MFS Africa bolsters compliance team with former MoneyGram director

Leading Pan-African fintech company MFS Africa today announces that Arthur Kirsten has joined the company as Head of Risk and Compliance. Arthur joins from MoneyGram where he was previously the acting Compliance Director for Sub-Saharan Africa. Previous to this he was Head of Money Laundering surveillance at Standard Bank South Africa and National Manager of Fraud and Anti-Money Laundering at Bidvest Group. Arthur will ensure that MFS Africa’s compliance systems, Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) practices surpass industry standards.

Arthur’s hire is part of MFS Africa’s commitment to both ensuring it continues to exceed the highest compliance standards in mobile financial services, and to advocate for responsible, proportionate, inclusive regulation in this space.

The MFS Hub aggregates mobile money transactions across multiple networks and jurisdictions, connecting mobile network operators, banks, money transfer organisations and merchants. Integrating fully into both sender and receiver systems means MFS Africa sees the full extent of all transactions, not just one side, as an individual money transfer operator would. With a wealth of compliance data across over 120m wallets, MFS Africa can provide real time controls and checks that exceed existing practices, which are offline rather than online. The company also conduct thorough and rigorous due diligence on each of the MFS Hub Partners and closely monitor their own compliance program to continuously assess risks.

The MFS Hub surpasses existing KYC and AML requirements by authenticating both the sender and, crucially, the receiver. These are both then checked against a database of sanctioned or blacklisted individuals. Furthermore, because the MFS Hub connects many partners, it’s possible to flag and investigate instances of multiple suspicious transactions to one individual from different originators. This comprehensive view isn’t possible within the closed loop of traditional remittances or typical bank transfers.

“MFS Africa is truly at the forefront of the industry by bringing interoperability and scale to digital payments in Africa. This means it is crucial for us to stay ahead of compliance requirements and lead the industry in terms of risks management solutions and it’s my job to keep it here.” said Arthur Kirsten, Head of Risk and Compliance at MFS Africa. “Because we work across multiple mobile networks and domestic markets, connecting over 120m mobile wallets, MFS Africa is in a unique position to drive down the number of non-compliant transactions across the continent and beyond.”

“Arthur brings to MFS Africa many years of compliance experience with some of the world leading providers and an unparalleled insight into regulatory challenges ahead of the industry,” said Dare Okoudjou, CEO of MFS Africa. “I look forward to working with him to engaging regulatory bodies across the continent to respond to these challenges.”