Mazzuma, the Ghanaian based mobile payments startup has become the first blockchain-based startup in Africa to launch an Initial Exchange Offering(IEO).Â
Mazzuma is an online payment system which utilizes a distributed secure infrastructure to enable seamless payments. Since their inception in 2015, Mazzuma has recorded over $1 million USD worth of transactions with a user record of up to 26,000 registered users on their blockchain network.
Four years down the line, Mazzuma now snatches the title as the first African blockchain startup to perform an IEO.Â
With an in house Token called MAZ Token and a merge with local mobile money payment systems, Mazzuma is starting a drift to blockchain-based payments. Financial services in Ghana and Africa face various setbacks of which transaction limits and high transaction fees are included.
With a combination of blockchain technology and artificial intelligence, Mazzuma is set to cause an innovative disruption in the way financial technologies are viewed on the African continent.Â
Kofi Genfi, Co-founder of CYST, the software innovation company under which Mazzuma erupted from had quite a handful to say when asked about his opinion for the need for blockchain technology in the provision of financial services on the African continent.
He said:
Blockchain is one of the most disruptive technologies to have impacted the world of finance and that the need for financial inclusion is much more apparent in Africa than anywhere in the world. Blockchain he said has the potential to disrupt and create new market opportunities is an essentiality contributing to Africa’s growth and development.
Kofi Genfi
Mazzuma Partners with Simex
On the 16th of July 2019, Mazzuma announced their plan to launch an IEO in partnership with Simex Exchange, the first of its kind on the African continent. After a successful initial coin offering (ICO) the previous year, Mazzuma continues to achieve success on their Roadmap with the first African IEO underway and finally the listing of the MAZ token after.
An IEO is a liquidity creation mechanism for tokens via accredited exchanges. Token sales are conducted on exchange platforms to ensure safety for both the assets and investors. This comes after many failed or scammed ICO’s which have made investors wary of the idea of purchasing tokens.Â
Simex is one of the largest exchange services included in the top 50 cryptocurrency exchanges by actively traded volume. During IEO’s on the Simex platform, investors are not required to do a KYC (know your customer) as they’re already registered on the Simex platform.
With payment partners like Visa and Mastercard as well as media publications on Yahoo Finance and CNN Money that Simex has, Mazzuma seems to have a solid partner to help ensure and promote the wildfire of disruption and innovation they’re starting in Africa.
Mazzuma’s historic IEO is adding up to the growing cryptocurrency ecosystem in Ghana.Â
