Yellow Card and Lightspark partner to bring Universal Money Address (UMA) to African businesses and consumers

• Yellow Card's On and Off-Ramp services will be made available using Lightspark Extend
• Businesses in over 20 countries across Africa will be connected on the UMA open standard

NAIROBI, KENYA, December 8, 2024:  Yellow Card, Africa’s largest fiat-to-crypto on and off-ramp, has announced a new partnership with Lightspark. For the first time, businesses and people on the UMA network will be able to send and receive cross-border payments to 20 African countries through an integration with Yellow Card’s Payments API - powered by Lightspark Extend.  This will mean businesses and consumers will have access to fast, open cross-border payments - fiat to fiat or sending and receiving bitcoin - with easy and instant pay-out methods, including mobile money and bank transfer in African countries—a first at this scale. 

Additionally, Yellow Card plans to offer Universal Money Address (UMA) to businesses across the continent soon.  A UMA is like an email address, but it is for money. It lets anyone send and receive money (fiat and crypto) 24/7 using their favorite UMA-enabled wallet, exchange, or bank. Using UMAs will mean African businesses and consumers will connect to millions of other companies and people globally  - the leading open payments solution.

Yellow Card has built a reputation as a leading platform for cryptocurrency access in Africa. Its solutions allow businesses of all sizes to seamlessly transfer funds into, out of, and across the African continent.  It offers secure and cost-effective ways for users to buy, sell, and hold a range of digital assets, including stablecoins like USDT, USDC, and PYUSD, as well as popular tokens like BTC and ETH. Through local currency payments, customers can easily trade digital currencies and send and receive Bitcoin payments instantly.

With Yellow Card's Payment API integrated into Lightspark Extend infrastructure, UMA users worldwide can seamlessly interface with businesses and consumers in Africa.

Justin Poiroux, Chief Technology Officer, Yellow Card, shared his excitement about the partnership: “Africa is the crypto continent, and we’re excited to partner with Lightspark to continue our mission of providing financial freedom and easy access to digital assets for people across Africa.”

Kevin Hurley, Chief Technology Officer & Co-Founder, Lightspark, also expressed enthusiasm about the collaboration: “We’re proud to support Yellow Card in bringing UMAs to their users. This integration will allow their customers to make instant, low-cost Bitcoin transfers, and we’re excited to be part of this journey as they continue to innovate.”

With this partnership, Yellow Card is poised to lead the charge in bringing efficient, scalable global payments solutions to Africa, offering its users the future of digital payments today. The Lightspark Extend and UMA integration will be live early in 2025.

Find out more about UMA here: www.uma.me