Entering the era of intelligent payments

Doing business in Sudan isn't easy, but back in 2011, it should have been possible. "We were working with major telecoms company Zain based out of southern Sudan at the time – before the country split in two," explains Charlie Tryon, chief executive of Maris, an investment holding company that operates across east and southern Africa. "Sudan was on the US's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctions list, but the south was exempt, so it should have been OK for us to work here. We took out all the precautions we needed – did all the necessary paperwork, spoke to all the right people, told the banks, made sure we had permission from OFAC and notified all other regulatory bodies about our cross-border transaction – everything. "But the money we transferred from our business bank account to Zain was still stopped," he says. Tryon's transaction failed to pass compliance tests. In a bind, he was forced to physically move thousands of dollars from a bank account in Uganda to Sudan to pay his suppliers – at great personal risk. "We had suitcases full of cash that we took via plane and car into Sudan," says Tryon. "This isn't the ideal way to run a business, but at the time we had very little choice." A lot has changed since 2011. Know-your-customer and anti-money laundering (AML) screening is increasingly automated, helping to remove some of the delays caused by strict compliance measures. On top of this, banks, retailers, payment service providers (PSPs) and other businesses involved in the money transfer process are using artificial intelligence (AI) to make much more accurate decisions about payments. "At the time, we spent a huge amount of money and time trying to set this right," says Tryon. "It included international travel, lobbying, meetings with banks and regulators.