Vista Bank Group selects Radar Payments to power processing

Vista Bank Group selects Radar Payments to power pan-African processing

Written by Alex Hamilton
11th May 2021

Vista Bank Group, a bank holding company in Africa based in Guinea, has picked Radar Payments to underpin its processing activities.

Vista Bank “is taking bold decisions” when it comes tech

The bank has operations in The Gambia, Burkina Faso, Senegal, and Sierra Leone. It aims to create a pan-African financial services company focused on financial inclusion.

It targets the underbanked across retail and commercial banking by offering services to individuals and small businesses.

The group has set up shop through a series of strategic acquisitions.

These include First International Bank (FIB) in Gambia, a handful of BNP Paribas subsidiaries in Guinea, and BICIAB bank in Burkina Faso.

The bank is deploying Temenos’ Infinity and T24 Transact to cover its digital banking and core banking operations, respectively.

Radar Payments, operated by parent firm BPC Banking Technologies, will centralise Vista’s payment operations at its tech hub in Senegal.

The vendor will support Vista’s activities in Guinea, Gambia, Burkina Faso and Sierra Leone. It will also leave room “for further banks to join its network”.

Part of the deal sees Vista Bank deploy BPC’s flagship payment suite, SmartVista. It will also issue a new suite of UnionPay-provided cards to its customers.

“Pan-Africa first”

“Banks have to think pan-Africa first, and realise that we need to step up the game in terms of ease of payment,” says Simon Tiemtore, Vista group chairman.

“As a challenger bank, Vista Bank is taking bold decisions when it comes to its technology stack, forming alliances with the best partners in their own fields. By selecting Radar Payments, the paytech by BPC, we have chosen a leader with a solid reputation in delivering superior global payments processing.”

Evgenia Loginova, CEO of Radar Payments, says the partnership was born from a “shared vision”. She adds: “Together we will provide easy, instant and secure movement of money.”