Uche Elendu, Co-founder and Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Appzone, has advised that the adoption of blockchain technology could solve the dispute and fraud claims between customers and financial institutions in Nigeria.  He says that blockchain technology could help decentralize the process of moving money from one bank to another and better yet increase the level of visibility and transparency during procedures.  

This thought was shared by Uche Elendu during his presentation at the recently completed Digital Pay Expo summit, a two-day event that was sponsored by Appzone. The summit explored the possibility of using Decentralized Finance (DeFi) to access financing across the African continent.

As more Nigerians get financially included, customers have continued to move away from cash and checks toward electronic payments. For banks and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), this trend is encouraging, nevertheless, as card and internet transactions increase, so do the number of disputed transactions and the prevalence of fraud, placing pressure on the dispute procedures.

Speaking about the adoption of blockchain technology to foster a speedy payment settlement process, Uche Elendu, said;

“Financial institutions across the continent have continued to evolve, leveraging technology. They have metamorphosed from the days of a heavy analogue process to a more digitized era, and with the continuous increase in the volume of banking transactions, It remains pertinent to continuously adopt newer and more sophisticated technology infrastructure to remain dependable, especially with payment settlements. For us at Appzone, we are firm believers in blockchain technology. Its decentralized nature not only makes it faster, cheaper, and transparent but also makes it sophisticated enough to enable real-time settlement.”

Uche added, “Having rolled out Zone, Africa’s first blockchain platform for payment processing in 2021, partner banks who have onboarded with us have seen a drastic change in their payment settlement process. Zone’s innovative architecture will reduce complaints from customers and provide banks with an opportunity to deliver delightful experiences on payment channels while also driving down costs”. 

Zone is Africa’s first decentralized payment network that enables inter-bank transactions to be completed directly between banks on the Blockchain without the need for any middlemen, developed in line with Appzone’s recent transformation into a payment infrastructure company. 

Appzone was recently named the “Excellence in Blockchain Technology Awards” winner at the Africa Fintech Summit 2022, which was held in Washington, DC.