GBC Time has interviewed – Richard Mifsud, Chief Vision Officer at Xprizo, all in one payments platform combining all functionality needed by merchants, agents and unbanked consumers bringing this market together into one seamless ecosystem.
Xprizo operates in underbanked and unbanked regions globally. How do you tailor your payment solutions to meet the unique challenges and opportunities in these diverse markets?
Indeed, the reason why we exist, our ‘Why’ is to help these disadvantaged communities. We must admit that this certainly has its challenges and equally it has tremendous opportunity, especially with the fact that we have a blank canvas on how we want to educate and drive the way payments are done in such territories. It also gives us access to untapped territories where not much competition is in place, making us unique for anyone wanting to reach such communities. Our goal is to be the go-to fintech company for any merchant that wants to offer its services to such communities. The main challenge for any business entering a community is engaging users and ensuring payment once they are reached. We will be removing the biggest headache here and this is one of our main unique selling points. The product was developed from the ground up with emerging markets in mind and we avoided the trap of adopting an already existing ‘western’ product to these markets. This means we are certain that even technology-wise, we have one of the best products in the market to-date.
In a rapidly evolving payments landscape, how does Xprizo differentiate itself—do you position yourselves as a direct payment gateway provider or an aggregator? What unique value do you offer in either capacity?
Xprizo is its own wallet first. We offer our users the ability to send p2p payments and users to pay directly to our merchants with what we call P2M. Moreover, we also offer a full aggregator which is an integral part of the product. Our aggregator allows us to offer our users the ability to top-up their Xprizo account with credit, debit cards and a wide range of local payment methods. These include M-Pesa, Airtel Money, MTN Money, GCash, among others. We also offer the aggregator as a gateway B2B service where through a single API, any merchant could benefit from the Xprizo wallet itself and direct integration to all our third-party aggregated solutions.
Given Xprizo’s involvement in both the fintech and iGaming sectors, can you share a particular success story or innovative solution that exemplifies your impact in these industries?
We are a fintech company that, like most other fintechs, offer their service to a variety of industries including iGaming. We are very careful about who we work with and do thorough due diligence in all our partnerships. We have recently had a very interesting collaboration with a fully licensed operator in Kenya where they have agreed to have us as their primary payment platform for their operation for their online and land based business. Since Xprizo is also focused on retail businesses, it was incredibly beneficial for them to have all the transactions visible on one single back-office where they can monitor all the transactions live. The feedback from their users was that the Xprizo onboarding process has been very smooth, citing that it’s simple to use and transactions have been very fast. Hearing this feedback makes us very happy as we know that we have delivered a product that is not only much needed in these markets, but is also highly appreciated by the locals, making their lives that little bit easier. This operator is now looking to expand their brand into other territories, and we are in discussions to establish a similar collaboration in these new regions.
Your partnerships with iGaming businesses are intriguing. How do these collaborations influence your product development and overall strategy? Are there any standout projects or outcomes you’re particularly proud of?
In the iGaming space, we are very lucky to have an amazing mix of operators that are working with us, varying from national lotteries, sportsbook operators, etc. Primarily, each of these entities wants to have as many options as possible for their users to deposit and withdraw in a safe manner. We have proven ourselves over and over now that our product delivers this not only in the obvious territories where there are hundreds of payment methods to choose from, but also in the most remote places on the planet. We are proud to be bringing safe, fast, and convenient payments to places where many thought it was impossible before Xprizo entered the space.
Industry exhibitions and conferences often serve as platforms for networking and innovation. How does Xprizo leverage these events to drive growth, and are there any upcoming events where we might expect to see groundbreaking announcements from your team?
Yes, agreed, we have been active in such events for several years now. We sometimes have a stand and sometimes just attend in a less formal capacity. We have recently attended SIGMA in Budapest, JFEX in Jordan, and IFX in Bangkok, and we will be attending SBC in Lisbon. From Portugal, we will be heading to SIGMA Europe in Malta. We believe in keeping relationships with our merchant partners and this is the primary reason for our attendance. Moreover, at such events, there is always a display of amazing innovation that other companies are constantly coming up with, so we keep learning and keeping up to date with the trends.
We are planning to introduce some amazing features and sub-products in the coming months, which will keep us at the forefront of being an innovative fintech company for many years to come.
As Xprizo looks ahead, what are some ambitious goals or projects on your horizon for this year? How do you envision these initiatives shaping the future of payments in underbanked regions?
This year we are focusing on opening up more territories in Southeast Asia and apart from that, as mentioned above, we have some unique features to our product that will be launched by the end of the year. 2025 looks very bright as we operate in several new countries and also have one of the most advanced fintech products on the market.
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