MoData, Lusis Payments partnership brings transformative TANGO payments platform to Africa

Darren Turnbull, CEO of MoData, and Steve Wright of Lusis Payments.

---

MoData, which positions itself as a leading provider of digital transformation solutions, has been appointed as Lusis Payments’ Africa partner to bring the TANGO payment platform to Africa.

Twenty-five leading international banks and BankservAfrica have recently migrated off their legacy transaction switches onto the advanced and trusted TANGO payment platform. TANGO is built on a highly performing microservices architecture providing agile delivery to meet continual and fast-changing business requirements.

The partnership between MoData and Lusis Payments promises to transform the banking payments landscape across South Africa and the rest of Africa, enabling banks and major retailers to overcome the challenges of legacy payment platforms and achieve unparalleled efficiency, security and innovation.

MoData CEO Darren Turnbull says: "We are thrilled to partner with Lusis Payments and offer their TANGO platform along with our other related complementary best-in-class solutions. This collaboration will enable us to provide African financial institutions and major retailers with cutting-edge payment technologies that are secure, scalable and highly efficient."

Turnbull explains that most major banks in South Africa and across Africa currently use legacy technology up to 30 years old. This challenges modernising systems and aligning with modern customer expectations and demand.

“There has been a significant gap in the local market for technology like TANGO, and big banks and retailers see it. For banks in particular, their ability to compete with new digital native players has been hampered, and they have been ‘held over a barrel’ by older technology that doesn’t allow them to become more agile and competitive,” he says.

He says: “One problem is that much of the legacy payment technology is based on credit card numbers, whereas today payments are based on QR codes, e-mail addresses or cellphone numbers, which with TANGO can be introduced in a fraction of the time. Historically, it takes months or years to deploy new payment methods, and banks and retailers typically must do a costly workaround to make them fit their legacy systems. This results in complexity, a lack of standards and time delays. In addition, banks often have to go offline for several hours to do upgrades, and modern clients won’t tolerate that.”

Turnbull says TANGO offers significant improvements in transaction routing across multiple channels, including ATM, POS, e-commerce and mobile, with no restrictions on transaction types and a flexible, powerful and dynamic rule engine that allows organisations to change workflows.

“For example, they could easily send a transaction to a rewards system, a reconciliation system and an anti-fraud system all at the same time as authorising the transaction and even block a suspicious transaction in real-time,” he says.

MoData assessed the world’s top payment platforms before partnering with Lusis Payments. “It is a balancing act between stability and leading-edge technology. Without a doubt, no other technology in the world can match the capabilities of TANGO,” he says.

“We are excited to add the TANGO solution to MoData’s modern payments product offerings. It is a leading edge, not bleeding edge, solution with a credible track record and exemplary reviews from significant global banks. With so much experience, we are confident that the TANGO solution is the right next decision for our clients (such as banks in a high-risk environment) to be able to go to market fast,” Turnbull says.

He adds: “TANGO is future-proof, and you can add a new payment method in a week. Banks do periodic software releases and this technology allows you to add a function in real-time, without taking the system down. It also offers enormous improvements in management, with lower costs, and the advantage that it’s easier to find developers to work on the system.”

Philippe Preval, CEO of Lusis Payments, says:  "Joining forces with MoData allows us to extend the reach of our TANGO platform to the dynamic African market. Together, we will deliver unparalleled value and innovation to financial institutions across the continent."

MoData fields a team of highly experienced banking and transactions systems specialists with the unique skillsets required to successfully deploy and manage mission-critical payment systems and offer ongoing integration, maintenance and support.

TANGO’s Cloud solution suite, supported by MoData’s world-class services and expertise, will help organisations reduce the costs, complexity and legacy constraints in their financial and business environments.

Turnbull notes: “This partnership will offer financial institutions technology that enables them to provide their customers with the latest payment methods and quickly launch new innovative payment initiatives without the legacy release cycles. It’s what we call CI/CD2, which to us means continuous innovation and integration as well as continuous development and delivery, which allows banks and other financial institutions to become the next Uber or Netflix before they are disintermediated.”

Leveraging cloud-native technology, the solution offers elastic scalability, lower costs and enhanced security. TANGO's platform-agnostic nature ensures seamless integration with various cloud providers, including AWS, Azure and Google Cloud.

TANGO's microservices architecture and high-performance capabilities, tested at 10 000 transactions per second, offer the ability to handle large transaction volumes efficiently and reliably.

MoData’s expertise in KYC, AML and cyber-fraud orchestration, combined with TANGO's secure and configurable environment, can offer more robust protection against financial crime and compliance with regulatory standards.

MoData’s fraud tools, testing and certification application and reconciliation solutions, combined with TANGO’s flexible configuration capabilities, will enable financial institutions to streamline operations, reduce costs and improve control across various payment channels.

Be in contact with one of our experts.

Darrin Breen
Darrin.breen@modata.com
Business Development

Brendan van Staaden
brendan@modata.com
Chief AI Officer

Clive Gungudoo
clive.gungudoo@modata.com
FCRM Specialist