according to CEO Olamide Afolabi, a problem that is not only technical: “payment is a social problem, technology is just the medium to solve it, and we have the technology, so we want to help solve this problem for people.”

With 3.5 million customers currently, and a goal of reaching 7 million by the end of 2024, the company is surely in the right track and with the right idea: by leveraging the use of NFC, its services are now widely used not only for transactions which save customers the need to worry about cash, but for communicating ideas, products, services and information through endto-end business solutions including prototyping, production, quality checking and product launches. “We cannot have another cash crisis in Nigeria nor in Africa; we want everybody in Africa to use money more effectively, securely, and intelligently,” adds Mr. Afolabi.