16 March 2025
Value-added service (VAS) platforms, from mobile money to digital content delivery, increasingly rely on robust API frameworks and modern infrastructure as their backbone. By exposing core functionalities (payments, identity, notifications) through standardized APIs, VAS providers can integrate diverse services quickly and at scale. Across Africa, this means opening up mobile wallets, banking data, and telecom networks via secure interfaces. Companies are building on modular fintech stacks (microservices, cloud-hosted platforms, and open-source building blocks) to make services adaptable. Key enablers include standard payment APIs, developer hubs, and telecom aggregator interfaces. These components ensure that startups and established businesses can “plug and play” new features as demand grows.
Open banking frameworks are a prime example of this trend. Regulators in Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya and elsewhere have launched policies to unlock bank data through APIs. As a result, these frameworks ensure that fintechs and VAS providers have a trusted, standardized layer for exchanging customer data (with consent), enabling features like instant account-to-wallet payments, credit scoring and personalized services.
This expanding API ecosystem translates directly into scalable VAS platforms. For example, Cellulant’s Tingg is a pan-African payments platform built around a single API. Tingg integrates 370+ payment methods across 35 countriesfrontierafricareports.com, allowing merchants to collect mobile money, cards, bank transfers or vouchers through one interface. Cellulant’s CEO notes that investing in “a single API payment platform” and strong infrastructure has enabled millions of real-time transactions per monthfrontierafricareports.com.
These cases illustrate how African fintechs leverage open and programmable infrastructures:
In summary, APIs and modern infrastructure form the digital rails for VAS scalability in Africa. Open banking policies, telecom APIs, and cloud-ready fintech platforms let entrepreneurs and corporates build adaptable, high-performance services. As one industry report notes, global open banking API traffic is expected to grow hundreds of percent by 2029juniperresearch.com – and Africa is clearly riding that wave through initiatives like Chenosis and Tingg. The result is a more inclusive ecosystem where fintechs can innovate at speed without reinventing plumbing.
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