Zone

Zone Payment Network is a regulated, layer-1 blockchain payment infrastructure for banks, fintechs, payment processors, and other financial institutions in Africa that need reliable transaction routing and settlement without relying on a central intermediary.

Key capabilities include:

• Decentralized transaction routing that connects financial institutions directly for peer-to-peer processing, designed to reduce single points of failure.
• Instant settlement and automated reconciliation to reduce back-office work and help limit disputes. For POS, the platform positions this as zero chargebacks or chargeback fraud and same-day settlement.
• Interoperability with legacy systems plus native settlement tokens and programmatic regulation, intended to support compliance requirements while operating on blockchain rails.
• Channel products for card-present payments:
  • ZonePOS, a decentralized payment gateway for card POS transactions with direct card routing to issuers and automated reconciliation.
  • ZoneATM, decentralized switching for ATM cash-withdrawal transactions, aimed at improving reliability and lowering switching costs.

Available via Web and API (developer documentation is provided).

Target users include African banks, fintech companies, payment processors, and regulators integrating POS and ATM payment channels.

Notable in the Nigerian market context, the network is licensed by the Central Bank of Nigeria (switching and processing license) and reports for POS transactions, alongside a stated . It also raised in seed funding (March 2024) to expand its regulated blockchain payment infrastructure across Africa.