For global businesses, frequently blocked international payments is a common reality. Funds are often frozen or rejected and businesses find themselves forced to accept the typical delays. Unfortunately, this situation occurs thousands of times every day for legitimate businesses simply trying to conduct cross-border money transfers to or from Africa.
If you manage international business payments from the emerging markets to the US, you already know SWIFT and correspondent banking friction realities. From anti-money laundering triggers to compliance requirements, traditional banks have multiple reasons to block the payments to and from Africa. As a result, African businesses use pooled accounts, struggle to build trust with senders and end up performing manual reconciliation.
Limitations with USD account
Offered by local banks, domiciliary accounts allow you to hold and store US dollars in your country. These USD-denominated accounts are specifically designed to enable the receipt of international wire transfers in foreign currency. Yet, they don’t solve the payments gap for African businesses. The absence of named business accounts leads to manual intervention to match inbound USD payments to the correct business entity. At scale, this creates operational bottlenecks, increases error rates, and places a disproportionate burden on finance and operations teams.
Understanding the root causes of USD collection friction is the first step toward addressing them. For businesses in emerging markets, the barriers typically fall into one of the following categories:
Restricted access to USD collection
A large portion of intra-African transactions are still routed through banks in Europe or the US, even for trade between neighbouring countries. Banks are required to break down large sums into smaller, rapid payments to bypass automated reporting limits, such as the $10,000 threshold in the US. Also, businesses in emerging markets are structurally locked out of US domestic rails even with a USD account. Businesses are required to provide full, accurate documentation (invoices, contracts) and use pooled accounts that offer direct, localized payment routes.
Impact: Regardless of whether it's been a pooled account or wire transfer, businesses have limited access to USD collection infrastructure and delays the operations of a business.
Lack of trust and credibility
Lacking a dedicated, named USD account prevents businesses from building a verifiable financial track record and establishing direct relationships with US payment infrastructure. This, in turn, undermines their credibility with international partners and counterparties. For businesses operating in the African corridor, this gap of trust significantly blocks their ability to access customers or partners in the US.
Impact: The growth for businesses is slow and stunted and comes with an increased risk of losing partnerships.
Regulatory compliance and AML
A payment from the US to Emerging markets including Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania often passes through multiple intermediary banks and are under pressure to improve KYC and AML controls. The need for stringent checks can get complicated in emerging markets due to a lack of standardized identification records. Transactions often trigger a Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) when they undergo sanctions screening against global watchlists.
Impact: Businesses are on the receiving end of these checks and international investigations can freeze funds for 7-10 business days when operating in emerging markets.
High-risk jurisdictions
There is an increased risk due to political and economic instability, weak Anti-Money Laundering (AML) enforcement, or higher rates of financial crime in volatile regions like Tanzania. Some countries impose strict currency controls during turbulent times, which often lead banks to flag payments and request additional documentation from businesses to ensure compliance with these regulations.
Impact: Businesses use pooled accounts to attribute inbound USD payments to a third-party provider rather than the receiving business. This creates credibility concerns for counterparties and introduces unnecessary friction into what should be a straightforward transaction.
Correspondent banking and local rails
Payments to emerging markets like Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, often involve multiple correspondent banks which increases the chance of data loss or incompatibility, resulting in manual holds. Many traditional banks lack direct connections or rails with local banks in emerging economies, forcing them to rely on longer, less transparent routes to complete transactions.
Impact: The absence of named accounts requires manual intervention to match inbound USD payments to the correct business entity. Involving multiple correspondent banks creates bottlenecks as banks frequently request extensive supporting documentation, such as invoices, contracts, or proof of the source of funds, causing friction for regular business operations.
Mitigate the challenges with Verto
The safest and fastest way is to have US and emerging market compliance expertise that can enable you to have a US presence with a virtual named account despite not being registered in the US. Verto now offers virtual USD named accounts to bypass the SWIFT network entirely and collect locally for non‑FI customers in high‑demand markets. Having processed $25B p.a. and managing operations across corridors, Verto offers a significant boost in credibility and reduces payment friction for US-Africa businesses.
Named accounts for your business
We enable you to establish credibility and trust with your US trading partners by providing USD domestic accounts in your company name, especially beneficial when dealing with US-based customers. Unlike pooled accounts, payments with virtual USD-named accounts won’t be flagged by US banks.
African local rails
Our local US rails provide native access to ACH and Fedwire networks for seamless, domestic-style USD collections, eliminating the complexities of international wire transfers. We ensure operational excellence with a high-reliability infrastructure targeting >99% Straight-Through Processing (STP), which guarantees faster collection times.
Who this is for
This product is designed for corporate and B2B businesses in emerging markets that collect USD from international buyers, clients, or counterparties.
Please Note: this integration is currently available to non-financial institution clients only. Businesses operating as banks, payment processors, or other financial institutions will be supported in a future release.
We removed the pain points and tackled these problems to give you a smoother experience and greater peace of mind.
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