Zone
“Can a blockchain-native payment switch become the regulated settlement and routing infrastructure layer for Africa's interbank payments — displacing legacy central switches while enabling CBDC and digital currency interoperability?”
Founded in 2008 as Appzone, the company spent over a decade building proprietary core banking and payments software for African financial institutions. In 2022, it made a decisive pivot to blockchain-based payment infrastructure, rebranding to Zone and securing Africa's first CBN-licensed regulated blockchain payment switching network. The strategy shifted from serving banks as a software vendor to becoming the underlying regulated payment rails itself — enabling direct inter-bank routing, instant settlement, and decentralized switching for POS, ATM, and funds transfer — positioning Zone as a peer-to-peer interbank settlement layer competitive with legacy switches like NIBSS.