Bridgecard; The Ultimate Card-Issuing Solution for Africa
In this edition of our blog post, we will discuss with the CEO and Co-founder of Bridgecard, Tunde Adewole, on the indelible solution-provider that Bridgecard has become, how we got here and what to expect in the nearest future
Tunde Adewole is one of the Co-founders here at Bridgecard, which started as a FinTech that offered its customers a platform to help them oversee all of their different bank accounts, and a card to transact with. However, Bridgecard soon experienced difficulties finding Virtual and Physical cards that were reliable and compatible with diverse local and international platforms. That's when the journey to being the ultimate card-issuing solution started.
Tell us Tunde, how did that transition happen, and what fueled it?
“We initially started Bridgecard to issue people one card for all their bank accounts and wallets but did not find a card infrastructure provider to help us issue cards that could work globally for our customers. Getting into YCombinator, we spoke to Michael Seibel about this, and then we decided to build the infrastructure that can help Fintechs and banks across Africa issue cards to their customers that will work anywhere in the world.”
Finding reliable cards was an important factor that led to Bridgecard. What measures are in place to ensure that cards issued by Bridgecard remain stable and reliable to its users?
“We’ve ensured that we always did things right at Bridgecard from day one. Coming out of the whole saga with card issuing in Africa, we knew we had to take measures like KYC, AML, and Chargeback Fraud Management very seriously and so, we built our infrastructure with all of these in mind.”
The rate of Card Fraud has increased significantly and is expected to increase in the nearest future. Are there any extra security measures in place for cards issued by Bridgecard?
“We thought about fraud management from day one, so we’ve been able to build a robust card infrastructure that can withstand any growth we see in transaction volume over the coming years.
So far, we have ensured, with a 99.9% accuracy, that each user on our platform has only one identity. We also do a PEP (Politically Exposed Person) screening on all the users that get our cards. Additionally, we check if these users have their names on any sanction or criminal list across 250+ countries before issuing cards to them. Additionally, we have rules guiding the filing of charge backs on our cards that have helped us achieve a chargeback rate of 0.024% compared to the industry benchmark of 1%.”
Bridgecard is looking to make Card Payments easy and accessible across Africa. How far would you say Bridgecard has gone in achieving that goal, and what plans are in place to reach the countries that Bridgecard is not available in yet?
“I’ll say we’ve just started. We currently help Africans pay for global services worth almost $2 million monthly. The plan is to do a thousand times more over the next five years. So really, the journey has only just started for us.
One of the plans we have for expansion is to use the reputation we’ve built from helping Fintech companies issue cards to their users to reach out to the large banks across Africa and help them solve this same problem for their growing customer base as well.”
Are there any new features or measures that we can expect from Bridgecard in the nearest future?
“In a few months, we will launch our multi-currency card product, which will be the first of its kind, allowing users to make payments in popular currencies like USD, GBP, and EUR without worrying about FX fees.”
In just one year of operations, Bridgecard has provided numerous Fintechs in over 22 African Countries issue cards that help their users make global transactions easily and like Tunde has said, the journey has only just started.
To learn more about our products and issue the best Virtual and Physical Cards to your users, send a mail to issuecards@bridgecard.co