Yellow Card's Strategic Blueprint for Digital Transformation in Driving Crypto Adoption Across Africa

Oct 19, 2024

Yellow Card's Strategic Blueprint for Digital Transformation in Driving Crypto Adoption Across Africa

Oct 19, 2024

In the words of Yellow Card’s co-founder and CEO, Chris Maurice, “Together, by combining Yellow Card’s regional expertise with Coinbase’s global brand and infrastructure, we will empower the next one billion people across Africa to participate in the future of finance.”

This was after Coinbase’s partnership with Yellow Card to support its ‘Go Broad, Go Deep’ strategy of expanding into emerging markets while working closely with regulators in developed regions.

As Yellow Card transitions to focusing on enhancing cross-border payments in Africa by offering secure, scalable solutions for businesses and individuals to efficiently manage and protect digital assets, stablecoins are helping drive its future.

At Yellowcard, understanding local use cases has been a key enabler of strategic growth and expansion, laying the foundation for the company’s future.

Chris Maurice and Justin Poiroux (CTO) founded the company in 2018 after meeting a man who sent $200 from America to his family in Nigeria and the bank charged $90. In 2019, it launched in Nigeria with the objective of providing “basic financial services for all,” soon expanding to 20 African countries. While decentralized exchange remains the company’s beating heart, over the past 5 years its technological mix has shifted to cross-border remittances and stablecoins. Its Yellow Pay solution enables fast, affordable money transfers across 20 African countries, using stablecoins to provide competitive exchange rates for seamless “cash-coin-cash” transactions.

“If you look at why stablecoins have become so prolific across Africa, it’s because they solve the problems that most countries on the continent have, which is that businesses that operate in most parts of the continent have a very hard time accessing dollars,” says Chris Maurice.

The Yellow Card app is integrated with local payment methods in each country (like mobile money, bank transfers, and cash agents) for smooth trading of Bitcoin and stablecoins like USDC, USDT, and PYUSD, plus more. The app also gives direct access to commercial trade liquidity and digital asset solutions. People can enjoy convenient services and trade execution management anywhere in Africa.

“A lot of other parts of the world, but Africa is the most fun (when it comes to digital asset use cases), ” said Maurice in a NASDAQ Trade Talks interview. “Stablecoins is what a lot of businesses around the world and Africa have turned to manage treasury and risk for local currency.”

Photos by @yellowcard_app on X

Driving Continental Expansion

Stablecoins are just the latest in the company’s string of crypto offerings. With just a few taps, you can send your local currency, and your recipient will receive their local currency—anywhere in Africa, powered by stablecoins. Yellow Pay ensures fast, secure, and hassle-free transactions every time.

Yellow Card has expanded rapidly across multiple African markets and is driving crypto adoption by consolidating various fragmented crypto users to use stablecoins in their day-to-day transactions. Not only does the company want to promote stablecoin usage, ithas integrated Fireblocks to enhance cross-border transactions by providing secure, scalable on-chain solutions and managing up to 14 million multi-party computation (MPC) wallets.

“Much like the rest of the world, Africa has seen a transformative shift from traditional payment methods to alternative payments, driven by new technologies, with $100 billion worth of remittances flowing into the continent. However, cross-border payments are still encumbered by high costs, with low-value cross-border payments incurring steep fees,” said Ran Goldi, SVP Payments and Network at Fireblocks. “We are delighted to be working with Yellow Card to provide our direct custody wallets-as-a-service (WaaS), allowing them to secure their customers’ digital assets at scale.”

That ongoing shift is making direct customer engagement increasingly important, which means the company must leverage its capacity to deliver intelligent, personalized customer experiences to remain competitive. To do that, Yellow Card is working closely with partners of the English Premier League (EPL) to host exclusive watch parties for big matches, and users who complete transactions of a certain amount qualify for a spot. There’s also more opportunity for traders to claim victory every month by competing in the Yellow Card’s FPL mini league.

The current push continued with a partnership with Due to unlock global payments for 10+ countries (Botswana, Malawi, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Cameroon, Gabon, Ivory Coast, Kenya, and Senegal) on February 8, 2024. It deployed the Due platform for instant international settlements via USDC or local currencies at near-zero fees. People can get paid anywhere—bank transfers, mobile money, digital wallets, and more—in 60+ markets.

This week, it has also partnered with Alchemy (which bridges fiat-crypto via Ramp) Pay to bring seamless crypto access by enabling users in Botswana, Cameroon, Rwanda, South Africa, Uganda, and Zambia to buy crypto with local currencies via bank transfers and mobile money. In June, Alchemy Pay partnered with Scroll, integrating its services to allow users to access Tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC) while supporting over 50 fiat currencies across 173 countries.

“We are opening more doors for seamless access to stablecoins and decentralized finance in Africa, driving innovation and creating new opportunities for millions,” said Gillian Darko, Yellow Card’s Chief of Staff and Director of Strategy.

Many Africans were in a kind of “sleep” stage—in the loop of how to join the crypto ecosystem but not active. With these integrations, Yellow Card has launched a new contact form that will allow users to make stablecoin-powered cross-border payments regionally and internationally.

Photos by @yellowcard_app on X

Growth? Building Growth?

The current operations have laid the groundwork for even more growth on the continent.

“This is something that we’ve been very passionate about since day one when we launched in Africa. We not only want to educate people about cryptocurrency and digital assets, but also financial literacy across the board,” said CTO Justin Poiroux in the Chat with T podcast.

The company has launched the Yellow Card Academy that offers free access to simplified guides—including stablecoins and scams—to help people understand crypto, blockchain, trading strategies, and financial management.

“In different countries that we operate in, we partner with universities and ambassadors in order to educate as wide a range of audiences as possible. It is a real fundamental aspect of our business all the way from the individuals that may use our applications to the regulators that we are working with to grow the industry. Justin explained.

For now, Yellow Card organizes developer workshops and buildathons in partnership with Base (brings the world onchain) and TBD (an open protocol for global money movement). It provides an amazing experience for students, introducing them to the world of stablecoins, showcasing everything Yellow Card has to offer, and promoting women’s empowerment in the crypto space.

“There’s more to come, and women must be at the heart of this transformation. This role allows me to champion this cause, shape the future of payments, and collaborate with inspiring leaders to drive positive change,” said Gillian Darko.

Maurice and his team have focused on enabling Yellow Card’s growth in Africa from a cross-border remittance perspective, but the plan over the coming years is to continue simplifying the process of acquiring crypto by prospective users in several African nations.