ZERA is an integrated telecommunications and financial technology group building a single connected environment for Africa — where mobile connectivity, banking and credit, merchant commerce, rewards and investing all sit in one place.
A walkthrough of how the platform works in the hands of a customer — checking balances, cashing out, shopping and discovering locally, paying for services, and earning rewards to keep or share.
Runtime approximately 6 minutes.
Across emerging markets, the applications people use every day are collapsing into super-apps — the Swiss Army knives of consumer technology, combining payments, banking, shopping and local discovery in one environment rather than a dozen separate ones.
The platform that becomes the default gateway for those activities holds a deep competitive position. It is where customers begin their day, and it earns from every layer of activity that follows.
Most players in Africa own one layer. Some own banking. Some own the wallet. Some own connectivity. Very few own more than one, and almost none own the licences required to operate several at once.
ZERA is built the other way around — assembled from licensed operating businesses across telecommunications, banking, merchant commerce and investment, brought together into one platform rather than bolted on afterwards.
Connectivity brings the customer in. Banking gives them an account and access to credit. The marketplace gives them somewhere to spend and merchants a reason to be found. Investing turns what they earn back into something they own.
GSM, LTE, fixed wireless and value-added services delivered as a licensed mobile virtual network operator.
Virtual accounts, wallets, remittances, settlements and regulated credit — accessible on any handset, including via USSD.
Local discovery, merchant storefronts and an advertising layer, with cashback and rebate-driven rewards throughout.
Access to African listed equities, bonds, treasury instruments and funds, with rewards convertible into invested assets.
Each division is a regulated business in its own right, run by an operating team with depth in its own discipline. Licensed telecommunications, licensed banking and merchant commerce are different crafts, and the group is structured to reflect that.
A full-service business-to-business mobile virtual network operator, licensed by ICASA under ECS and ECNS, hosted on the Cell C MVN-X platform and compliant with POPIA and RICA.
Limes operates its own technology stack — subscription management, billing and CRM, USSD gateway, provisioning automation and analytics — and reaches customers through enterprise resellers, a direct agent network, web, progressive web app and WhatsApp.
A licensed Financial Services Provider offering a complete banking stack: accounts, payments, remittances, settlements and regulated credit. IMB holds a third-party payment provider licence and a National Credit Regulator licence for credit supply, and reports to the FSCA.
The platform is API-driven and deliberately network-, bank- and device-agnostic. Its transactional account carries no debit orders — a structural safeguard for customers who are frequently exploited by them — and services are reachable by USSD from any phone, not only a smartphone. IMB is built for the millions of people across South Africa who are unbanked or over-indebted, with low-cost remittances a core part of the offer.
Commerce infrastructure for emerging markets: a white-label merchant marketplace and advertising layer that embeds directly inside telecommunications and banking applications, rather than asking customers to download something new.
Flood is live inside mobile operator and retail applications in West and Southern Africa, with further deployments contracted across the continent and in the Indian Ocean. Revenue is merchant-led — merchants pay to be found — with additional advertising tiers layering in as a market matures. Six further verticals are board-approved for rollout: gaming, bus ticketing, streaming, jobs, events and sports ticketing, and ride-hailing.
A regulated investment platform, licensed through the FSCA as a Juristic Representative, giving access to eight African stock exchanges — the JSE, NGX, NSE, GSE, BSE, LuSE, ZSE and BRVM — and more than two hundred listed securities.
Customers hold stocks, ETFs, bonds, treasury bills and managed funds in a single portfolio view with US dollar reporting and settlement. Every account is KYC and AML verified against national identity or passport. Fees are previewed before an order is confirmed. An AI research layer provides price signals and market intelligence across all eight exchanges.
In most reward programmes value flows out of the system the moment it is redeemed. In ZERA it circulates — earned on everyday activity, spent with local merchants, invested into real assets, and recycled back through the platform.
Cashback and rebates on telecom usage, merchant purchases and everyday digital transactions.
Spend rewards inside the ecosystem or with partner merchants — or share them with family and friends.
Convert rewards into African stocks, bonds or treasury accounts, turning spending into ownership.
Value stays inside the digital economy, compounding for the customer and the merchants around them.
The merchant programme underpins the whole ecosystem. Most trade across the continent happens in businesses that have no digital presence at all — no storefront a customer can find, no way to accept a digital payment, no way to be discovered by someone standing two streets away.
Accessible registration and verification designed for traders who have never had a digital presence.
Streamlined compliance and identity verification, built to clear quickly without excluding people.
Every merchant becomes findable — what they stock, what is on special, and how to reach them.
Payments and loyalty wired into the storefront, so the relationship continues after the first sale.
The African market has strong operators in each individual layer. What is uncommon is holding the licences to run several layers at once, inside one platform.
| Platform | Core offering | Layers not integrated |
|---|---|---|
| Capitec | Banking and rewards | Telecommunications; investment-linked loyalty |
| TymeBank | Low-cost digital banking | Investment-linked loyalty; mobile network |
| MTN MoMo | Wallet and payments | MVNO and value-added services; investments |
| Vodapay | Banking and rewards | Independent telecommunications; investments |
| ZERA | Telecommunications, banking, credit, marketplace and investments | Integrated across all four layers |
The model is designed to be redeployed rather than rebuilt. Each market takes the same platform stack and adapts the local layer — the merchants, the operator relationship, the regulatory perimeter and the reward mechanics.
Southern African operations across telecommunications, banking and merchant commerce, with the licensed foundations in place.
Rollout underway and planned across West Africa, East Africa, the Indian Ocean and the wider SADC region — with Kenya, Zambia and Botswana identified as next markets.
Telecommunications, financial and merchant solutions deployed together in each new market, with regional reward networks and cross-border commerce linking them.