This week, at the margins of 3i Africa Summit in Accra, which convened central bank governors, multilateral institutions, investors, and innovators to unleash Africa’s digital and fintech economic potential, Brij Technologies Inc demonstrated its BrijX solution.

This enables real-time direct currency swaps, peer-to-peer,  without the need for foreign exchange, credit cards or other financial intermediaries.

It was an historic milestone in breaking down the cost of entry to intra-African trade for individual citizens, and likewise, for small and medium enterprises.  

This milestone was made possible through the Innovation Sandbox set up by the Bank of Ghana’s Office of Fintech and Innovation, to allow innovators to test market-ready products, giving Brij an intermediate regulatory authority to connect Ghana with other approved countries including Nigeria, Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania, and Botswana.

The solution leverages Brij’s partnerships with intermediary banks, mobile money (MoMo) providers, and locally in Ghana Digital Credit management (DCM) connecting them with  MTN, AT, and Telecel.

It allows BrijX to facilitate instant transfers between MoMo accounts across borders with one-touch ease on its webpage or mobile app.

BrijX can also be integrated directly into MoMo platforms, allowing users to access its services either directly or through their MoMo providers.

Live on the Innovation stage, Brij’s chief engineer, Majesty Hini, demonstrated a real-time swap between cedi and naira, then did the trade in reverse.

He also showed how BrijX connects to Paybills.Africa which aggregates millions of African vendors across 22 countries into a single online marketplace.

The audience was allowed to participate by shouting out their phone number. Each time a mobile money ping was heard, the audience clapped and shouted. 

“Currently, all African cross-border transactions require a USD conversion on each side, which leads to an annual loss of $5.3 billion in conversion fees. The Brij solution will allow consumers to avoid these prohibitive costs,” said Dr. Aloy Chife, Executive Chairman of Brij.

“We are encouraged not only by the leadership of the Bank of Ghana, but also by the readiness of our multilateral partners including the African Development Bank and the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS) to explore the incorporation of Brij’s technology into their respective efforts to expand the continent’s digital and financial interconnectivity,” Chife continued.

The BrijX presentation comes on the heels of the Africa Merchant Online Enrollment Roadshow earlier this year, hosted by the U.S. Commercial Service of the U.S. Embassy in Accra to enrol the first Ghanaian merchants onto its Paybills.

Africa platform where Dean Matlack, of the U.S. Foreign Commercial Service, told the audience, “Ghana has rightly earned its reputation as a digital hub.

However, the missing link between MoMo usage and regional trade integration is the enabling mechanism for cross-border payments, and we saw immediately the potential for Brij and DCM to fill this gap in Ghana and wider Africa."