Middle East and Africa’s leading card and payment processing enterprise, MDP, has appointed Frank Molla as the Managing Director of MDP Africa. Molla will be responsible for strengthening MDP’s growth and discovering local opportunities for expansion and partnerships across Africa. He will focus on enhancing MDP’s strategic direction in Africa, driving the next growth phase, and creating value through continual excellence and innovation.
For the past 30 years, MDP has offered card and payment processing solutions to banks, fintechs, and various businesses across the Middle East and North Africa. MDP has simplified payments for over 1,000 companies and more than 300 million individuals by utilizing a combination of innovative payment solutions and strategic partnerships.
MDP aims to increase its impact by becoming the preferred partner, providing comprehensive card issuing and payment processing solutions for banks, fintechs, telcos, corporations, and challenger banks across Africa. Molla’s appointment is anticipated to contribute to this goal by combining his extensive experience in financial services, technology, and market knowledge with MDP’s revolutionary technology to launch leading solutions in Africa.
MDP’s CEO, Ahmed Nafie, spoke highly of Molla’s appointment, citing his extensive experience and exemplary track record in the payments industry. He added that Molla’s dedication to excellence aligns perfectly with MDP’s vision for the future. This appointment signifies MDP’s commitment to strengthen its presence in Africa, and to advance their mission – simplifying payment experiences for banks, fintechs, and SMEs, and accelerating embedded financial solutions across the continent. MDP anticipates Molla’s leadership and contributions will continue to drive growth and innovations in the African payments industry.
Ahmed Nafie added, “With Frank, we have a fantastic opportunity to align one of the top business leaders in financial technology with a significant macro-opportunity in Africa, which we believe will drive innovation and create value for the continent’s payment market. We are delighted to have Frank leading the team, given his history of scaling organizations and focusing on seizing market opportunities and valuable business outcomes.”
On his appointment, Molla remarked, “I am confident that MDP is still in the initial stages of creating improved and exciting payment opportunities in Africa. We are well-positioned to create and capture significant value in Africa’s predicted Fintech growth of $65 billion by 2030. I am eager to work with an exceptional team to strengthen MDP’s value through partnerships, develop the next level of growth that the continent presents, and significantly expand our footprint in Africa.”
Frank Molla, a seasoned executive with two decades of experience in the payments industry, joins MDP. His career spans diverse markets across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
Before his appointment at MDP, Molla served as the Managing Director and Head of Sub-Saharan Africa at BPC Banking Technologies, where he spearheaded the company’s digital and technological expansion in the region. He also led Mastercard’s business strategy in Eastern Africa, focusing on building payment ecosystems and solutions through innovation and technology.
Molla spent time at American Express in Spain and the UK, where he led the efforts to grow and defend the company’s market share in sub-Saharan Africa in the corporate multinational space and bank partnerships. In his early career at Absa (formerly Barclays Bank of Kenya), he held several senior commercial management roles.
Certified as a master negotiator by Harvard and Strathmore Business School, Molla currently serves on two boards. He is the Digital Strategy Lead Advisor for the Digital Economy Advisory Council (DEAC) and Zanzibar e-Government, and a board member for Business Strategy Development and Information Technology at LPC Global Logistics.
