A decade of success: How InTouch is shaping the future of payments in Africa

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‍Interview with Omar Cissé, CEO :” Last year, we processed around 3 billion euros in transactions.”

As fintech revolutionizes financial inclusion, accelerates transactions and reduces their costs, InTouch stands out as a key player in this change. We met Omar Cissé, its CEO, at the Africa CEO Forum in Kigali. Founder of one of the first ICT incubators in Senegal, CTIC Dakar, and co-founder of Teranga Capital, Omar Cissé shares valuable insights on the strategies and successes of his company, which is celebrating its tenth anniversary this year. He discusses the successes of his platform, which simplifies financial transactions in a context of multiple regulatory and monetary challenges on the continent, and also shares his vision for the future of payments in Africa.

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Financial Afrik: First of all, could you present InTouch, its missions, and explain to us how the idea for this startup came to you?

Omar Cissé : InTouch was founded in 2014 and this year we are celebrating our tenth anniversary. Our main mission is to support the entrepreneurial ecosystem and to simplify the acceptance of payments for entrepreneurs. As you know, talking about Africa as a single entity is simplistic, because it is a continent of 54 countries with various regulations and currencies. We are facing a multitude of players in the field of mobile money, and cards, not to mention cash. Bringing all of these elements together is a considerable challenge. InTouch therefore offers a unique platform that allows merchants and businesses in the ecosystem to accept all payment methods in the easiest way. Our particularity is to offer personalized solutions to our customers, we position ourselves as the SS2I [Information Services and Engineering Company, editor's note] of payment.

FA: What is your assessment of InTouch's achievements in various countries after ten years?

Omar Cissé : Ten years after its creation, InTouch is firmly established with 23 subsidiaries in Africa and teams in 16 countries. Last year, we processed around 3 billion euros in transactions, which corresponds to nearly 2,000 billion CFA francs and more than 186 million transactions. We work with nearly 3,000 businesses, as well as approximately 60,000 merchants who use our platform to accept payments or distribute digital services.

FA: Can you describe to us the strategy you have developed over the years to retain your customers and strengthen your pan-African presence?

Omar Cissé : For ten years, we have capitalized on the evolution of mobile money and digital services in Africa. We worked on every link in the payment chain. Initially, we helped merchants make mobile money deposits and withdrawals. Gradually, we have moved towards the facilitation of payments. Currently, we are in a phase where businesses and SMEs have adopted digital payments. Above all, we want to offer a personalized experience in the field of payments. InTouch is positioned to help these SMEs and retailers simplify payment for their customers.

First of all, we invested in quality human resources. InTouch currently employs around 400 people in 16 countries. From the start, we have focused on recruiting talent, and more specifically entrepreneurs. When building a business on this scale, it's important that entrepreneurs take the initiative and develop new ideas. This created a collective of entrepreneurs who are developing what is now InTouch.

This strategy is supported by a solid base of major shareholders who joined us after the launch. Among them is TotalEnergies, which has not only invested in our business but with whom we have also established an exclusive collaboration to accept payments and distribute digital services in the regions we serve together. Other key players such as Worldline, a European leader and fourth largest in the world in securing payments and transactions, as well as the CFAO group, present in more than thirty African countries, and Mobility 54, Toyota's investment fund, have also contributed to our capital.

This strengthened governance is essential to have started as a startup and to develop into a company as robust as a multinational payment company. Today, we strive to maintain a startup spirit, which for us means much more than rapid growth: it is about agility, continuous adaptation to the environment, and the ability to pivot easily in the face of change. This is always based on the talent of our team, which we consider to be the true spirit of InTouch. And we always say that we are a multi-country startup.

FA: You have been very active in promoting entrepreneurship and financial inclusion, especially with initiatives like 10,000 Jambaars with MasterCard Foundation. What concrete impact did these initiatives have on the ground?

Omar Cissé : We strongly believe that businesses like ours should grow with a lasting impact in Africa. A company can only succeed in this ecosystem if it generates a significant and lasting impact. At InTouch, we have focused on supporting entrepreneurs from the start. Supporting these entrepreneurs means providing them with all the tools they need to develop their business through effective payment acceptance. For example, we allow a person to launch a digital service in Abidjan and make it available in 23 countries the next day. We also offer the option to receive payments from anywhere in Africa as soon as the service is launched.

In addition, we believe that success also comes from stable partnerships. Our first partners are merchants, retailers and businesses, those who carry out daily transactions. In Senegal, for example, we have set up an initiative with the Mastercard Foundation that has created more than 8,000 jobs in 3-4 years around the services we offer. We support them by providing them not only with the necessary technology but also with the complete support system, sometimes even the infrastructure necessary to distribute these services. With UNCDF [United Nations Capital Development Fund, editor's note], we have also developed several programs aimed at reaching the most remote regions in order to simplify access to digital services.

FA: Speaking of profitability, what are the main levers that you use at InTouch to maintain your financial balance while continuing to expand?

Omar Cissé : InTouch followed the classic path of a start-up, becoming a multinational or, as we like to say, a “multi-country start-up”. We started with our own funds, before raising several funds, with a total of 23 million euros. We are now at a stage where we have reached profitability and are starting to use financial instruments linked to debt.

After consolidating our expansion — today we operate in 23 countries and aim to be present in at least 30 African countries in the coming years — we focused on the profitability of the business. Starting in 2019, we worked intensively on improving our profitability, which led to our first positive EBITDA in December 2021, followed by a full year of positive EBITDA in 2022 and a positive net income in 2023. We are proud of this performance, achieved after ten years of effort and eight years of waiting. Our current challenge is to continue to grow while maintaining this profitability, which is important for any growing business.

FA: You participated in the Africa CEO Forum in Kigali. What are your expectations for this event and how do you think it will strengthen your project?

Omar Cissé : The Africa CEO Forum is a unique platform that brings together many decision-makers and quality companies. For us, it is an opportunity to meet these actors who are looking to develop in Africa, to discuss their challenges and to offer them adapted solutions. This forum is also a chance to strengthen our relationships with our current customers and to meet potential new customers who have heard about InTouch but have not yet had the opportunity to work with us. We see this event as an excellent way to accelerate the integration of businesses in the African market and to enrich our network.

FA: Looking to the future, what innovations or new services does InTouch plan to integrate to better meet the expectations of African consumers?

Omar Cissé : InTouch is positioned as the trusted partner for each digital transaction in Africa. We want to be involved in every digital transaction on the continent. We have evolved with the African digital ecosystem, which was emerging about ten years ago but is now mature and still offers great potential for growth. We have always sought to offer the best solutions to support our customers, from small retailers to large companies.

Our aim is to provide the best payment experience for every business launching in Africa. We are now connected to all mobile money operators in the regions we cover and plan to connect all mobile money operators in Africa. Our next big project is B2B2C, where we want to enable our customers to better serve their own customers through our platform. This includes the launch of MyTouchpoint, a B2B2C platform that allows our customers to interact not only via the web but also via a mobile application. We are also working on custom white label solutions for our customers to improve their experience.

At the same time, we develop specific solutions for sectors such as education, insurance and banking services, in collaboration with our partners. We want to make sure that every business in Africa can provide the best possible customer experience using our solutions. This is a fundamental aspect of our strategy to promote digital transformation on the continent and help businesses maximize their potential.

FA: Any last words to conclude this interview?

Omar Cissé : The payment industry is constantly evolving, as is the digital ecosystem. We have gone through several phases of development over the last ten years, and sub-Saharan Africa has often been at the forefront of these changes. However, we are still facing a lot of challenges, especially in terms of compliance and money transfers between countries. Since each country often has its own regulations, this can complicate cross-border transactions. We are actively working on solutions to improve the interoperability of payment systems in order to simplify these processes.

Despite the obstacles, we are optimistic about our ability to overcome these challenges. Interoperability between markets remains a priority for us, and while it is a gradual process, the first steps are promising. Our aim is to facilitate trade and transactions in Africa as much as possible, by reducing regulatory constraints and by fully exploiting the potential of digital technology.

The future is bright, and we are committed to continuing to innovate and develop solutions that not only meet the needs of our customers, but also contribute to shaping a more integrated digital future for Africa. It is with this vision that we approach each new stage, ready to face the challenges and seize the opportunities that present themselves.

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