Journal

Technical writing on African payments infrastructure

Detailed pieces on card acceptance, fraud detection, clearing, settlement, and API design by enza's engineering and product team.

Infrastructure

African Card Schemes: Payments Engineering Primer

Across Africa, Verve, GHLink, Interswitch, Visa and Mastercard coexist. Here is the technical context payments engineers need for each connection.

Hany Fekry 7 min read
Fraud

Fraud Detection Within the Clearing Window

The clearing window typically lasts 40 to 80 milliseconds. Fraud processing must finish within it or cannot stop the transaction.

Omar Khalil 6 min read
Compliance

African Banking Payments Compliance Fundamentals

From Central Bank of Nigeria guidelines to Bank of Ghana directives, African banking regulators have specific requirements for card payment infrastructure.

Hany Fekry 8 min read
Product

African Banks' Payments API Requirements

Banks have different API requirements than fintechs. Reliability over features, documentation over cleverness, and compliance first.

Amara Diallo 5 min read
Operations

African Banking Settlement Timing and Float

African settlement cycles range from same-day to T+3. Knowing the variance is essential when building dependable clearing infrastructure.

Hany Fekry 6 min read
Infrastructure

Fintech-Bank Partnership Infrastructure Patterns

When a fintech plugs into a bank's card program, the infrastructure layer between them is often the source of failure. Here is what to get right.

Amara Diallo 6 min read
Operations

Africa Cross-Border Clearing: Challenges and Solutions

Pan-African card clearing exceeds intra-region clearing complexity in Europe or North America. Currency shifts, fragmented schemes, and corridor rules all shape processing.

Hany Fekry 7 min read
Integration

Bank Card Acceptance: Technical Integration Guide

A step-by-step walkthrough of what is involved in connecting a bank to card acceptance infrastructure, from API credentials to first live transaction.

Omar Khalil 9 min read
Fraud

Lowering False Positives in Live Fraud Scoring

A fraud model that declines too many legitimate transactions is almost as costly as one that passes fraud. Here is how to tune thresholds without increasing risk.

Omar Khalil 6 min read
Fraud

Why Fraud Detection Must Run Within Clearing

Post-clearing fraud scoring does not remove your chargeback liability. The actionable interception point is before the clearing instruction leaves the system.

Hany Fekry 5 min read