Zone (formerly Appzone), Africa’s first regulated Tier 1 blockchain network for payments, and ThetaRay , a leading provider of an AI-based transaction monitoring technology, today announced that they will collaborate to implement ThetaRay’s cloud-based SONAR solution to monitor and control Zone transactions in Nigeria to identify illicit activities and sanctions violations.
Zone, headquartered in Lagos, serves major commercial banks, payments fintechs, digital banks and other financial institutions with low-cost, real-time settlement in both fiat and digital currencies for domestic and cross-border payments.
Through this agreement, ThetaRay will provide Zone with the software-as-a-service (SaaS) AI solution capable of detecting and preventing early signs of sophisticated attempts to launder money or circumvent financial sanctions and watchlists. The solution will help Zone ensure full compliance with anti-money laundering regulatory requirements and increase its growth opportunities by providing a trusted and secure service.
The new collaboration highlights ThetaRay’s expansion into the Nigerian fintech payments market.
Zone is Africa’s first decentralized or peer-to-peer payment network based on blockchain technology, which enables payment transactions without relying on intermediary transfers. The decentralized architecture and underlying technology improves reliability, eliminates business disputes, reduces the cost of operations, and automates back-office reconciliation. The network is a true web-scale infrastructure, with transaction processing throughput capacity exceeding 50,000 transactions per second.
“We are thrilled with our partnership with ThetaRay, a collaboration that is an important step forward in our vision to become a single global network to pay anyone, by any means, in any way. currency, in the most efficient and secure way possible,” said Elendu Uche, Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer.
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“Through the integration with ThetaRay, we have improved our security measures and regulatory compliance, while providing our users with faster transaction processing within our decentralized payment network. We look forward to working even more closely with ThetaRay to continue to provide our customers with smooth operations and reliable transactions.
Africa’s largest economy with a population of 200 million people, Nigeria is home to Africa’s largest fintech ecosystem and over 200 financial technology (fintech) companies. The country’s young population has fostered Nigeria’s thriving fintech sector, increased smartphone penetration and focused regulatory efforts to improve financial inclusion and cashless payments, according to research firm McKinsey . 1 The booming fintech market is helping improve financial inclusion in Nigeria, where more than 40 percent of the population is unbanked.
“Zone is a major innovation in Nigerian fintech, with a platform capable of revolutionizing the financial system through inclusive services that positively impact people’s lives,” said Mark Gazit, CEO of ThetaRay. “By deploying sophisticated AI technology to monitor and control payments, Zone will drive trust in its services, enabling it to grow its volume, revenue and ecosystem partners. »
ThetaRay’s award-winning SONAR solution is based on a form of proprietary AI, artificial intelligence intuition, which replaces human biases, giving the system the power to recognize anomalies and find uncertainties outside of normal behavior , including entirely new typologies. It enables fintechs and banks to implement a risk-based approach to effectively identify suspicious activity and build a holistic picture of customer identities, including across complex cross-border transaction pathways. This enables the rapid discovery of money laundering threats, both known and unknown.
