Partner Spotlight - Pretium Finance: Powering Payments and Cross-Border Transactions Across Africa with Mento Stablecoins
September 13 2024
by Behice Uzun
Crypto payments are steadily gaining momentum, driven by new developments in the Web3 space from innovative payment infrastructures that reduce transaction costs and speed up processing times, to the integration of crypto with traditional payment systems. Several hurdles that once hindered cryptocurrency adoption for everyday use are now being overcome. This shift is especially notable in emerging markets, such as Africa, where access to traditional banking is limited, and mobile money dominates.
One new player in Africa is Pretium, a crypto payment platform designed to empower individuals and businesses alike. Pretium allows users to accept cross-border payments and seamlessly pay for a wide range of essential services — including merchant payments, TV subscriptions, electricity bills, and government services — using Mento’s decentralized US Dollar stablecoin, cUSD. Unlike more volatile cryptocurrencies, stablecoins like cUSD, which are pegged to an official currency, provide a steady and reliable alternative for everyday transactions. Pretium’s integration with major mobile money providers, such as M-Pesa in Kenya and Opay, Moniepoint and Palmpay in Nigeria, further enhances the user experience, making everyday transactions even more accessible for African users.
About Pretium Finance
Pretium Finance is a decentralized, non-custodial payment platform built to support cross-border payments, merchant payments and utility transactions across Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Nigeria, and South Africa. Pretium Finance aims to integrate cryptocurrencies into everyday financial transactions in Africa, currently dominated by mobile money institutions and banks.
With an easy-to-use interface and the capacity to manage payments in local currencies, Pretium offers its users a convenient, cost-effective alternative for handling everyday payments in a secure and decentralized manner.
Pretium’s Solutions
Seamless Utility Payments with Cryptocurrencies: Pretium Finance enables users to handle various essential payments with cryptocurrencies. This includes settling bills for services such as electricity, TV subscriptions, government services, mobile data, and airtime. By allowing individuals to pay for these necessities with stablecoins like cUSD, Pretium makes daily crypto transactions simpler and more accessible.
Merchant Payments: Using Pretium, users in Kenya and Nigeria can pay for groceries at local grocery stores, shop at supermarkets, pay at restaurants, pay for fuel/gas using stablecoins. Overall, Pretium users can pay at over 400,000 merchant points in Kenya and over 800,000 merchant points in Nigeria, making crypto assets as seamless as local currencies.
Cross-Border Transactions: Pretium also supports cross-border payments, enabling users to send and receive money internationally at a fraction of the cost traditionally associated with these services. With Mento’s cUSD integrated into the platform, users experience fast, secure, and low-cost cross-border transactions, cutting fees to as low as 1%.
Cashbacks and Financial Incentives: Users who transact with stablecoins on Pretium’s platform can earn up to 5% cashback on everyday transactions. This feature encourages broader adoption of digital currencies for real world use cases while offering tangible benefits to users.
Mento Stablecoins in Action
Pretium’s operations center around the use of stablecoins like Mento’s cUSD, with plans to incorporate Kenya's first decentralized local currency stablecoin, cKES, recently launched on the Mento Platform. By enabling the use of stablecoins, Pretium ensures that users can transact without worrying about the volatility often associated with cryptocurrencies. Mento’s cUSD offers a secure, stable value for both local and cross-border transactions and provides access to the wider Mento ecosystem.
The addition of cKES will significantly impact users in Kenya, offering them a stable, local currency option. This will further streamline utility payments and bill settlements, allowing users to transact in their native currency with ease.
Pretium Finance and Mento Labs Partnership Testimonials
“Mento, as the second most used stablecoin platform by daily active users globally, offers an incredible opportunity for us to provide our users with a steady and reliable digital currency” said Derrick Bundi, CEO at Pretium Finance. “With cUSD already widely used in the MiniPay wallet ecosystem, utilizing it in our dApp has made our solutions more efficient and accessible for utility payments, merchant payments and cross-border transactions.”
“Pretium Finance is playing an important role in expanding the real world use cases of stablecoins across Africa. By integrating cUSD and soon cKES into their platform, they are simplifying the crypto payment process for essential services and empowering African users to handle their finances in a new, efficient way. We’re excited to continue supporting Pretium’s growth and vision” added Markus Franke, CEO at Mento Labs.
How to Get Started with Pretium Finance?
To get started with Pretium Finance, users can visit their payment widget or platform's website, create an account and begin making payments. The platform supports a variety of wallets, ensuring that users can easily integrate Pretium into their financial routines. Additionally, Pretium provides multiple on-ramping options, including mobile money and bank transfers, to allow users to top up their accounts and begin making payments instantly.
Next Steps
Pretium Finance is currently building infrastructure in Kenya and Nigeria, having completed 90% of its utility payments and bill settlements system. In Kenya, Pretium users can make payments at over 400,000 merchants, while in Nigeria they enable users to make payments at over 800,000 merchants.
Over the next few months, this infrastructure will be replicated across other African countries where the platform operates, including Uganda, Tanzania, Ghana and South Africa.
Additionally, Pretium plans to explore new use cases for cUSD, such as offering low-cost lending solutions to both individuals and businesses. Pretium also aims to strengthen its partnership with Mento Labs by integrating the newly launched Celo Kenya Shilling stablecoin, cKES, to further expand its stablecoin options for users and cross-border payment solutions beyond Africa.
To stay connected with Pretium Finance for future updates, make sure to follow them on X / Twitter and LinkedIn.
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