Links is a verified business network built for traders operating under the AfCFTA framework. It removes the documentation complexity and payment friction that keep African businesses trading with everyone except each other.
Intra-African trade accounts for roughly 15% of the continent's total trade. In our primary research with active cross-border traders, three points of friction came up again and again. Tap each one.
Each figure below is one region's own trade, split between what stays within the region and what leaves it. Select a region.
Only around 15% of Africa's total trade happens within the continent itself. The rest leaves for markets that offer the settlement and documentation infrastructure African corridors still lack.
Sources: Brookings Institution, UNCTAD, Mo Ibrahim Foundation regional trade data.
Six stages, one continuous rail. Tap a stage to follow the trade.
Company registration, directorship, and trading history are checked before any account goes live. You negotiate with counterparties whose identity has already been established, not a WhatsApp number and a promise.
Structured verification of registration documents, directorship, and trading references before a business can transact. Trust is the entry requirement, not an upgrade.
Generate a formal LOI from a negotiation in minutes, with terms, quantities, and delivery conditions captured in a standard format both sides can rely on.
Plain-language guidance on qualifying for preferential tariff rates, available in ten African languages, so the framework's benefits stop being lost to paperwork.
Provenance and movement records across thirteen priority sectors, giving buyers the traceable origin that premium international markets increasingly demand.
Digital dollar settlement that clears in minutes rather than weeks, without routing through correspondent banks or third currencies. Funds move when the trade does.
Deal conversations stay on the platform, encrypted, and attached to the trade record they belong to. No more negotiations scattered across three apps.
Discover public tenders across AfCFTA member states, prepare compliant bid packs from trade history, and track status to award, all inside the platform that then manages the resulting trade.
SMS and USSD fallback keep mines, farms, warehouses, and remote border posts connected to the platform, even where data coverage does not reach.
AfCFTA created the continental opportunity. Links turns the framework into an operating layer businesses can actually use.
Links is not another trade database, payment processor, or freight workflow. Tap a row to see how it compares.
| Platform | Monitor | Comply | Settle | Offline | Tenders |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ZSG Links | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| ADAPT (closest competitor) | × | ✓ | ✓ | × | × |
| Enterprise trade software | ✓ | ✓ | × | × | × |
| Trade data platforms | × | × | × | × | × |
| Payments platforms | × | × | ✓ | × | × |
| Trade facilitation bodies | × | ✓ | × | × | × |
| Freight platforms | ✓ | × | × | × | × |
The only platform combining monitoring, compliance, settlement, offline access, and tender intelligence in one corridor network.
Sixteen member states anchored by South Africa's industrial base and port infrastructure, with high-volume routes linking Johannesburg, Gaborone, Harare, Lusaka, and Maputo. Links launches here first, where cross-border trading relationships are established but settlement and documentation remain the bottleneck.
Links is a distinct venture from Zambezi Strategy Group's advisory practice. The two share a conviction: African value should be captured on the continent. Links also generates live trading and demand data that informs ZSG's advice on corridor viability, market entry timing, and infrastructure investment.
Clients onboarded through Zambezi Strategy Group receive specialist onboarding support and a preferential rate on Links, as part of our integrated advisory and trade infrastructure offering.