Traditional payment infrastructure across Africa often poses more problems than it solves. Slow transactions, unreliable systems, and complex processes frustrate financial service providers and limit their potential. At Zone, we embarked on a mission to tackle these challenges head-on. We saw the need for a next-generation payment infrastructure designed to handle today’s demands and the limitless possibilities of the future.
Rejecting the limitations of centralised systems, we built a revolutionary infrastructure powered by blockchain technology. This groundbreaking platform became Africa’s first regulated layer-1 blockchain protocol designed specifically for payments. Our focus is unwavering: to deliver reliable, frictionless and universally interoperable payment experiences at scale for every financial institution on the network.
We’re excited to unveil Zone V.2; a significant upgrade to our regulated layer-1 blockchain network, introducing even greater capabilities and setting the stage for a new era in financial transactions.
Zone 2.0: A Major Leap Forward
Zone 2.0 marks a significant evolution in our infrastructure, driven by the need for greater scalability, reliability, and interoperability in the financial services landscape. With this upgrade, we’re introducing a more scalable blockchain infrastructure and enhanced smart contract capabilities. This move not only amplifies the performance but also broadens the horizon for decentralised financial services (DeFi) and third-party token issuance on our platform.
Key Enhancements in Zone 2.0:
- Enhanced Throughput and Scalability: V2.0 performs faster and scales effortlessly to meet increasing transaction volumes. End-to-end Transaction processing on the network is now consistently sub-second and able to scale to millions of transactions daily per node, ensuring that even during peak usage periods, transactions are processed quickly and reliably. With included support for cloud deployments, V2.0 can leverage the auto-scaling capability of the cloud to meet scaling needs in an elastic way, which is both cost effective and efficient. Financial institutions can be confident that not only will the system be able to handle their growing transaction volumes but their infrastructure will scale with their demand automatically .
- Simplified and Shortened network onboarding: In Zone V2.0, we have greatly simplified the network onboarding process and also shortened the implementation time required. From a streamlined self-service registration process to detailed integration guides and the always-available integration support, network onboarding can be achieved within days once all requirements have been met. Zone provides a comprehensive set of developer tools and resources to make it easy for developers to integrate their platforms to the network. This includes things like an API, SDKs, and documentation. We are also committed to providing ongoing support to developers.
- Real-Time Settlement: V2.0 represents a major leap forward in modernising financial infrastructure. The traditional batch settlement process, which requires transactions to be settled in batches, making it hours or even days for their settlement to complete, is replaced with real-time capabilities. This means that financial institutions receive funds immediately, boosting liquidity and allowing them to capitalise on opportunities faster than ever before. For example, a bank could use Zone V2.0 to instantly settle a cross-border payment, which would traditionally take several days.
- 100% automated transaction reconciliation: Building on the success of V1, V2.0 takes resilience even further. The network’s architecture is designed to be highly resilient, so that system failures, slowdowns or timeouts caused by a financial institution’s infrastructure are no longer causes of dispute claims. V2.0 is able to ensure full automated reconciliation of transactions by tracking transaction status end-to-end and applying the necessary remedial action in the unfortunate event of a system issue. Transactions are reversed automatically without requiring manual intervention totally eliminating the need for dispute claims logging for system errors.
- Direct Fintech participation: In V1.0, we enabled other financial institution (fintech) participation through integration to bank nodes which made them largely dependent on the bank’s uptime. However, in V2.0, we now support direct participation for Fintechs. Fintechs are able to connect directly to the network with their own nodes ensuring their scale, uptime and availability is within their control. Transactions are routed directly from the fintech nodes to the destination nodes without any intermediary thus further improving transaction reliability and performance for them.
- Support for Token Issuance and DeFI: Zone V2.0 is an ethereum-compatible client. This ensures that the entire stack of dApps available on the ethereum network can also be leveraged by Zone benefiting from the developer ecosystem in expanding the network capabilities. V2.0 can support DeFI and the issuance of tokens, which are digital assets that can be used to represent a variety of things, such as currencies, securities, or loyalty points. This opens up new opportunities for financial institutions to innovate and create new products and services. For example, a bank could issue a token representing an ownership stake in a company.
Shaping the Future Together
As we roll out Zone 2.0, we stand at the precipice of a new frontier in financial technology. Our journey from the inception of V1 to this momentous upgrade has been driven by a single, unwavering purpose: to transcend the limitations of traditional payment systems and usher in an era of unparalleled efficiency, security, and connectivity.
Zone 2.0 is an advancement in technology and a commitment to our partners, users, and the broader financial community. We’re not just building infrastructure; we’re fostering a vibrant ecosystem where innovation thrives, where financial institutions can break free from the constraints of the past and where every transaction moves us closer to a seamlessly connected world.
Our vision for a decentralised global payment infrastructure is bold, but it’s within reach. With the collaborative spirit of our developer community, the trust of our financial partners, and the ingenuity of our team, the possibilities are limitless.
The future is bright, and with Zone 2.0, we’re just getting started.
