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Yellow Card introduces USD Coin (USDC) on Stellar Network for Lightning-Fast Cross-Border Transactions

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2 years ago

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USDC

With USDC on Stellar, Yellow Card users gain access to expedited transactions, enhancing the convenience and utility of their digital currency dealings

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LAGOS, Nigeria, February 13, 2024/APO Group/ — 

As Africa slowly inches towards widespread adoption of digital assets, it has become imperative that exchanges provide more cost-effective ways for buying, selling, receiving, and sending other digital assets. Among these assets, stablecoins have emerged as the preferred option for people seeking to invest, send remittances, and make cross-border payments. The preference hinges on the fact that stablecoins are tied to the value of the dollar, which protects against inflation and eliminates the fear of volatility that is seen with other digital assets.

On this premise, Yellow Card, the largest and only licensed stablecoin on/off ramp on the African continent, is set to introduce USDC (https://apo-opa.co/3SEUG5l), a digital stablecoin on the Stellar network, an open-source decentralised blockchain network, revolutionising cross-border payments, remittances, and treasury management globally.

Empowering Financial Transactions with USDC on Stellar

Yellow Card (https://YellowCard.io), known for its user-friendly platform and expansive presence across 20 African countries, is set to elevate user experience by integrating USDC on the Stellar network. This integration combines the robust features of the Stellar network, such as low transaction fees and lightning-fast transactions with the rapid growth of one of the world’s fastest-growing digital currencies, USDC, offering users a seamless, near-instant, and cost-effective solution for various financial transactions. With this integration, users on the Yellow Card app can now send USDC on the Stellar network.

Game-Changing Convenience for Yellow Card Users

With USDC on Stellar, Yellow Card users gain access to expedited transactions, enhancing the convenience and utility of their digital currency dealings. This partnership marks a significant milestone in the digital assets and blockchain industry, with the potential to reshape global payments and drive widespread digital currency adoption.

Chris Maurice, Yellow Card’s CEO, expressed excitement about the integration, stating, “We are thrilled to bring USDC on Stellar to our users. This is a giant leap forward for global payments, making it easier, faster, and more affordable for people around the world to access and utilise digital dollars.”

This is a giant leap forward for global payments, making it easier, faster, and more affordable for people around the world to access and utilise digital dollars

Stellar Network’s Prime Performance in Financial Products and Services

The Stellar blockchain, tailored for everyday financial products and services, boasts speed, scalability, and sustainability. The emphasis on optimising payments ensures low fees and transaction speeds that scale with increased adoption. Having processed billions of operations with millions of accounts since its launch, Stellar is a trusted choice for financial institutions and innovators worldwide.

Instant Global Transactions and Accessibility

A key feature of the Yellow Card-Stellar integration is the ability for consumers to instantly send and receive digital dollars globally. This convenience extends to users without a traditional bank account, as the Yellow Card App facilitates these transactions seamlessly.

Revolutionising Financial Infrastructure with USDC on Stellar

One of the major challenges people in Africa face with making cross-border payments is hidden charges. There are several cases where people try to send money to loved ones in a different country but end up losing a significant part of the money to fees and hidden charges. Yellow Card understands this, so their users stand to gain significantly from this collaboration as transferring USDC to other USDC-supported exchanges on the Stellar network is much cheaper compared to other blockchain networks. This is in addition to its already existent cross-border payment feature Yellow Pay (https://apo-opa.co/3wfJ1m6), a stablecoin-powered transfer feature.

The app will now serve as a crucial access point for companies and users seeking to leverage the efficiency and speed of the Stellar network. USDC on Stellar enables near-zero transaction costs, swift settlement, and transactions finalised in as little as 3 seconds. This positions Yellow Card as a facilitator for fintechs, and exchanges to harness the speed and low costs of USDC on Stellar for various use cases, from remittances to real-time payments.

To further empower its users, Yellow Card is set to  award $5 USDC to customers who send at least $3 USDC using the Stellar network on the App. This will help introduce this new technology to users where they can experience -fast transaction speeds of the network. It’s a win-win for users.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Yellow Card Financial.

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China’s digital hub Hangzhou hosts conference on AI, OPC

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14 hours ago

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June 30, 2026

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OPC

HANGZHOU, CHINA – Media OutReach Newswire – 30 June 2026 – The inaugural AI+OPC Innovation and Development Conference was held from June 29 to 30 in Shangcheng District, Hangzhou, capital city of east China’s Zhejiang Province. Centered on one-person company (OPC), a new form of smart economy in the AI era, the conference program comprised one opening ceremony and two parallel breakout sessions.

It gathered around 400 delegates from government departments, industry associations, financial institutions, AI enterprises and OPC startup operators across the country. Participants exchanged insights on AI innovation pathways and cross-industry integration strategies, injecting strong impetus into Hangzhou’s ambition to develop a national benchmark hub for AI+OPC entrepreneurship.

A series of key launches and milestone ceremonies took place during the opening segment. Official releases included the 2026 national OPC development observation report, Hangzhou’s 2026–2028 action plan and supporting policies to build a national AI+OPC entrepreneurship hub, and a catalog of actionable AI+OPC application scenarios. Attendees also received an in-depth interpretation of the specifications for AI-enabled OPC community services and evaluation.

The ceremony featured multiple landmark initiatives: plaque awarding for Hangzhou’s priority AI+OPC incubation communities and dedicated observation sites, the official launch of the AI+OPC Community Alliance initiative, and a kickoff marking the official construction of the national AI+OPC entrepreneurship hub.

The open forum session featured keynote speeches from distinguished industry and academic leaders. Speakers included Pan Yunhe, former executive vice president of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and professor at Zhejiang University; Liang Gui, former executive vice governor of Jiangxi Province and ex-director of the Torch High Technology Industry Development Center under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology; and Zou Ling, head of Hong Hub, Shangcheng District’s single-member unicorn startup acceleration community, who shared cutting-edge insights from varied perspectives.

A panel dialogue followed, bringing together representatives from Moshu OPC Community (Beijing E-Town), the School of Future Science and Engineering at Soochow University, Qingju Hub · Future Digital Intelligence Port (Shangcheng District), and Puhua Capital for in-depth industry exchanges.

Complementary concurrent events held throughout the conference included an OPC capital-industry matchmaking salon, a symposium on industry-education integration for AI-powered OPC sectors, and a national exchange forum for AI+OPC community practitioners.

OPC has emerged as a vibrant new engine driving economic vitality and underpinning high-quality development. Against the backdrop of a new development era, the inaugural Hangzhou AI+OPC Innovation and Development Conference unites OPC innovators nationwide.

Drawing on the creative energy of millions of independent super-individual operators, the event delivers sustained digital momentum to fuel Hangzhou’s super-individual economy, while rolling out replicable local practices and actionable Hangzhou solutions to advance high-quality growth of smart economies nationwide.

 

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Hainan FTP marks 6-month milestone of special customs operations, signs deals during Hong Kong visit

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21 hours ago

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June 30, 2026

By

Hong Kong

HONG KONG SAR – Media OutReach Newswire – 29 June 2026 – As the Hainan Free Trade Port (FTP) marked the six-month milestone since the launch of its full special customs operations, a Hainan provincial delegation wrapped up a three-day visit to Hong Kong. During the visit, the delegation signed deepened cooperation agreements with several major local chambers of commerce and promoted the latest policies introduced since the island-wide special customs operations took effect.

According to data released by Hainan Province during the visit, Hainan’s foreign trade has surged since the launch of special customs operations. As of June 17, the province’s total goods imports and exports reached RMB 173.98 billion (approximately US$24 billion), up 54.6% year on year. Imports of zero-tariff goods hit RMB 2.645 billion, a 120% jump that generated tariff savings of RMB 440 million. A total of 172,100 new market entities were registered—a 61% increase—including 1,240 foreign-invested enterprises. Zero-tariff items now account for 74% of all tariff lines, benefiting more than 12,000 market entities.

During the Hong Kong visit, China Council for the Promotion of International Trade Hainan Provincial Committee (CCPIT Hainan) signed separate deepened cooperation MOUs with the Chinese General Chamber of Commerce, Hong Kong and the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce. Under the MOUs, the parties will establish a regular liaison mechanism for the periodic exchange of economic and trade information, and will promote collaboration in areas including professional services, green finance, the digital economy, supply chain management, and cultural tourism. Mutual enterprise service desks will be set up to provide consulting services regarding policies and projects. The parties will leverage their complementary strengths to help Chinese mainland enterprises access overseas markets via Hong Kong, while facilitating Hong Kong companies’ entry into the Chinese mainland through Hainan.

The delegation also held talks with the British Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong and the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong, exploring ways for British and American businesses to leverage Hainan’s value-added processing tariff exemptions and multifunctional free trade accounts to position themselves in regional supply chains and cross-border investment and financing. HSBC, De Beers, and other British firms are already active in Hainan, and the UK served as the Guest of Honor country at the 2025 China International Consumer Products Expo.

According to industry analysts, amid the shifting international trade landscape, Hainan is leveraging Hong Kong’s “super-connector” role to accelerate its integration with global capital and business networks, while simultaneously offering the Hong Kong business community a policy testing ground for entering the Chinese mainland market.

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Africa’s Grid Constraints Come into Focus as Regional Markets Push Toward Integration

Published

5 days ago

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June 26, 2026

By

Africa

Regional power pools are advancing and renewable pipelines are growing, but the regulatory and financial architecture needed to connect them remains the continent’s most critical infrastructure gap – an issue central to the Power Africa Today conference at AEW 2026

CAPE TOWN, South Africa, June 25, 2026/APO Group/ –Africa’s electricity demand is projected to nearly double to 2,291 TWh by 2050, requiring an estimated $30 billion in transmission and grid infrastructure investment to unlock and integrate new generation capacity. Yet across the continent, grid systems are struggling to keep pace with rapidly expanding supply pipelines and rising demand.

In Nigeria, repeated nationwide grid collapses as recently as February 2026 underscore the fragility of aging transmission infrastructure. In East Africa, tower failures along the 428 km Loiyangalani-Suswa line temporarily stranded output from Lake Turkana Wind Power – Africa’s largest wind installation. Meanwhile, demand growth pressures are accelerating across North Africa, where electricity consumption is expected to rise by around 50% by 2035, driven by urbanization, desalination projects, and climate-related temperature increases.

Despite these constraints, generation investment continues to accelerate across Africa, particularly in renewables, gas-to-power and hybrid systems. However, without equivalent investment in transmission and interconnection, much of this new capacity risks being underutilized or stranded. This growing imbalance between generation and grid capacity is driving a sharper focus on system-wide planning and regional market design – issues that will be central to the newly launched Power Africa Today conference at African Energy Week 2026. The platform will bring together policymakers, utilities, investors and developers to explore how regional interconnection, cross-border trading frameworks and financing structures can better align generation growth with grid expansion.

Power Markets Experiment with Reform

Alongside infrastructure challenges, Africa’s electricity sector is undergoing gradual – but uneven – market reform. Most countries still operate vertically integrated systems dominated by state utilities, but a growing number are introducing competitive frameworks to attract private capital and improve efficiency.

Zimbabwe opened its electricity market to full private participation across generation, transmission and distribution in 2025, targeting $9 billion in new investment. South Africa is advancing one of the continent’s most ambitious grid expansion programs, with plans for 14,500 km of new transmission lines and 133,000 MVA of transformer capacity by 2034, alongside mechanisms designed to crowd in private financing. Kenya, meanwhile, has introduced open access regulations enabling independent power producers to wheel electricity directly to multiple off-takers, reshaping how generation assets interface with the grid.

Interconnected electricity markets are the foundation of Africa’s industrial future

Regional Integration Remains Fragmented

Efforts to connect Africa’s fragmented power systems are progressing, though at different speeds across regions. In Southern Africa, the World Bank’s RETRADE SAPP program, approved in 2025, is deploying $12 million to strengthen renewable integration and transmission capacity across 12 member states. In East Africa, the Ethiopia–Kenya–Tanzania Electricity Highway is now in trial operations at up to 2,000 MW, marking a significant step toward a more interconnected regional grid.

West Africa is also moving toward deeper integration, with permanent synchronization of the West Africa Power Pool expected in 2026. Analysts, including the African Finance Corporation, argue that such synchronization is critical to unlocking large-scale hydropower potential and industrial demand across the region. Longer term, full synchronization between the Eastern and Southern African power pools – targeted for the end of 2026 – could create one of the world’s largest cross-border electricity trading corridors.

Building Bankable Financial Architectures

While interconnection is advancing, infrastructure alone is not enough to create investable electricity markets. Investors consistently cite the lack of standardized offtake structures, creditworthy counterparties, and cross-border payment guarantees as key barriers to scaling capital deployment.

New models are emerging to address these constraints. Africa GreenCo, operating across Zambia, Namibia and South Africa, is helping to aggregate independent power producers under a single creditworthy intermediary, standardizing power purchase agreements and reducing counterparty risk. At a broader level, AUDA-NEPAD estimates that Africa requires around $30 billion in additional investment to complete priority transmission corridors and establish three fully interconnected regional trading blocs by 2030.

“Interconnected electricity markets are the foundation of Africa’s industrial future,” said NJ Ayuk, Executive Chairman of the African Energy Chamber. “The question at Africa Energy Week is not whether integration is possible – the evidence is already there. The question is which regulatory frameworks and financial structures will get projects to financial close, and which markets will be ready when capital is looking to move.”

The Power Africa Today conference will run alongside AEW 2026, taking place October 12–16 in Cape Town, and will focus on the regulatory, financial and infrastructural architecture needed to build interconnected electricity markets capable of attracting institutional capital and delivering reliable, cross-border power at scale.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of African Energy Chamber.

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