• Botswana becomes the first African country to issue a license to a cryptocurrency exchange, namely Yellow Card.
• Nigeria’s Yellow Card group operates in 16 countries, including South Africa.
• South Africa has recently noted that it will seek to begin licensing crypto operators within its own borders.

Africa’s first-ever cryptocurrency license has been issued to Nigeria-founded and US-based Yellow Card group.

The exchange is the first cryptocurrency company on the continent to be granted a Virtual Asset Service Provider license, according to a press release.

This license, issued by the government of Botswana, will allow Yellow Card to operate in the Southern African country.

It was issued in accordance with Section 11 of the Virtual Asset Act 2022 of Botswana, by the Non-Bank Financial Institutions Regulatory Authority (NBFIRA) on the 29th September 2022. The license will apparently become the standard for crypto operations in the country.

Yellow Card CEO Chris Maurice said that the license issuing was a monumental moment for customers, investors and the crypto industry as a whole.

Botswana apparently leads in Africa in terms of crypto regulation, according to Keletso Thophego, Yellow Card’s country manager for Botswana.

According to a conversation with MoneyWeb, Thophego notes that Botswana has been ravaged by cryptocurrency scams and that is why the government is fast-tracking regulations around virtual currencies.

Yellow Card hopes more regulations around crypto will be able to aid Bostwana’s mostly unbanked populace.

“The majority of the population is unbanked because of the increasing difficulty of getting bank accounts for the average people who do not have payslips. There’s no doubt that because of blockchain technology we have been able to cater to the unbanked in a faster and more efficient way,” said Thophego in the press release.

Yellow Card complies with several global regulations apart from this recent licensing in Bostwana, including global Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Travel Rule requirements and KYC verification of all customers across all of its jurisdictions.

The company also complies with the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

Maurice added that Bostwana’s licensing of the company opens up other channels for expansion across Africa. The company already operates in 16 regions across Africa, including South Africa.

“This will further show regulators in other markets that we are not just any other cryptocurrency company – we are pioneering, pushing boundaries and setting the standard,” he added.

Last week, the South African government officially classified cryptocurrency assets as financial products en route to full-on crypto regulation in the country.

Like Botswana, South Africa is hoping to begin issuing licenses to crypto companies operating in its borders such as Luno and Valr. Surely Yellow Card will also be in that conversation.

We also discussed some of the issues around cryptocurrency adoption in a developing economy in the last episode of our weekly podcast.

[Image – Tima Miroshnichenko on Pexels]