CASE STUDY
WSO2 Powers Tanzania’s #1 Fintech App: Mixx by Yas
Product Area
API Management
Region
Africa
Industry
Telecommunications
Highlights
150M+ Transactions Monthly at 8,000 TPM:
The platform seamlessly processes over 150 million transactions each month, handling peak loads of 8,000 transactions per minute without disruption.
#1 Fintech App in Two Months:
In just two months of launch, the Mixx by Yas super app became Tanzania’s top fintech app, owing to exceptional customer experience, and reliable post-launch support.
Regulatory-Grade Security:
Meets central bank and telecom regulatory standards, ensuring trusted, secure customer transactions.
Overview
Yas Tanzania, formerly known as Tigo Tanzania, operating under the umbrella of AXIAN Telecom, is a leading telecommunications provider committed to driving digital inclusion and mobile connectivity across Tanzania.
At the forefront of the company’s mission is Mixx by Yas, the company’s fintech arm and next-generation super app. Mixx by Yas brings together an extensive portfolio of mobile financial services under a single, seamless digital ecosystem. Customers can conveniently pay bills, make instant transfers, top up airtime, access micro-lending and insurance products, manage remittances through global partners, and complete everyday transactions all through one intuitive platform.
Mixx by Yas plays a pivotal role in advancing financial inclusion by integrating mobile finance directly with core telecom services. Yas is making digital financial services accessible to all Tanzanians, in both cities and rural areas, so millions can participate fully in the digital economy
Within just two months of launch, our Mixx by Yas super app became Tanzania’s #1 fintech platform. The seamless performance, robust security, and close collaboration with WSO2 have enabled us to deliver an exceptional experience to millions of customers while confidently scaling our digital services."
Zakayo Malisa
Director of Technology
Mixx by Yas
Challenge
As Yas Tanzania sought to expand its digital ecosystem, the company faced multiple business-critical challenges.
- Scaling and Resiliency: Rapid growth in its customer base and transaction volumes required a highly scalable and resilient digital infrastructure to maintain service quality and operational efficiency.
- Integration Complexity: The need to integrate multiple services; from mobile connectivity to financial products, posed complex technical and operational challenges that directly impacted the user experience.
- Regulatory Compliance and Trust: Operating in a highly regulated fintech and telecommunications environment meant that security, compliance, and adherence to central bank and GSMA standards were business imperatives, critical for sustaining trust and protecting the company’s reputation.
- Pace of Innovation: Continuous innovation was essential to remain competitive, as evolving customer expectations and new market entrants demanded the rapid deployment of new services and digital offerings.
Addressing these challenges was crucial for maintaining Yas’ leadership position in Tanzania’s digital landscape and achieving AXIAN Telecom’s broader pan-African growth objectives.
Solution
To modernize its digital ecosystem and deliver a seamless experience for customers, Yas embarked on a digital transformation journey. This encompassed both API modernization and revamping their app into the Mixx by Yas Super app. The decision to adopt WSO2 API Manager was made at the AXIAN group level, aligning Yas’ architecture with other AXIAN entities like Mvola and Yas Togo, ensuring consistency across the pan-African group.
This transformation replaced legacy authentication mechanisms, such as header enrichment over unsecured HTTP, with secure, token-based authentication and SSL-enabled communication, creating a resilient, enterprise-grade API layer. The deployment was implemented on virtual machines within Yas’ own data centers, comprising both API Gateway and Control Plane components, supported by PostgreSQL as the backend database. To ensure reliability and scalability, API Gateways and API Manager Control Plane nodes were deployed to manage internal and external traffic distribution.
- Centralized Gateway: WSO2 API Manager provided a centralized API gateway with separation, enabling Yas to securely manage internal and external traffic while ensuring operational resilience. Yas now orchestrates APIs supporting a wide range of use cases from mobile payments, agent and merchant management, and wallet services to SIM bundle activations, remittances, bill payments, and government utility integrations. These APIs serve as the foundation for both customer-facing applications and internal digital channels, driving interoperability and faster service delivery across the organization.
- Performance and Security: WSO2’s platform supported the super app revamp by accommodating internal web applications, ensuring both high throughput and secure communication.
- Operational Visibility: The architecture also integrated seamlessly with Yas’ existing ELK (Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana) stack, enabling unified analytics and monitoring across APIs and backend microservices. This provides Yas’ technology team with real-time visibility into traffic patterns and system health, supporting proactive operational management.
- Deep Partnership: The close collaboration between WSO2 and Yas extended beyond implementation. From kickoff to go-live and beyond, WSO2 teams provided technical expertise, risk mitigation, and post-launch support, ensuring a smooth migration with minimal disruption.
Results
Implementing the WSO2 platform transformed Yas Tanzania’s capacity to deliver modern digital finance services.
- Scalable and Resilient Infrastructure: The WSO2 platform empowers Yas Tanzania to manage an extraordinary volume of digital transactions, over 150 million per month and climbing rapidly month on month, with peaks reaching 8,000 transactions per minute currently and rising across the Mixx by Yas super app and internal web applications. This scalability ensures uninterrupted service delivery for millions of mobile subscribers, supporting both day-to-day telecom operations and high-demand financial services.
- Enhanced Security and Compliance: By implementing enterprise-grade API security, Yas Tanzania meets stringent central bank and regulatory standards, safeguarding customer data and financial transactions while maintaining subscriber trust across its expanding digital ecosystem.
- Operational Visibility and Performance Excellence: The platform can reliably handle millions of transactions monthly, powering a wide range of SuperApp and Portal functionalities such as payments, remittances, biller management, rewards programs, merchant management, and insurance services. Real-time analytics enable proactive monitoring and seamless service continuity, ensuring a high-quality, secure, and uninterrupted experience for all users.
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