This case study explores how MontyPay, a global payment technology and services provider operating across MENA, Africa, and Asia, partnered with Akurateco to launch and scale its payment infrastructure. By adopting Akurateco’s white-label payment gateway, MontyPay gained the flexibility to enter diverse markets quickly, support local and global payment methods, and adapt its deployment model to different data-hosting requirements.
The collaboration gave MontyPay a scalable technology foundation under its own brand. It allowed the company to focus resources on merchant acquisition, market expansion, and product development while relying on Akurateco for the underlying payment infrastructure.
About MontyPay
MontyPay is a global payment technology and services provider and the fintech arm of the Monty Mobile telecommunications group, a network operator active across more than 70 countries with headquarters in the United Kingdom.
MontyPay delivers secure, scalable payment solutions for online and in-person commerce: online payment gateway, in-store POS, self-service checkout, QR-based hospitality payments, and e-commerce enablement. The company serves merchants across MENA, Africa, and Asia.
Today, MontyPay supports merchants in 50+ countries through 100+ payment methods, including Mastercard, Visa, AMEX, and leading regional digital wallets, positioning it as a versatile partner for businesses operating in high-growth markets.
Where Were They Coming From?
MontyPay set out with a clear commercial ambition: build a payment business capable of serving merchants across some of the world’s fastest-growing and most operationally complex markets, and do it at a pace that matched the opportunity.
That ambition came with a strategic decision. The leadership team could invest years and significant capital into building its payment gateway and orchestration infrastructure in-house, or it could adopt a proven technology foundation and direct its resources toward what would actually differentiate the business: merchant relationships, market knowledge, and product depth.
MontyPay chose the second path, and set four requirements for any technology partner it would work with.
1. Speed to Market
MontyPay needed its payment gateway running quickly in order to capitalize on the commercial relationships and market access already available to it. Pre-built integrations, compliance tooling, and a ready merchant management system were essential to avoid the multi-year development cycle that building from scratch would require.
2. Flexibility and Scalability Across Diverse Markets
MENA, Africa, and Asia are characterized by sharply different regulatory environments, preferred payment methods, and banking infrastructure. MontyPay needed technology that could be configured market by market rather than a rigid, one-size-fits-all system, and that would scale alongside a growing merchant base without performance trade-offs.
3. Deployment Adaptability
Markets differ in how they require financial data to be stored and processed, and several jurisdictions in MontyPay’s target regions impose data residency obligations on payment providers. This made deployment flexibility a core requirement: the ability to operate on cloud-hosted infrastructure where appropriate, and to move to a dedicated on-premises deployment where local data-hosting requirements call for it.
4. Breadth of Payment Integrations
To serve merchants across diverse markets, MontyPay needed access to a wide library of pre-built connectors spanning global card schemes and local alternative payment methods, rather than commissioning each integration individually. Speed of adding new connectors on request was equally important.
After evaluating the options available, MontyPay selected Akurateco as the technology partner for its payment gateway and orchestration platform. The combination of deployment flexibility, a library of 700+ global and local integrations, PCI DSS certification, and established experience across regulated markets met each of MontyPay’s four criteria.
Our Approach for MontyPay
The collaboration was structured around a single principle: give MontyPay a payment gateway and orchestration platform that operates entirely under its own brand and commercial control, and configure it to whatever each market requires. The partnership covers this layer only; MontyPay’s other products, such as its POS and QCheck solutions, are outside its scope.
A Fully Branded Payment Gateway
From launch, MontyPay operated a complete payment gateway under its own identity, with no visible dependency on an external platform. The system gave MontyPay:
- A merchant management system for onboarding, monitoring, and servicing merchants at scale
- Intelligent payment routing to direct each transaction through the optimal connector
- Tokenization and PCI DSS-aligned data handling
- Recurring billing, smart invoicing, and real-time payment analytics
This allowed the MontyPay team to concentrate on merchant acquisition, market development, and product strategy rather than payment gateway engineering.
Configurable Deployment by Market
Rather than committing to a single hosting model, MontyPay retained the ability to select the deployment configuration appropriate to each market it enters. Cloud-hosted deployment supports rapid entry where local requirements allow. Where a jurisdiction requires payment data to be processed and stored locally, the same platform can be deployed on dedicated infrastructure inside that market and integrated with local payment rails.
Cloud and on-premises options support different technical and data-hosting requirements. They do not automatically satisfy the licensing or regulatory requirements of each market, which MontyPay addresses separately wherever it operates. What deployment flexibility does provide is continuity: MontyPay can meet a market’s hosting requirements without moving to a different platform.
Ongoing Integration Expansion
MontyPay today operates with 15+ active connectors spanning local and global payment methods, with new integrations added as its merchant base and geographic footprint grow. Access to a broader connector library means new markets and payment methods can be activated without bespoke development for each one.
What Did We Achieve Together?
The partnership has delivered results across several dimensions of MontyPay’s payment gateway operations:
1. Rapid Market Entry Without Development Risk
MontyPay launched its payment gateway in a fraction of the time an in-house build would have required, allowing the team to establish merchant relationships and capture market position early.
2. Multi-Market Expansion
MontyPay now serves merchants in 50+ countries across MENA, Africa, and Asia, with its gateway configured to the payment landscape and hosting requirements of each market it operates in.
3. Deployment Adaptability
Deployment flexibility allows MontyPay to meet data-hosting requirements in new markets without re-architecting its platform, protecting its expansion timeline.
4. A Complete Gateway Offering
Through the gateway, MontyPay offers merchants card and alternative payment acceptance, recurring billing, and smart invoicing, complementing the wider portfolio of products it provides.
5. Operational Efficiency at Scale
Intelligent routing, automated merchant onboarding, and a centralized admin panel allow MontyPay to grow its merchant base without proportional increases in operational headcount. Real-time analytics provide the visibility needed to optimize performance continuously.
6. A Scalable Foundation for Growth
With 15+ active integrations in place and access to a library of 700+ connectors, MontyPay can activate new markets and payment methods rapidly, scaling alongside its commercial ambitions without infrastructure overhauls.
Need a Hand?
Are you a fintech, telecom operator, or payment service provider looking to launch or expand a payment business across MENA, Africa, Asia, or beyond? Akurateco’s platform offers the flexibility, compliance tooling, and integration depth to move quickly and scale confidently.
About Akurateco
Akurateco is a global PCI DSS-certified white-label payment software vendor that offers tailored solutions for payment providers, merchants, and financial institutions worldwide. The platform supports both SaaS and on-premises deployments, giving clients the flexibility to meet different technical and data-hosting requirements across jurisdictions.
Trusted by clients across MENA, Europe, and Asia, Akurateco’s platform is licensed by SAMA, QCB, and the Financial Regulatory Authority (FRA). With a library of 700+ global and local integrations, Akurateco empowers payment businesses to launch, grow, and scale with confidence.
