When I&M Bank Ltd, a Tier 1 commercial bank headquartered in Kenya, set out to modernize its payments technology, it conducted a thorough review of the market. The goal was clear, to move beyond rigid legacy systems and adopt a platform that could support ambitious growth across Africa.
I&M bank ultimately selected Otoma, an AI-native, no-code payments infrastructure provider that positions itself as a solution to the constraints that have long slowed traditional banking technology.
What Otoma Is
Otoma, branded as the “Payments Tech Liberator,” is a global provider of AI-native, no-code payments infrastructure. Founded in 2016 with roots in Tel Aviv and a global headquarters in New York, the company also maintains offices in London, Tel Aviv and Pune. Its leadership team largely consists of executives who previously built Fundtech, a major payments technology company of the prior generation.
Fundtech helped banks transition from mainframe-based “Payments 1.0” systems to centralized payment hubs known as “Payments 2.0.” That company was later acquired and eventually became part of Finastra.
Otoma’s key figures include CEO Peter Reynolds, a former Fundtech executive; Co-founder and Chairman Reuven Ben Menachem, who founded and led Fundtech; and Co-founder and COO Zack Yaniv, previously Fundtech’s global head of payments. Other executives bring similar deep experience in enterprise payments.
The company frames its mission as solving the problems that arose once earlier generation payment hubs themselves became legacy constraints. Rather than offering incremental upgrades to aging technology, Otoma aims to give banks the ability to continuously evolve their payments capabilities without the traditional bottlenecks of coding, vendor roadmaps or multi-year projects.
What Otoma Provides And How It Differs
Otoma offers a complete end-to-end payments infrastructure, essentially a modern payment hub, or a development studio that banks can layer onto existing systems. The platform supports multiple payment rails and types in one environment, including high-value payments, immediate and real-time payments, ACH, SWIFT and cross-border transfers, as well as emerging options such as stablecoins.
At the heart of its offering is a no-code Innovation Suite. The Payments Visualizer gives teams a visual, diagram-based interface to design, modify and orchestrate complex payment flows, rules and routing.
The same model powers runtime visibility, allowing staff to see the exact path a payment took, the decisions made along the way, and where issues occurred. Changes can be implemented without writing code or waiting for vendor release cycles.
Additionally, they provide continuous integrated testing tools that automate test creation and execution for high coverage, reducing the traditional cost and delay of manual testing. Any2Any data transformation capabilities let banks map, transform and integrate data across formats and systems through self-service tools rather than heavy custom engineering.
Artificial intelligence is foundational rather than an add-on. It functions as an orchestration layer across the entire lifecycle — assisting with design, testing, real-time operations, monitoring, performance optimization, risk and liquidity insights, and proactive alerts. The platform is cloud-native and composable, built around microservices and designed for continuous evolution instead of periodic major upgrades.
Additional features include a payments knowledge base of standard flows and formats, clearing and connectivity bridges for regulatory and scheme compliance, multi-country operation support, and tools for liquidity management and operational efficiency.
These capabilities set Otoma apart from many traditional payment hubs and incumbent vendors that I&M and other banks typically evaluate. Legacy systems and conventional platforms often lock institutions into slow release cycles, high customization costs, complex upgrades and dependence on the vendor’s product roadmap. Introducing new products, changing rules, integrating new rails or responding to regulatory shifts can take months or years and require substantial IT resources.
Otoma differentiates itself through genuine no-code tools combined with embedded AI, enabling business and payments teams to design, change and operate complex capabilities themselves. The company claims development and deployment timelines can shrink from months or years to days, supporting continuous rather than episodic change.
Banks retain greater control and are less dependent on external roadmaps. A single control plane handles diverse payment types, including future-oriented ones. Institutions can choose full replacement, phased rollout or incremental use of the studio on top of existing technology.
The leadership team’s direct experience building and deploying large-scale payment hubs at major banks adds practical credibility to the approach.
Alignment with I&M Bank’s Objectives
I&M Bank, part of the listed I&M Group, explicitly sought a platform that would support its growth ambitions across Africa while simplifying how it builds, changes and operates payment services. Jamie Loden, the bank’s chief operating officer, emphasized the need to cut the time and complexity of delivering new capabilities as markets and customer expectations evolve.
Otoma’s offering maps directly to those priorities. Its multi-country capabilities and ability to introduce new services quickly align with expansion plans that begin in Kenya with potential group-wide rollout. The combination of no-code tools, AI and automation matches Loden’s stated focus on reducing complexity and accelerating delivery.
The platform’s design for continuous evolution addresses the desire to escape the time, cost and rigidity of legacy hubs while retaining ownership of the payments roadmap.
Expected operational and customer benefits include fewer failed or duplicate transactions, greater payment visibility, faster issue resolution, more seamless experiences and simplified internal processes.
By choosing a system built for near real-time innovation rather than periodic overhauls, I&M aims to keep pace with competitive pressures from fintechs and the rapidly changing payments landscape across the continent.