Flagship Product · Pre-launch

The switch between every wallet, bank and merchant in Botswana.

IPA — the Interoperable Payments API — is a real-time switching platform designed to connect seven independently owned payment service providers through a single REST integration. One API to reach MyZaka, Orange Money, BTC SMega, Access Bank (formerly BancABC), Stanbic, FNB and Absa. Built for the regulator to supervise from the first transaction.

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7^PSPs

Banks & mobile money, one integration

3^types

P2P · P2M · B2P transaction flows

8^rules

Composite AML detection engine

*177#

USSD access for feature phones

How IPA Works · 01

One request. Four hops. Seconds.

A transaction enters IPA from any channel — app, web, or USSD — and is routed, screened, switched and settled across provider boundaries in real time. The sender and receiver never need to be on the same provider.

Initiate

A customer sends money via app, web, or USSD *177#. The request hits the IPA API with sender, recipient and amount.

Screen

The AML engine scores the transaction against 8 composite rules — sanctions, velocity, structuring, behaviour — before it proceeds.

Switch

IPA routes the transaction to the recipient's provider, translating between each PSP's interface behind one consistent API.

Settle

Funds are credited to the recipient and the transaction is logged immutably — available to the regulator's read-only supervisory view.

Transaction Types · 02

Three flows. One rail.

IPA carries the three payment flows that matter for a national economy — retail transfers between people, payments to merchants, and bulk disbursements from corporates — over a single piece of infrastructure.

P2P

Retail Transfers

Person-to-person, wallet-to-wallet, wallet-to-bank, bank-to-wallet. Designed to work across every participating provider, in seconds.

Any provider to any provider
Per-customer limits set by KYC tier
End-of-day net settlement between providers

P2M

Merchant Payments

Customers pay merchants regardless of which PSP either side holds. Integrate once; accept everyone.

One merchant integration
Accept every wallet & bank
QR, USSD, and API checkout

B2P

Bulk Disbursements

Corporate payroll, supplier payments, and grants — one file, every recipient credited to their preferred account.

One file, six destinations
Banked or unbanked recipients
Built-in reconciliation

Architecture · 03

Engineered to be observed.

IPA is built on a modern, auditable stack hosted in AWS af-south-1, designed to integrate directly with each mobile network operator and bank — no third-party aggregator in the payment path. Every layer is provisioned as code, every transaction is logged immutably, and the supervisor is given a read-only window onto the transaction register, with every read recorded.

API Layer

FastAPI · Python — REST, JSON, OpenAPI documented

Datastore

PostgreSQL 16 — ACID transactions, immutable logs

Cache & Queue

Redis — low-latency routing & rate control

Cloud

AWS af-south-1 — Cape Town, data stays in-region

MNO Rails

Direct integration, designed — Mascom, Orange & BTC, no aggregator

USSD Channel

*177# — provisioned directly with each MNO

Infrastructure

Terraform — reproducible, auditable IaC

Channels App · Web · USSD *177#

↓

IPA REST API FastAPI

↓

          AML Engine
          8 rules
        

↓

          Switching Core
          routing & settlement
        

↓

Direct PSP Rails MNOs & banks · no aggregator

↓

Regulator View read-only

Compliance & Supervision · 04

Compliance is in the engine, not the appendix.

Most payment systems treat compliance as a reporting layer bolted on after the fact. IPA inverts that: detection, audit and supervision are first-class engineering concerns, running in the transaction path itself.

01 / AML

8 Composite Rules

Every transaction is scored in real time against velocity thresholds, structuring patterns, sanctions screening and behavioural anomaly detection — before it settles.

02 / VISIBILITY

Regulator View

Designed to give the Bank of Botswana a read-only supervisory view — the transaction register, supervisory statistics, and an access log recording every read the Bank makes — without having to request data.

03 / AUDIT

Immutable Logs

Every API call, settlement event and rule trigger is recorded immutably.

04 / RESIDENCY

Regional Hosting

All processing and storage runs in AWS af-south-1 (Cape Town, South Africa).

Talk to us

Want the technical detail?

We share API documentation, integration guides, and the full compliance architecture under NDA with prospective PSP partners, regulators, and corporate clients. Book a technical briefing with the team.

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