Cornelius Coetzee, country director for Verto South Africa, shares insights on the company’s strategic expansion across Africa, its role in simplifying global B2B payments, and how its licensing and infrastructure empower businesses to scale. In this Q&A, Coetzee unpacks how Verto is shaping the future of cross-border trade on the continent.
Source: Supplied. Cornelius Coetzee, country director for Verto South Africa.
Could you speak to Verto's footprint in 49 countries including South Africa and Africa, and how you see Verto expanding to meet the B2B needs on the African continent by 2030?
Verto's footprint provides access to 49 currencies globally, leveraged through our strategic licenses in the UK and US which enable crucial banking partnerships. For Africa specifically, our focus was to obtain licensing and set up a market presence in key economic hubs: Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa, with the UAE serving as a vital link for Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) region trade.
This existing infrastructure uniquely positions us to manage local cash pools, and the volatility often associated with African currencies - a complex area many global banks avoid.
Looking towards 2030, Verto's African expansion strategy is to broaden our direct licensing across the continent. This will further empower us to meet growing B2B needs by enhancing payment infrastructure, significantly fostering both intra-African trade and streamlining Africa's trade flows with the rest of the world.
Verto’s business model emphasises B2B transactions, offering a platform for multinational corporations to transact seamlessly with suppliers and business ecosystems across continents and currencies — including US dollar-based conversions and real-time payments. Can you elaborate on how this formula works in practice?
Verto's formula helps B2B clients navigate evolving global trade, offering flexibility beyond sole USD reliance to transact seamlessly in diverse, even 'exotic', currencies.
Our approach integrates a unified platform providing multi-currency accounts (e.g., NGN, KES, ZAR alongside G10), expert FX and liquidity management to handle African currency volatility and convertibility, efficient payment rails enabling near real-time cross-border transactions, and strategic licensing with banking partnerships for compliant global liquidity.
This empowers multinationals to transact with their ecosystems in local currencies or USD, simplifying complex cross-border payments.
You mentioned two members of Verto's founding team — one a former banker and the other a fintech aficionado — have addressed the challenges faced by companies exporting to multiple countries. One such challenge is the licensing hurdles in regions like the UK and EU, which can delay imports and result in significant holding costs, sometimes amounting to millions. Could you speak more to that?
Verto's co-founders, both bringing experience from the technology and remittances sides of banking, understood that robust compliance is paramount, an insight solidified by Verto's foundational experience trading between the UK and the highly illiquid Nigerian market.
Their formula for navigating complex licensing hurdles involves proactively cementing relationships with central banks and regulators. Crucially, they engage these institutions by understanding their primary role as policymakers dedicated to their country's treasury stability, rather than as commercial bankers.
This deep regulatory understanding and collaborative, policy-first approach are key to Verto's ability to obtain licensing efficiently, thereby helping businesses mitigate costly delays when exporting to multiple countries.
For B2B companies looking to partner with Verto, could you explain how your platform helps solve this issue? For example, how does Verto act as a go-between license holder or sponsor for clients needing import/export licensing approval — and how does this enable companies to scale their operations more efficiently?
For B2B companies looking to partner with Verto, we solve our clients’ pain points by acting as a licensed intermediary, leveraging our regulatory approvals in key jurisdictions.
This means we can operate on behalf of clients; for instance, a South African exporter wishing to trade into the EU or UK can utilise our FCA license in the UK to access local GBP or Euro IBANs, without the client needing their own entity registered in that corridor. Essentially, they can receive funds like a local and repatriate that back to South Africa more efficiently.
By Verto serving as this licensed intermediary, companies significantly reduce the typical costs, risks, and administrative delays associated with individual licensing processes. This streamlined market access is crucial, enabling businesses to scale their international operations much more efficiently.
So far Trump’s tariffs have highlighted how expenses such as currency conversions, import taxes, and sudden currency fluctuations have become critical — even lifeblood — costs for importers and exporters. Could you explain how Verto’s platform helps mitigate these expenses and addresses this challenge?
Businesses have long grappled with substantial 'costs of doing business' internationally, such as high transaction margins, various fees including SWIFT charges, frustrating payment delays, and significant currency risk exposure. These are no longer just accepted overheads, but critical pain points that Verto directly addresses.
We help clients mitigate these financial risks and inefficiencies on two primary fronts:
Optimising currency risk and transaction costs: Verto leverages strong partnerships with multiple banking partners globally. This network allows us to streamline the entire payment process, offering more competitive foreign-exchange rates and by default, reducing our clients' exposure to volatile currency fluctuations.
Accelerating settlement times and reducing complexity: Our well-developed financial ecosystem and banking relationships enable us to drastically cut down transaction settlement periods. Instead of businesses waiting three to five days and navigating complex regulatory hurdles, Verto ensures funds are typically delivered within 24 hours, often even sooner.
Could you elaborate on your plans to expand your South African retail footprint—for instance, by partnering with businesses that follow models like Shein or Takealot? How does this tie in with your interest in scaling up your wine import/export operations?
Recognising that the third-party payment processing (TPPP) market in South Africa is currently too expensive, Verto aims to extend the cost-reduction and efficiency benefits we've delivered to our global B2B customers to the domestic retail and wholesale sectors.
Our strategy involves leveraging Verto's existing, proven global system - which provides fast, near-instant settlements for merchants - and adapting it to create a robust solution for local collections, payment aggregation, and domestic settlement.
Crucially, many South African retail and wholesale businesses also conduct high-volume monthly imports from regions like the Far East, the Middle East, or the US. By integrating Verto's capabilities, these companies can not only streamline their domestic payment processes but also simultaneously fast-track settlement lead times and reduce their foreign-exchange risk exposure on their import trade activities. This offers them a powerful, integrated solution to enhance overall operational and financial efficiency.
You mentioned that you've recently launched operations in Dubai and would ideally like to expand into Egypt. What opportunities might such an expansion present for Verto?
Establishing the UAE as a strategic hub is pivotal for Verto, granting us licensed access to the burgeoning Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) trading block, markets of increasing global prominence previously less accessible to us. Our UAE license is the key to effectively serving businesses operating in and with this dynamic region.
Many international businesses are now centralising their operations in the UAE, which also boasts strong trade agreements with key players in the GCC and fosters growing connectivity with other regions. Verto is strategically positioned to leverage this.
Our UAE license will enable us to 'connect the dots', fostering seamless trade and payment corridors not only within MENA itself but also crucially bridging MENA with African markets and the wider global economy. This significantly expands our ability to support our clients' international trading and growth ambitions.
Given the pressure that the Trump administration and rising tariffs are placing on businesses and their profit margins, what advice would you offer to multinational corporations feeling the squeeze? How might partnering with Verto help turn these challenges into opportunities?
We understand that multinational corporations, especially those in South Africa, often have deeply rooted, traditional banking relationships and might be cautious about engaging a fintech partner. Verto respects this loyalty; we don't aim to replace your primary bank. Instead, we position ourselves as a specialised, complementary solution designed to optimise the global trade arm of your business.
In today's uncertain economic landscape, the critical question for many MNCs is how to best improve international operational costs and strengthen their financial position. Verto provides a direct answer. Our core mission is to reduce these cross-border transaction costs and significantly accelerate global trade.
We achieve this by ensuring greater currency availability across numerous corridors and delivering tangible cost savings, allowing your business to focus more on strategic growth and scaling opportunities.
By partnering with Verto, you are assured of a measurable reduction in your international cost of doing business. Furthermore, you gain access to a streamlined, interconnected platform that facilitates trade across multiple corridors, some of which may have been previously challenging or less cost-effective to reach.
