INDUSTRY WATCH: BANKING AND FINANCE
Screenshots showing the user-friendly interface of the SawaPay app
ground in Kenya. They understand
African circumstances and solutions,
such as M-Pesa. We can discuss our
growth strategy with them face-to-
face over a table. And, with their reach
and credibility they can accelerate our
expansion into different countries.”
This ability to meet with their provider
was important to FCG; as a start-up
company, Osoro says the company
benefits from the convenience of a local
provider for easy access to support and
staff training. During a one-month test
period Dimension Data was also able to
assure FCG of their capabilities through
webinars and by carrying out a number
of tests to ensure their solutions could
guarantee them the high availability
and infrastructure security required.
Following the test period, Dimension
Data was able to quickly get FCG up
and running, as Business Development
Manager for Kenya, Eric Mwirigi
explains: “We’re not the world’s largest
cloud provider, but we have the largest
footprint, in terms of having data centres
in most regions around the world.
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So, without having to adjust our fully
automated and orchestrated platform
and support services in any way, we were
able to get FCG up and running in only
three days and will be able to mature
and scale their offering effortlessly.”
Ensuring security and continuity
Another vital part of the success of
SawaPay was implementing tight
security controls to protect personal
data and to ensure customers can
always access their services. Osoro
says, “We take our user’s data security
seriously so we have implemented
various security solutions within our
mobile app and the complementing
infrastructure that the application
runs on.” These solutions include data
encryption, strong firewalls and secured
VPNs as well as ongoing processes such
as regular backups, security patches
for servers and applications, staff
cybersecurity training and an elaborate
risk programme.
For user security, the mobile app features
two-factor authentication and utilises
OAuth 2.0 which reduces the potential
for attackers to perform ‘man in the
middle’ attacks. The company also
implement PCI-DSS (Payment Card
Industry Data Security Standard) and
enforce limited permissions for access to
the most necessary components required
for the app to function correctly.
One of the driving forces behind creating
the app was to bring convenience,
ease and availability of money
remittance to Africa’s diaspora and
a business continuity plan is a crucial
part of delivering this service. Through
Dimension Data’s cloud services, FCG
have in place a continuity plan that relies
upon redundant servers in Dimension
Data’s North America data centre which
provides automated load balancing,
failover and data backups.
Regional challenges
Osoro points out that implementing
such a solution doesn’t come without
its difficulties and the most challenging
of these is having to adhere to various
financial regulatory authorities with
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