Mobile Enterprise Cloud

Meridian Mobile Payment Bridge

High-performance middleware connecting MeridianBet with Airtel Mobile Money across 14 African markets.

African Markets Integrated

< 2s

Transaction Latency

92%+

Payment Success Rate

80%

Integration Time Reduction

Executive Summary

MeridianBet is a leading international sports betting and gaming operator with a massive footprint across Europe, Africa, and Latin America. As they expanded their presence in the African market, they encountered a significant challenge: local users heavily rely on mobile money services like Airtel for financial transactions, rather than traditional banking. MeridianBet needed a robust, secure, and highly scalable way to bridge their internal payment engine (Midas) with the diverse and often fragmented Airtel Africa APIs.

Devson built the "Meridian Mobile Payment Bridge," a sophisticated .NET-based middleware solution. This bridge unifies payment processing for 14 African countries (including Tanzania, Nigeria, and Uganda) under a single high-availability service. It handles everything from STK Cash-In pushes to automated transaction status verification and asynchronous callbacks.

The result was a seamless, low-friction payment experience for millions of users, leading to a dramatic increase in successful deposits and a stronger market position for MeridianBet in Africa.

The Challenge

Operating in the African continent presents unique fintech challenges. Mobile money is the dominant payment method, but integration is often difficult due to regional differences in API standards, varying country-specific requirements, and the need for extreme reliability in environments with intermittent connectivity.

MeridianBet’s internal systems were not natively optimized to handle the specific nuances of 14 different Airtel Africa subsidiaries simultaneously. The lack of a centralized "bridge" meant that adding new markets or fixing regional payment issues was slow and resource-intensive. User friction was high; if a payment request failed or a callback was missed, the customer couldn't play, leading to lost revenue and a poor brand experience.

Regional Fragmentation

Handling API variations and compliance requirements across 14 different African markets.

Connectivity Issues

Ensuring transaction integrity and reliability despite intermittent network connectivity.

User Friction

Existing manual processes led to failed payments and abandoned deposits.

Our Solution

We developed a Clean Architecture solution using .NET Core, designed with a focus on decoupling, scalability, and observability. The "Meridian Mobile Payment Bridge" acts as a sophisticated translator between MeridianBet's global payment system and the Airtel Africa OpenAPI.

Key Solution Components

Unified API Layer: Abstracted 14 regional configurations into a single API, allowing rapid market expansion via configuration updates.
STK Push Automation: Implemented "RequestPayment" to trigger secure PIN prompts on user devices for instant deposits.
Resilient Callback System: Built a robust handler for asynchronous notifications with validation and retry logic.
Security & Hash Verification: Utilized advanced hashing and OAuth2 for secure, cryptographically verified transactions.
Comprehensive Observability: Integrated NLog and a custom SQL repository to track every step of the transaction lifecycle.

The system utilizes a CQRS pattern with MediatR to keep business logic clean, and the infrastructure is container-ready to scale for major sporting events.

Key Features

Multi-Nation Unified Bridge

A single API gateway that abstracts regional complexities for 14 African countries, enabling rapid market expansion and centralizing maintenance.

Real-Time STK Push

Automated "Request-to-Pay" functionality that triggers instant PIN prompts on users' mobile phones, streamlining deposits.

Resilient Callback Engine

Asynchronous notification system with retry logic and hash verification, ensuring accurate transaction capture even during network instability.

Technology Stack

Backend

.NET Core 7.0
Web API
MediatR (CQRS)
Autofac

Database & Cloud

Microsoft SQL Server
Azure Hybrid
Windows Server

Frontend

Blazor Server
Admin Dashboard
Monitoring Tool

Integrations

Airtel Africa OpenAPI
Midas Payment Engine
Azure DevOps
GitHub Actions

Client Testimonial

"The Payment Bridge developed by Devson has been a game-changer for our African operations. We previously struggled with the fragmentation of mobile money across different regions. Devson provided us with a clean, unified, and extremely reliable solution that allowed us to scale rapidly. Our deposit success rates have never been higher, and our customers love the speed of the STK push integration."

Head of Payments — MeridianBet