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Tolaram, the Singapore-headquartered consumer goods group with businesses across Africa and Asia, has secured another $51 million in financing for its Nigerian business, this time from Mauritius Commercial Bank (MCB), the country’s largest commercial lender.

Catch up: The company took a medium-term loan to partly refinance the $90 million in short-term funding it got from Standard Bank of South Africa to acquire Guinness Nigeria in 2024. Standard Bank later replaced the short-term bridge funding with a term loan in July 2026. The new MCB loan will refinance part of that debt, giving Tolaram more time to repay the money it borrowed for the acquisition. 

Explain like I’m new here: Tolaram bought Diageo’s 58.02% stake in Guinness Nigeria for about $70 million in 2024, taking control of one of Nigeria’s biggest beer businesses. It later increased its stake to about 71% after buying shares from minority investors. Guinness Nigeria has since returned to profit, posting ₦41.2 billion ($31.1 million) in profit after tax for the 18 months ended December 2025.

Why now? The new loan gives Tolaram more time to repay part of the financing behind the acquisition instead of relying on shorter-term debt. It also shows that lenders are still willing to back Tolaram’s long-term expansion in Nigeria despite the market’s currency and financing risks.

Zoom out: There is another interesting optic here. Tolaram is headquartered in Singapore, MCB is based in Mauritius, and the asset at the centre of the deal is in Nigeria. It is a small example of how capital is increasingly moving between Asia and Africa through financial hubs such as Mauritius.

Nomba, a Nigerian fintech, has secured $3 million in debt funding from CardinalStone Finance Company to expand its cross-border payments infrastructure in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

What happened? The money will give Nomba more US dollar liquidity through its banking relationships in Hong Kong and Singapore, helping businesses collect payments, settle transactions, and pay suppliers in Asia. The facility is intended to strengthen Africa–Asia trade payments. The debt capital was attractive for Nomba as it seeks to strengthen working capital without giving up equity in its business.

Catch up: Nomba entered the DRC in 2025 through remittances and physical agents handling money from high-volume corridors such as China and Dubai. It is now using the country as a base for a wider Central and East African expansion, including a DRC-to-Zambia pilot and planned payment links with Uganda, Kenya, and Angola. 

State of play: Nomba sees an opportunity in real economy trade. China–DRC trade reached $26.7 billion in 2025, with China importing $21.6 billion from the DRC and exporting $5.1 billion to it. Every shipment becomes a Nomba transaction, but the size of the trade relationship shows why reliable settlement infrastructure is valuable.

Explain like I’m new here: Nomba began as Kudi.AI before moving into agency banking and business payments. It now provides merchants with payment terminals, banking tools, and software. By 2023, Nomba said it was a profitable omnichannel provider serving more than 300,000 businesses and processing about $1 billion in monthly transactions

The DRC expansion is its latest move into the infrastructure behind business transactions, helping merchants collect locally and settle payments with suppliers abroad.

Zoom out: Nomba’s raise adds to an emerging trend where growth-stage fintechs are increasingly prioritising debt. In May, Tanzanian remittance fintech NALA raised $50 million in debt funding to expand globally and deepen its stablecoin payments infrastructure. In January, Egyptian consumer credit fintech valU raised $63.6 million from the National Bank of Egypt (NBE) to grow its lending book.

The common thread is that fintechs are using debt for specific growth needs—whether that’s funding loans, expanding payment infrastructure, or entering new markets—rather than relying entirely on equity. If more fintechs continue to do this, it could signal that borrowing costs are becoming attractive.

Nomba, a Nigerian fintech startup, raised $3 million in debt funding from CardinalStone Finance. (Sep 3)

Here are the other deals for the week:

• Seevcash, a Ghanaian-founded fintech startup, secured a $330,000 grant from Stellar Community Fund. (Aug 28)
• Remi, an Egyptian-founded startup, secured a $135,000 grant from Stellar Community Fund. (Aug 29)
• ChipMango, a Nigerian-founded deeptech startup, raised $1.9 million in seed funding led by Atlantica Ventures, with participation from DFS Labs, Kaleo Ventures, Madica, Trilinear Technologies, Malta Ventures and other investors. (Sep 1)
• 3C Coding School, an Egyptian edtech startup, raised $3 million in seed funding led by MRG Economic Group, with participation from investor Amr Saad and strategic angel investors. (Sep 2)

That’s all for this week. Before you go, M&A activity in Africa’s digital economy has doubled within the past year, with 84 deals worth an estimated $11.4 billion in disclosed value recorded so far in 2026. Read about it here.

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Source:

Coin Name	Current Value	Day	Month
Bitcoin	$80,953	+ 4.61%	+ 25.89%
Ether	$2,510	+ 4.88%	+ 34.16%
XRP	$1.44	+ 6.31%	+ 35.28%
Solana	$103.69	+ 3.32%	+ 40.02%

* Data as of 06.41 AM WAT, September 4, 2026.