Lightspark introduces universal money address protocol for seamless global payments

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December 16, 2024
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3 min read
A photo of Lightspark executives with the leadership of Bitnob and Yellowcard

Lightspark, a layer-two blockchain solution designed to enable the seamless movement of money from anywhere in the world, hosted its Developer Day Event on Friday, December 13, 2024, in Lagos, Nigeria, to showcase its innovative Universal Money Address (UMA) protocol. The UMA protocol is designed to make sending money as simple as sending an email, enabling seamless global transactions.

The event also featured Kelvin Hurley, CTO and Co-Founder of Lightspark, who introduced Spark, an interoperable solution with Bitcoin. "Spark gives you all the power of Lightning without the headaches," Kelvin explained, highlighting the platform's ability to simplify blockchain integrations while maintaining high performance. He said that Lightspark is built to facilitate instant transactions and enable offline receive of funds. He also mentioned that the technology they are developing at Lightspark is cheap and scalable. 

Hurley said that they are launching the Spark Alpha in 2025 and are looking forward to financial institutions applying to try it out and experiment on it while contributing to the codebase. He said that currently, the solution that's available to both businesses and individuals to use for transferring funds (stablecoins) is the UMA protocol.

Kelvin Hurley, CTO and Co-Founder of Lightspark speaking to the audience.

A game-changer for cross-border payments

Nicholas Cabrera, Vice President of Product, Lightspark, explained the simplicity and efficiency of the UMA protocol. He likened it to sending an email, where users only need the recipient's UMA address to initiate a transaction. "Financial institutions, including fintech platforms and traditional banks, can integrate UMA into their systems," he said. This integration enables users to send funds across borders—for instance, from a UMA-enabled platform in Nigeria to another in the Philippines or Brazil.

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Nicholas noted that platforms like Bitnob and Yellowcard are leading the way in adopting UMA in Nigeria, enabling interoperability across regions and platforms.

Bernard Parah, CEO of Bitnob, praised the UMA protocol’s user-friendly and practical approach to solving payment challenges. "People are always looking for technologies that solve their problems, and UMA clearly does this," he told Techpoint Africa.

Parah highlighted the ease of integrating UMA into Bitnob’s systems, describing the experience as "seamless and straightforward." He added that widespread adoption of UMA will depend on collaborative efforts among platforms to onboard users locally. "I think most of the adoption will be driven by platforms. All the companies are going to be doing the work locally of onboarding people. So, it's not just UMA doing the work; it’s collaborative when you think about it," he said.

Bitnob was the first platform in Africa to integrate UMA, and Parah expressed enthusiasm about forming more partnerships to expand adoption in the coming year.

Photo of a panel session at the Lightspark event

Lasberry Oludimu, Vice President of Operations at Yellowcard, also spoke about their recent partnership with Lightspark, revealing plans to integrate UMA across Yellowcard's operations in 19 other African countries.

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Regulatory Compliance and Consumer Protection

Both Lightspark and its partners emphasised their commitment to compliance and consumer protection. Nicholas stated that Lightspark works closely with its partners to ensure adherence to regulatory requirements.

Oludimu echoed this sentiment, stressing the importance of eliminating bad actors in the crypto space. "Our goal is to provide solutions that solve real-time problems while prioritising consumer protection in all our products and services," she said.

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