Vodacom together with its subsidiary, XLink have devised a new platform to engage Africa’s banks and provide them with cloud capability to enhance digital services.

XLink, a provider of secure payment networks and services in South Africa, has routed the payment traffic of SA's banks for nearly 20 years.

The company has now established a new network and platform that unifies its different business capabilities, delivering them as and when they are needed.

It says it can deploy new services within weeks, harnessing Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS) to successfully deliver workloads for customers of all sizes.

Hymie Marnewick, Managing Director at XLink.

"We consolidated our capabilities at XLink into a platform to deploy and scale our solutions more readily and engage with more of the markets across Africa," says Hymie Marnewick, Managing Director at XLink. "Vodacom completes this great value. They have the networking skills and managed services reach to take us where our customers need us. They are also an AWS Advanced Consulting Partner providing the expertise and support that blends our capabilities with the power of AWS.”

The companies assert that as a result, XLink’s customers enjoy reliable uptime, robust service-level coverage consolidated through one service provider.

“By leveraging Vodacom’s managed services and connectivity, XLink has complete control over the solution chain and can respond to customer needs without delay,” they state.

Together with Vodacom, XLink now reaches across Africa and is currently concluding a project with a large bank in West Africa, which will ultimately consolidate the transactional traffic from ATMs spread across 18 countries. For the first time, that bank will have a single clear view of its ATM operations and realise substantial savings for its operations.

Kabelo Makwane, Managing Executive for Cloud, Hosting and Security at Vodacom Business .

Vodacom's network and MVNO partners provide the backhaul to securely transfer transactional data, backed by XLink's expertise and PCI-compliant secure-transaction network. Vodacom allows service delivery and service level agreements (SLAs) through its highly regarded managed services, linking banking customers across Africa to XLink operations and support, utilising AWS.

Having attained an AWS Advanced Consulting Partner status, Vodacom Business has invested in attaining 100+ AWS certifications in South Africa, since the launch of the AWS Region in Cape Town, South Africa. To focus its efforts, Vodacom Business has also established the Vodacom AWS Business Group.

Kabelo Makwane, Managing Executive for Cloud, Hosting and Security at Vodacom Business says, “Within Vodacom Business, we have a specialist AWS business group with the requisite professional services that offer consulting, planning, migration, and optimisation services. Vodacom Business is also an AWS Direct Connect Delivery Partner, and an AWS Advanced Consulting Partner. XLink's market leading secure payment services and platform give us the opportunity to demonstrate our capabilities and together deliver an end-to-end offering."