Fincra is a leading Nigerian fintech company that since 2021 has expanded its services beyond Nigeria to countries like Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, Uganda, Zambia, the United Kingdom and Canada.
The collaboration of Fincra with airlines focuses on simplifying payments, which are a critical component of business operations. They understand that the payment process is central to ensuring smooth transactions, and they work to eliminate any friction that could disrupt the customer experience. By doing so, they help airlines achieve their business goals—sales and revenue generation.
ALN News spoke with Fincra CEO, Wole Ayodele, about how they collaborate with airlines and air transpor industry, among other topics.
What does Fincra do?
Fincra is a cross-border payment technology company that helps businesses and individuals to collect and send international and local payments seamlessly.
As a business, we offer Pay-In (collections), Pay-Out (transfers) and Conversions.
With our Pay-in, we help businesses to collect payments from their customers seamlessly. We have different ranges of payment methods and currencies that we support for collections to ensure we are offering the best. Through a secure payment gateway we process card payments, bank transfers and other preferred localised methods.
Sending payment is also a critical part of business operations, so we enable businesses and individuals to send payments. Whether it be local pay-outs or cross-border settlements. We support Pay-out to over 120 countries with no hidden charges or fees.
Our FX conversion product can be leveraged as a standalone product, where we offer FX settlement to businesses, or as part of the Pay-In or Pay-Out workflow, where a business individual wants to receive payment in a different currency and settle in another currency, or want to send money in one currency while the recipient receives another currency.
As the digital revolution continues to reshape the airline industry, new payment methodologies have emerged to adapt to changing consumer behaviours and technological advances. Do you see the evolution of payment methods as offering new opportunities for airlines?
Absolutely. Just like in other industries, it’s crucial for airlines to adopt new payment methods to enhance customer satisfaction. As consumers drive technological advancements, each revolution in payment technology centres around improving convenience and ease of use. Whether it’s faster transactions, seamless integration across devices, or personalised payment options, these innovations ultimately benefit customers.
For airlines, evolving payment systems offer new opportunities to improve the overall customer experience—from simplifying ticket purchases to offering more flexible payment solutions. And in an industry where customer experience is key to competitiveness, these advancements can help airlines strengthen loyalty and differentiate themselves.
How do you collaborate with airlines, and what opportunities exist to expand that collaboration in the air transport industry?
At Fincra, our collaboration with airlines focuses on simplifying payments, which are a critical component of business operations. We understand that the payment process is central to ensuring smooth transactions, and we work to eliminate any friction that could disrupt the customer experience.
By doing so, we help airlines achieve their primary business goals—sales and revenue generation.
Our payment solutions enable airlines to accept payments in several African markets and easily settle them in USD, GBP, EUR and CAD. This is our localised solution that helps airlines to better serve customers in this growing market.
As a payment partner, we help international airlines collect local payments in Nigeria (NGN), Kenya (KES), Ghana (GHS), Uganda (UGX), Zambia (ZAR), Central African CFA franc (XAF) and West African CFA franc (XOF).
We also offer solutions that help airlines to settle these payments to whatever destination in USD, GBP, EUR and CAD, ensuring that these airlines have access to their money where they want it.
We provide payment collection options that cater to a wide range of travel preferences with options, including cards, bank transfers, virtual accounts, and APIs that integrate seamlessly with existing operating and booking systems, allowing airlines to focus on core operations while ensuring efficient payments and delivering exceptional customer service.
As the air transport industry expands, there are significant opportunities to deepen our collaboration by enabling seamless, cross-border transactions, improving payment, security, and providing tailored solutions to meet the evolving needs of airlines operating in diverse regions.
What do you see as the main issues facing the industry in terms of payment security which can cause losses and inefficiencies, not only for airlines, but also for users?
The effectiveness of payment security largely depends on the payment partner and gateway that airlines choose to work with.
This is where Fincra plays an important role. We take security seriously at Fincra to ensure that both customers and airlines are protected throughout the payment process.
Fincra is PCI DSS compliant, which means we adhere to the highest global standards for data security in payment processing.
