SWIFT: Africa Leads Payment and Security Transactions Volume Growth

The African corridor is the fastest growing area for payments and transactions.

According to SWIFT, payment volumes on the network increased by 13.2 percent between 2013 and 2014, demonstrating Africa’s rising economies and move towards digital payments.

SWIFT provides financial institutions with a global network capable of transmitting and receiving transaction information.

Most impressively, Angola has seen the most growth, at 78 percent.

Nigeria demonstrated a 29.1 percent increase in payments and securities transactions since 2013,

Comparatively, the APAC, Americas, and EMEA regions showed 12.6 percent, 12.1 percent, and 6.9 percent growth respectively.

Hugo Smit, Head of Sub-Sahara Africa, SWIFT, says: “Africa is an important market for SWIFT. Once again it has outperformed most of our other regions and has proven itself a critical component of our global business. Because the continent has such huge growth potential, we are continuing to invest more resources to support the local financial community. It is very heartening to see such impressive growth in West and East Africa, where we are currently opening new SWIFT offices.”