Africa’s biggest telecoms firm, Mobile Telecommunications Network (MTN) Group has announced the opening of an application programming interface (API) marketplace for software developers across the continent. The API named Chenosis will give developers and businesses the opportunity to discover and subscribe to open application programming interfaces. According to sources from the telco giant, Chenosis will be open for the public from the 10^th of August and will among other things enable developers to tap into a broad spectrum of API products and services from across the continent, ranging from telecommunications, e-health, e-government, Internet of things, fintech, e-commerce, identity and authentication, payments and collections, location and more, from a single marketplace.

To avoid conflict of interest, Chenosis will run as a separate brand and entity, and will have an arm’s-length relationship with MTN so that it remains open to all mobile network operators, fintech start-ups, payment service providers, mobile wallet operators and financial service providers, so says MTN Group’s Chief Technology and Information Officer Charles Molapisi.

Chenosis has dashboards for publishers and consumers to track revenue and credit balances, and view consumption analytics and API performance and the marketplace allows businesses and developers to publish their APIs so that other developers can discover and consume them. The marketplace also provides the tools for publishers to monetise and promotes their APIs, by creating subscription plans and product bundles that developers and businesses can purchase. The marketplace portal has dashboards for publishers and consumers to track revenue and credit balances, and view consumption analytics and API performance. 

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“The power of the platform will be in the creation of ‘mashup APIs’, which will connect cross-industry APIs and facilitate innovation and the ability to build new services and new business models. Mashups are new product and service orchestrations created by developers from two or more existing APIs,” said Molapisi. He further pointed out that the MTN Group has an exciting pan-African and international partnerships lined up to publish and monetise their APIs in the marketplace over the coming months. These partnerships will enable Chenosis to become the largest and most diverse developer ecosystem on the African continent.”

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry