Amid an increase in interest in virtual currencies, online trade and cryptocurrencies from across Africa, a new venture has been launched – DoshFX, a new trading platform and joint initiative between South African digital banking platform eZaga and global centralised exchange Digital Financial Exchange (DIFX).

DIFX was official introduced to the market at a function this week in Johannesburg.

The new trading platform will serve Africa with over 700 investable assets, including select cryptocurrencies “in a simpler, safer, transparent manner” the companies have said.

eZaga has provided digital banking services across South Africa since 2014, with the aim to enable people to transform the way they manage finance through the use of mobile technology.

According to the companies, over the years, Africa has witnessed an influx of various financial applications due to the adoption of technologies like blockchain and crypto.

They cite a recent Chainalysis report found that Sub-Saharan Africa was the overall leader in retail crypto transfers, accounting for 80.1% of global regional transactions.

The companies believe the report’s findings support the idea that many Sub-Saharan African youth are turning to cryptocurrency to build and preserve their wealth, as opposed to developed markets where cryptocurrency is used as a way to multiply existing wealth.

The Johannesburg-based multi-asset platform DoshFX, with zero-trading fees on BTC & ETH, was established to foster growth in this industry and digital community.

The companies said: “DoshFX aims to increase access to financial services by bringing South Africa and Africa’s unbanked and informal sector into the formal financial services sector, all while improving the rate of adoption of blockchain technologies, traditional asset investments and cryptocurrency trading throughout the continent.”

The platform is available via the web and as an app downloadable from Google Play Store.

“Additionally, the platform is fully regulated for investing and complies will all the South African Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) requirements to help detect and prevent money laundering and other forms of corruption,” the two companies added.

CEO and founder of eZaga, Saud Ally stated that “Despite the challenges faced in the global crypto market this year, Africa as a region has bucked the global bear trend to show an incredible increase in retail trade of day-to-day goods and services with cryptocurrencies. As a result of this positive adoption, we want to offer the DoshFX platform to millions of Africans to invest and trade in real time, transfer money securely, and increase their exposure to global investments”.

Ally said that eZaga’s intention was always to engage and serve the market represented by the unbanked being able to leverage Fintech platforms. It is a fast-moving, fast-growth space and being in a position to roll out an offering has not been easy.

“(We) have been building this building block for about five years... getting the banks together, facilitating the financial sector, and infiltrating and updating compliance with the regulator. To get onto this stage and put out the name DoshFX, the name on the wall, has not been easy. I want to thank everyone for their hard work.”

Ally added that eZaga’s intention was always to infiltrate the unbanked market, and focused on introducing more products into the spectrum – specifically digital assets.

The company has also paid close attention to partnerships with banks, particularly those that investigate potential use-cases with cryptocurrencies.

Ally described DIFX as family and said the company had significant knowledge capital and market experience that will help DoshFX grow from strength to strength.

DIFX’s knowledge will help to enable DoshFX accelerate investment in-and solutions for the market they want to address, and help them to build assets like crypto into the platform and reinforce the Fintech and ICT offering.

The partnership also allows for all existing eZaga customers to open a DoshFX account “with immediate access to a fully secure & insured custodial wallet with no additional KYC requirements.”

DIFX CEO and co-founder Jeetu Kataria said, “Our primary mission as DIFX is to provide a robust multi-asset platform for our global users so that we can increase the acceptance and adoption of blockchain and crypto in a secure and transparent manner. The creation of DoshFX is an extension of this mission of forging a blockchain future, driven by our commitment to financial inclusion for everyone, especially the unbanked and underbanked majority in Africa.”