The crypto and investment platform now connects its payment providers through MoneyHash. This allows it to manage payments from a single point, introduce local payment methods with less development work, and route transactions according to provider performance. According to the announcement, the setup has helped Luno recover one in four deposits that might otherwise have been lost.
Integration overhead as a constraint on growth
As Luno expanded into multiple markets, it needed to support the payment options customers in each market use to fund their accounts. This meant working with more than 25 payment providers and local bank connections, each with its own integration, processes, and reporting. In addition, every new market or payment option added another connection for engineering teams to build, maintain, and monitor.
Over time, maintaining this setup took up engineering and payments team capacity that could otherwise have gone to Luno’s core products and customer experience. Cornel Smit, Head of Payments at Luno, said that handing payment integrations to MoneyHash meant internal teams no longer had to spend capacity managing payment rails. Engineering resources could instead go towards revenue generation and product development for users.
How the orchestration layer works
MoneyHash brings payment providers, routing, and payment operations into one environment. The model is designed to let businesses choose and manage the providers they need without the added complexity of building and maintaining each connection separately. For companies expanding across markets, this means they can adapt to local payment needs without rebuilding their payment setup each time.
In Luno’s case, the platform directs transactions across available payment providers based on how each is performing. Where appropriate, it retries a payment through an alternative route. The companies attribute the recovery of one in four deposits to this routing capability. Furthermore, Luno also gains a consolidated view of payment performance across its connections.
Nader Abdelrazik, Co-founder and CEO of MoneyHash, said the company’s role is to remove the complexity of managing multiple payment providers. The aim is for Luno’s teams to move faster, improve payment performance, and focus on building for customers.
Implications for multi-market platforms
Beyond deposit recovery, the companies report two further results: less engineering time spent maintaining payment integrations, and a shorter time to launch local payment options in new markets. The announcement does not provide specific figures for either.
Luno now serves millions of customers across multiple markets. Under the new arrangement, adding a market or a payment option no longer requires a matching increase in engineering work behind it. This gives Luno’s teams a more flexible base for managing providers and adapting to local requirements as the company enters or develops markets.
MoneyHash presents the deployment as an example of why payment orchestration matters in diverse markets such as Africa. In those markets, businesses operating at scale also need payment options and providers that work locally. For platforms like Luno, which handle customer funding flows across several jurisdictions, centralising provider management can reduce the operational cost of each additional market.
