Frontier Fintech GPS #19 - February 5th 2025
Circle issue State of USDC Report, Njiapay raises US$ 1m after Talk360 spin-off, Flutterwave CEO launches venture studio and many other stories that matter
Illustration by Mary Mogoi - Website
Hi All, Welcome to the 19th edition of Frontier Fintech GPS where I provide key insights on the top global Fintech news items that matter to you. This newsletter will be arriving in your inboxes every Wednesday morning. The idea behind Frontier Fintech GPS is to help you navigate the endless stream of Fintech news and get smart about global Fintech as it applies to Africa. To those who are yet to subscribe, hit the subscribe button below and share with your colleagues and friends. 🚀
Reach out at samora@frontierfintech.io to discuss sponsorships, partner-pieces and advisory work.
I will be at the Africa Tech Summit between the 12th and 13th of February. Let’s meet. You can book a meeting on my Calendly link below
Sponsored by Skaleet
Overcoming technical debt through Robust APIs and Pre-Built Connectors
Integrating a new platform with a legacy core can be complex, but Skaleet simplifies this process with a powerful API suite and pre-built connectors for traditional core banking systems. These tools ensure smooth, seamless data flows across the bank’s operations, maintaining a unified customer experience. With Skaleet, banks avoid the usual disruptions associated with adding a new system, as Skaleet handles data synchronization and minimizes downtime during integration.
Skaleet also offers low-code / no-code extensibility tools designed to facilitate easy communication between the next-gencore and legacy systems as well as use cases’ customization needs, reducing integration complexity. These pre-built tools prevent operational disruptions and maintain data consistency, enabling banks to focus on delivering exceptional customer service without being bogged down by technical hurdles. This is crucial because in my view technical debt is the biggest latent blocker to product innovation in Africa’s financial system.
The team will be in Nairobi, Tunis and Dar-es Salaam between now and February. Schedule a call or meeting below.
🇺🇸 Circle releases State of USDC Report
The State of the USDC Economy 2025 report highlights USDC's rapid expansion, with 78% year-over-year growth and $18 trillion in all-time transaction volume, including $1 trillion in November 2024 alone, the report shows the growth in stablecoin adoption over the last year**.** Its adoption is fueled by regulatory clarity, blockchain scalability, and improved user experience. USDC enables instant, low-cost global transactions while bridging traditional finance and digital assets. Circle's growing banking partnerships enhance liquidity, streamline settlements, and support use cases like payroll, remittances, and supplier payments. Compliance, transparency, and blockchain resilience remain central, while innovations like the Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP) push USDC toward an internet-native financial system.
In Africa, USDC is transforming cross-border payments and financial inclusion. Chipper Cash, with over six million users, leverages it for treasury management, remittances, and savings, cutting costs and improving efficiency. Stable digital dollars help businesses and individuals navigate currency volatility, while organizations like UNHCR are using USDC for direct refugee aid. As African regulations evolve, USDC adoption is expected to grow, deepening blockchain integration into the region’s financial ecosystem.
One thing that may happen in the continent is that as regulatory clarity around VASP and CASP licenses emerges, stablecoin adoption will grow. The licensing is particularly important as B2B payment providers can then better build trust with their clients.
🌍 Njiapay Secures $1M Pre-Seed Funding to Simplify Payments for African Businesses
Fintech startup Njiapay has raised $1 million in pre-seed funding to enhance its digital payment platform for African businesses. The startup aims to streamline payment processing by providing merchants with seamless transaction solutions, bridging the gap between mobile money, banks, and digital wallets. The funding will be used to expand Njiapay’s operations, enhance its product offerings, and drive financial inclusion across the continent.
Njiapay was spun off of Talk360, a communications app that enables low cost calls over the internet. Talk360 was having issues with failed payments and built Njiapay internally to solve this. Njiapay is a Payments as a Service (PaaS) platform. It sits in between a merchant and various PSPs such as Paystack, DPO and Flutterwave and automatically routes payments to different PSPs to optimise for success rates and cost. It’s a smart approach to payments innovation as the merchant only needs one integration to benefit from more seamless payments. They’re in an interesting position given the increased demand for digital payments acceptance in the market. We’ve seen successful spin-offs such as Pawapay and Betpawa;
🇳🇬 Flutterwave CEO Launches Venture Studio to Support African Startups
Flutterwave CEO Olugbenga Agboola has announced the launch of a venture studio called Resilience 17 aimed at nurturing early-stage African fintech startups. The initiative will provide funding, technical support, and mentorship to entrepreneurs building innovative financial solutions across the continent. With access to Flutterwave’s infrastructure and network, the venture studio seeks to accelerate the growth of startups tackling key challenges in payments, lending, and financial inclusion.
Olugbenga has been an active angel both in a personal capacity and through Berrywood which has been subsumed into Resilience 17. This further enhances the Nigerian VC ecosystem that already consists of Iyin’s Accelerate Africa and other successful entrepreneur’s efforts. It’s apt that the venture studio is called Resilience 17 given that such efforts enhance the resilience of Africa’s VC ecosystem. One thing that I always think about within the continent is that after 60+ years of independence for most African countries, the pool of retained earnings both in the form of private wealth and pension funds is only growing and these capital pools will be very useful for early stage companies. Whereas this is not uniform across the continent, we’ve seen that most investors are country agnostic and thus a rising tide is lifting all boats.
🇿🇦 New South African Payment Group ASAPP Formed to Drive Payment Digitization
The Association for South African Payment Providers (ASAPP) has been launched to accelerate the digitization of payments and improve financial accessibility. Founding members include Altron, Hello Group, iKhokha, Lesaka Technologies, Network International (Payfast by Network), Peach Payments, Shop2Shop, and Yoco. ASAPP aims to promote fair access to payment infrastructure, lower the wholesale cost of digital payments, and enhance transparency and customer mobility in South Africa’s payment ecosystem. By fostering collaboration between banks, fintechs, and payment service providers, ASAPP seeks to modernize South Africa’s payment infrastructure and drive broader adoption of digital financial solutions.
Whereas the stated aims are to drive broader adoption of digital payments, it seems to me that this is a case of an industry growing big enough to need a standard interface to regulators, governments and other industry lobbies. The question would be how would a lobby drive digital adoption? An answer could be that they would work together to educate the market on the benefits of digital payments. Nonetheless, all of these players’ marketing efforts are focused on this and how would you coordinate this joint messaging? Having said that, a central lobby is useful for coordinating interactions with government and sometimes aligning on technical standards. It’s a step forward for the industry at large and a good reminder of the need to coordinate comms with regulators as Fintech start-ups;
🌍 X Partners with Visa to Expand Digital Payments
X (formerly Twitter) has announced a partnership with Visa to enhance its digital payment capabilities. The collaboration will enable X users to send and receive payments seamlessly using Visa’s infrastructure, marking a significant step in X’s strategy to evolve into a financial super app. While specific features and rollout timelines have not been disclosed, the partnership aims to integrate secure and efficient digital transactions within X’s ecosystem.
Elon Musk bought the x.com domain over 20 years back soon after selling Zip2 and making over US$ 21 million personally. The domain cost around US$ 1.5m plus equity in his new finance company called X. The decision to start a digital bank that was later merged into Paypal rose from his time as an intern at the Bank of Nova Scotia. The story was that he was involved in structuring Brady Bonds and sold the idea to his bosses who then turned it down despite the trading being wildly profitable. This inspired him to get into financial services because “bankers don’t know what they’re doing”. This for Musk is a full-circle moment and hints at a larger ambition to build a global financial services company. This was the original idea with the first incarnation of X. The decision to use Visa Direct rather than Crypto is telling of a pragmatic approach towards building a global digital financial services behemoth.
🇨🇮 Cauridor Expands Cross-Border Payments in Francophone Africa Ivorian Fintech Cauridor has secured $3.5 million in seed funding to enhance its payment infrastructure. The company integrates mobile wallets, bank transfers, and cash pickup services through a network of over 25,000 agents in Guinea, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone, and Liberia. This hybrid model combines traditional cash-based systems with digital payment infrastructure, facilitating remittance corridors to key markets like Ghana and Nigeria. Cauridor has partnerships with major financial service providers, including Ria, MoneyGram, and Western Union, as well as telecom operators such as Orange and MTN. The recent funding round, led by Pan-African venture capital firm Oui Capital with participation from Rally Cap, BKR Capital, and angel investors, will support the company's expansion into new markets, including upcoming offices in Mali and Nigeria. The company has reported TPVs of US$ 500m showing that it has achieved significant traction.
The use of agents is an interesting approach to solving the cross-border payments problem. Players like Cauridor have traditionally focused on building technological infrastructure supported by local licensing thus avoiding the customer interface. With agents the ability to educate the market and build trust at the same time is enhanced. Most of the potential users of these cross-border payments services don’t know their existence and even if they do, there’s a trust barrier to attempting to make these payments through a Fintech. An agent can market the service whilst enhancing trust. This is the logic that saw Onafriq acquiring Baxi 4 years ago.
🇮🇱 Cedar Money Raises $9.9 Million for Cross-Border Stablecoin Payments
Cedar Money, an Israel-based fintech, has secured $9.9 million in seed funding led by QED Investors, with participation from North Island Ventures, Wischoff Ventures, Lattice, and Stellar. Founded in 2022, the company leverages stablecoins to facilitate faster, more reliable, and cost-effective international B2B money transfers, bypassing traditional SWIFT systems. The new capital will be used to enhance its blockchain-based payment solutions, aiming to improve cross-border transactions between developed and emerging markets.
I’ve interacted with the Cedar Team and its great what they’ve been able to achieve over the last year or so. The market for B2B payments for importers in particular is big given FX scarcity and the challenges of making international payments. Nonetheless the barrier to adoption has been by and large trust. For most of their target market, a US$ 50,000 payment gone wrong can make a big dent in their budget and what I’ve witnessed is a willingness to stick to SWIFT based payments despite their challenges. The key things that need to be solved are trust and a consensus mechanism that validates that the payment has been made. In traditional SWIFT messages, your MT 103 does the trick.
🇳🇬 Busha Lists cNGN Stablecoin Pegged to the Nigerian Naira Busha, a Nigerian cryptocurrency exchange, has announced the listing of cNGN, a privately issued stablecoin pegged 1:1 to the Nigerian Naira. Developed by a coalition of Nigerian fintech innovators, cNGN aims to facilitate faster transactions, seamless cross-border payments, and enhanced financial participation. Unlike the Central Bank of Nigeria's eNaira, cNGN operates independently, focusing on transparency and consumer protection. Users can now access cNGN on the Busha platform to manage daily expenses, send remittances, or explore decentralized finance opportunities.
At first blush, the utility of a Naira stablecoin may seem specious. What would be the use of a Naira stablecoin when you can access digital Naira through your bank and Fintech app? If you dig deeper, the value could be that customers can now manage all or most of their money on-chain and could theoretically take away the need for local on-off ramps once businesses and individuals start accepting a Naira stablecoin. You can imagine a remote worker being paid in USDC and being able to transfer to cNGN to make local payments and never getting off-chain.
🇳🇬 Flutterwave Achieves $31 Billion in Transaction Volume for 2024
In 2024, Pan-African fintech giant Flutterwave achieved the US$ $31 billion milestone in transactions. During the year they achieved their highest month in volume in December, processing over US$ 500m in transaction value. This was on 26 million transactions reflecting an average transaction size of US$ 19. The company's expansion into countries like Rwanda, Ghana, Uganda, Zambia, and Mozambique, along with securing 31 new Money Transfer Licenses in the U.S., contributed to this growth. Technological advancements, such as enhanced fraud detection systems and a partnership with OPay, further bolstered its performance.
Enterprise payments continued accounting for the lions share of their transaction volume. Their remittance business Send is growing bolstered by improved efficiency, 98% of Send App transactions in 2024 took only 5 minutes or less to reach the destination account. The focus for 2024 seemed to have been increased reliability and compliance with the former leading to some partners such as Trove achieving 100% success rates using pay by bank. Flutterwave has the brand equity and licensing regime to truly capture a large chunk of the market if they enhance their reliability. In digital financial services, transaction success rates are the true north star.
🇷🇼🇬🇭 Rwanda and Ghana Central Banks Plan to Connect National Payment Systems
The central banks of Rwanda and Ghana are collaborating to link their national payment systems, aiming to facilitate seamless cross-border transactions between the two countries. This initiative is part of a broader strategy to enhance financial integration within Africa, promoting trade and economic cooperation. By connecting their payment infrastructures, both nations seek to reduce transaction costs and improve the efficiency of cross-border payments for businesses and individuals. The initiative will be launched at the up-coming Inclusive Fintech Forum in Kigali which I’m hoping to attend.
We’ve seen similar initiatives working in other jurisdictions. The Monetary Authority of Singapore for instance has connected its payments system to Malaysia, India, Indonesia, Philippines and Thailand. All these efforts are a part of larger initiatives driven by the Bank for International Settlements around connecting national payments systems to drive digital cross-border payments. It also underlines why different Central Banks are launching National Payments systems including South Sudan. It’s still yet to be seen how they’ll handle currency mismatches and netting mechanisms particularly with illiquid currency pairs.