Africa’s creator economy has a payment problem. These startups want to fix it.
2 juin 2026 Hello , Welcome back to Francophone Weekly by TechCabal, your weekly deep dive into the tech ecosystem across French-speaking Africa. For readers who want to understand Francophone Africa beyond headlines—through markets, startups, and systems. New editions of the newsletter will land directly in your inbox every Tuesday at 12 PM WAT. By default, this newsletter is in French. If you’re reading this in your email inbox, click the “Read in English” button below to switch to the English version. If you’re reading on our website, you can either click the button below or toggle the language selector at the top right-hand side of the page to view the English edition. Read in English L’Afrique abrite des millions de créateurs de contenu numérique, un paysage des réseaux sociaux en plein essor, et l’une des populations les plus jeunes de la planète. Pourtant, les infrastructures financières permettant de les rémunérer équitablement sont quasi inexistantes. Mais les choses commencent à changer. L’économie des créateurs sur le continent connaît une expansion fulgurante. Selon l’International School of Advertising, le marché de l’économie des créateurs était évalué entre 3 et 5,1 milliards de dollars en 2025. Il devrait atteindre 29,84 milliards de dollars d’ici 2032, avec un taux de croissance annuel composé (TCAC) de 28,7%. Les smartphones se multiplient à grande vitesse. Les audiences de TikTok, Instagram et YouTube progressent plus rapidement sur le continent africain que partout ailleurs dans le monde. Pourtant, pour l’immense majorité des créateurs africains — en particulier ceux d’Afrique de l’Ouest francophone — une question reste sans réponse claire : comment se faire payer ? 1. Le mur de la monétisation Source de l’image : Fourthwall. L’expression la plus visible de ce fossé, c’est l’exclusion de la majorité des pays africains des programmes de monétisation directe des plateformes sur lesquelles les créateurs construisent leur gagne-pain. En 2026, le Programme Partenaire YouTube est disponible dans plus de 120 pays, mais l’éligibilité n’est pas universelle — les créateurs doivent résider dans une région prise en charge pour accéder à la monétisation. Pour les créateurs de Côte d’Ivoire, du Cameroun, du Bénin ou de la République Démocratique du Congo (RDC) — des pays comptant des dizaines de millions d’utilisateurs de réseaux sociaux — les revenus publicitaires YouTube restent structurellement inaccessibles par les voies classiques. Les raisons se cumulent : les grandes plateformes mondiales proposant la monétisation exigent souvent un compte bancaire international, ou n’acceptent pas les banques locales pour les versements. La couverture de PayPal est partielle, voire inexistante. Stripe demeure indisponible dans la plupart des marchés d’Afrique francophone. Un créateur avec 500 000 abonnés à Abidjan, qui construit des audiences pour des marques internationales, ne peut toujours pas recevoir un virement de YouTube directement sur un compte bancaire local. Bien que l’Afrique représente 18 % de la population mondiale, le continent ne capte qu’environ 5,4 % des revenus mondiaux liés à la création de contenu — un écart qui ne s’explique ni par le volume de production ni par l’engagement des audiences, mais bel et bien par les défaillances de l’infrastructure de paiement. Le problème dépasse la seule question des versements des plateformes. Le marketing d’influence dans la région fonctionne à travers un réseau fragmenté de négociations par WhatsApp, de paiements en espèces, d’arrangements en nature — des dîners offerts et des nuitées d’hôtel en guise d’honoraires — et de virements ponctuels informels pouvant prendre des semaines à être exécutés. Il n’existe ni contrat standardisé, ni infrastructure de suivi des performances, ni système de paiement transfrontalier fiable. Le résultat : un marché économiquement significatif, mais qui fonctionne encore de manière artisanale. Construire les tuyaux : Akuna, Mainstack et les nouveaux acteurs de l’infrastructure Une nouvelle génération de plateformes tente de construire cette infrastructure manquante, en attaquant le problème sous différents angles. L’initiative la plus médiatisée ces derniers temps est l’Akuna Wallet. Créée par The Akuna Group, fondé par Idris Elba, et développée en partenariat avec la Stellar Development Foundation (SDF), l’Akuna Wallet a lancé son pilote au Ghana avec pour ambition de lever les obstacles auxquels font face les créateurs africains pour recevoir des paiements internationaux, et de leur ouvrir de nouvelles portes vers l’économie créative mondiale. Ce portefeuille numérique basé sur la blockchain fonctionne sur le réseau Stellar, permettant aux créateurs de recevoir des paiements internationaux, de conserver de la valeur numérique et de la convertir en monnaie locale. L’Akuna Wallet a été admise dans le Bac à Sable Réglementaire des Actifs Virtuels de la Banque du Ghana, ce qui en fait l’une des premières entités sélectionnées dans le cadre de la loi ghanéenne sur les Prestataires de Services d’Actifs Virtuels (2025). Les tests supervisés ont débuté en février 2026, avec un déploiement public plus large prévu dans le courant de l’année. L’ambition est de s’étendre progressivement à l’ensemble du continent. L’un des principaux problèmes adressés par le portefeuille est l’impossibilité pour les créateurs de recevoir correctement les revenus de TikTok, Google ou d’autres plateformes en raison d’incompatibilités bancaires. Sur le volet commerce et storefronts, Mainstack est devenue l’une des plateformes de l’économie créative les plus visibles sur le continent. Fondée en 2021 par Ayobami Oyaleke, elle se positionne comme le système d’exploitation des entrepreneurs numériques africains, proposant outils de boutique, traitement des paiements, abonnements, construction de communautés et gestion de portfolio en une seule plateforme. La conférence annuelle Moment — qui a réuni des milliers de créateurs à Lagos en mars 2026 — est devenu le point de convergence des ambitions du secteur, avec des panels traitant explicitement des paiements en actifs numériques comme infrastructure. Une discussion intitulée « Beyond Banks: How Digital Assets are Powering the Next Generation of African Creators » reflétait le basculement en cours : ne plus attendre les banques traditionnelles, et considérer les stablecoins et les systèmes de paiement hybrides comme la voie pragmatique pour être payé. La newsletter continue après cette publicité. Fondateurs. Investisseurs. Décideurs politiques. Leaders d’entreprise. Moonshot 2026 rassemble les personnes qui façonnent l’écosystème technologique africain en matière d’IA,
Read MorePick n Pay breach puts South Africa’s retail cybersecurity under scrutiny
A cyberattack on South African retail giant Pick n Pay has exposed customer data linked to an older version of its on-demand delivery platform, raising fresh concerns about how companies manage legacy systems long after they have been retired. The breach, which Pick n Pay has confirmed, involves customer information from the retailer’s former delivery app, originally launched as Bottles and later rebranded as Asap! The compromised data included sensitive customer information and payment card details. While Pick n Pay acknowledged the breach, it disputed claims that complete card information was exposed. The incident highlights a growing challenge facing companies undergoing digital transformation: retired systems can remain vulnerable long after they disappear from public view. Pick n Pay began notifying affected customers on May 30, warning that users who registered for the delivery service on or before 2022 may have been impacted. “The affected data comes from an earlier version of our on-demand app, first known as Bottles and later as Pick n Pay Asap!, which has since been replaced,” the retailer said in a customer notification. According to the supermarket giant, the exposed information includes names, contact details, delivery addresses and limited payment card information. The company stressed that full payment card numbers and CVV security codes were not stored on the affected system. “This means the leaked data cannot be used to make fraudulent transactions on customer cards,” the retailer said. Despite those assurances, customers remain uneasy about the exposure of personal information that could be exploited in phishing attacks and identity fraud schemes. “The biggest victims of poor cybersecurity are always ordinary working people,” said Pick n Pay shopper Dzungi Mudzunga. “Executives apologise in emails while citizens deal with fraud attempts for years.” Cybersecurity expert Dr Nishal Khusial said the breach may have stemmed from weaknesses in the retailer’s legacy infrastructure. “What has happened in this case is that there was an old system connected to an old app that did not necessarily have the current protection mechanisms to defend against modern-day penetration attacks,” Khusial told TechCabal. The breach has also renewed scrutiny of how organisations handle customer data once platforms are retired. Samantha Hanreck, founder and director of IT solutions provider Data Sync Global, argued that the incident points to a broader governance problem rather than a purely technical failure. “The Pick n Pay incident isn’t really a story about hackers,” she said. “It’s a story about data that didn’t need to exist anymore. The platform was retired in 2022, but the customer records stayed reachable. That’s a governance failure, not a technology failure.” For some customers, the retailer’s response has not gone far enough. “This is a serious invasion of privacy,” said Trevor Dube, a Johannesburg-based security company owner and frequent Pick n Pay shopper. “As customers, we expect these big companies to keep our private information safe. There should be serious consequences when they fail to protect us.” Phetho Ntaba, spokesperson for South Africa’s National Consumer Commission, advised affected consumers to lodge complaints with the Information Regulator, the statutory body responsible for enforcing the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA). “That is the body empowered to deal with illegal access to people’s personal information,” she said. Nomzamo Zondi, communications manager at the Information Regulator, said the regulator stands ready to assist affected consumers. “Should you feel that your personal information has been violated, please visit our online management services page or come to our offices to register your grievance,” she said. Zondi also urged Pick n Pay to ensure the incident is formally reported to the regulator. The company said it has already initiated that process while working to determine the full extent of the breach. “All appropriate processes were and are being followed, including notifying the Information Regulator,” said Enrico Ferigolli, Pick n Pay’s Executive Online. “We are working closely with cybersecurity specialists and undertaking a broader review of historical data management and retention practices as part of our ongoing investment in customer data security.”
Read MoreFlutterwave promotes 25% of its global workforce in talent retention move
Flutterwave, the Nigerian payments fintech that acquired a microfinance banking licence in April, has promoted over 100 of its employees globally and introduced employee support packages as it marks its tenth operational year. The company said it promoted about 25% of its global workforce, offering cost-of-living adjustments, tax support for employees in Nigeria, and a one-time economic relief payment for employees globally. The company did not disclose the levels or functions of the promoted staff. The move underscores Flutterwave’s focus on talent retention at a time when several Nigerian fintechs, including Branch, Kuda, and Quidax, have reduced headcount in efforts to improve operational efficiency and cut costs. “I often say our people are our secret sauce,” Olugbenga Agboola, Flutterwave founder and chief executive officer, said. “They are the ultimate engine behind everything we build, giving us the capacity to create solutions that power businesses, unlock opportunities, and move money seamlessly across Africa and beyond.” The move highlights how Flutterwave is evolving from one of Africa’s fastest-growing startups into a larger financial infrastructure company focused on scaling operations and retaining talent. It also reflects a broader shift across the industry, where fintechs are leaning on long-term incentives to retain talent. In South Africa, GoTyme Bank, which became Africa’s latest unicorn in December 2024, recently announced plans to introduce an employee ownership programme as part of a similar push to align staff with long-term business growth. Founded in 2016, Flutterwave built its business by helping merchants accept payments across African markets. The company became one of the continent’s most valuable startups after raising $475.3 million from investors including Tiger Global, Avenir Growth, and B Capital, according to funding tracker Crunchbase. Over the past decade, Flutterwave has expanded beyond payment processing into remittances, consumer financial services, and banking infrastructure. In April, the company deepened its push into financial services after securing approval to acquire a Nigerian microfinance banking licence, giving it a regulated banking vehicle in its home market. Flutterwave said it has processed more than 1 billion transactions and moved over $40 billion in total payment value (TPV) since launch, as it rolled out its employee recognition programme. “Our goal has always been to build an environment where our people can focus on doing their best work, rather than being weighed down by economic anxiety,” Annette Akpolo, Flutterwave’s head of people and culture, said. “Pairing merit-based individual growth with supporting the collective needs of the whole team [is an] essential part of how we build a company culture where people genuinely want to stay and grow over the long term.” The company also said it recorded strong growth across local payment channels over the past year, with wallet-based collections rising 289% in transaction count and bank transfer value increasing 184%, reflecting growing adoption of local payment methods across its markets. The announcement adds to a busy year for Flutterwave. In January, it acquired Mono, a Nigerian open banking startup, in one of the most significant consolidation deals in Africa’s fintech sector this year. The acquisition expanded Flutterwave’s access to financial data infrastructure and strengthened its account-to-account (A2A) payment capabilities. For Flutterwave, which is entering its second decade, the latest employee initiative serves as both a reward for staff and a signal that the company expects continued growth. “At Flutterwave, growth is earned through meaningful contributions to the business and to the mission we are building together,” Agboola said. “As we continue to grow, the people who will shape our future are those who consistently step up, solve hard problems, support others, and move the company forward.”
Read MoreOui Capital’s Pius Bankong on evaluating founders through an operator’s lens
Oui Capital, a Lagos-based venture capital firm, has built one of the most recognisable portfolios in Africa’s tech ecosystem, with bets on startups like Moniepoint and Cauridor. The firm built its portfolio with one operating philosophy: invest early, work closely with founders after the cheque clears, and run a small, hands-on team. In January, Oui added Pius Bankong as its newest investment associate. He comes from the kind of background that increasingly matters and is becoming prevalent in African venture capital. Bankong had spent his career as an operator, leading business operations at fast-growing early-stage startups and working closely with founders and CEOs on product-market fit, fundraising, strategic partnerships, expansion, and team building. He has also been a founder himself through the fintech startup Stead Money. He also advises early-stage companies on the side, several of which later raised capital, grew revenue, and expanded their customer base. That background matters because it speaks to a quiet shift in how African VC is being staffed. For years, the dominant entry route into the asset class was a financial one: investment banking, consulting, or a foreign MBA. Increasingly, funds are recruiting operators who have built and run companies on the continent into investment seats. The argument is that founders are easier to evaluate, support, and align with when the person across the table has sat in their chair. In a young tech market where post-investment support often determines whether a company makes it from seed to Series A, that lived operational experience may be one of the few real differentiators a fund can offer. In our conversation, Bankong explains why he switched from being an operator to investing, what he looks for in a founder that a non-operator might miss, and how his weeks have changed now that the job is more analytical than executional. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. You said leading business ops was “pretty much like building the startup from inside.” What part of that work made you curious about the investor side? I do not think it was just one thing. I did several things leading business ops: launching new products, driving global partnerships, expanding into new markets, supporting fundraising, working with leadership to run the internal organisation, and shaping and driving strategic initiatives. That exposure to product, business development, operations, and management provides a solid entrepreneurial foundation. Working in a fast-growing startup also exposed me to insights that could help other founders at slightly earlier stages navigate issues like product-market fit, go-to-market strategy, or general operational strategy. I started advising a few early-stage startups, and I could see the impact it had on both the founders and their companies. They were getting funded, growing revenue, and acquiring more customers. I found that interesting, and I could see how it would be useful as a VC. There is also the fact that building a startup requires you to go deep into one industry. As a VC, you learn about a lot of industries through the deals you work on, and that market education is vital—whether as a VC, as a founder, or as an operator. You mentioned your background helps with identifying, sourcing, and evaluating deals. When you sit across from a founder, what do you read differently because you have sat in their seat? All these nuances come into play. Sometimes you have a great founder who is still figuring out a crucial piece of their product or their market. It is easier to see that and help them think through it. Other times, you might recognise a pitfall or challenge you have experienced and help them avoid making common mistakes. This is because I have been both a founder and an operator who worked very closely with founders in similar situations, so I have some level of firsthand experience. Being both an operator and investor helps me relate more easily to founders while also acquainting them with the investor’s perspective. Founders and investors play different roles, but they are on the same team, and aligning objectives is crucial. Having an operating background also helps with supporting founders post-investment as they look to grow their businesses and expand into new terrains or verticals. Does having built things make you more sympathetic to founders, or harder on them? Why? Neither. It makes me more empathetic. I often understand what they might be experiencing, and I try to offer feedback that is helpful and actionable and hopefully translates to tangible outcomes in a way that is both thoughtful and honest. Is there a blind spot operators bring into VC that you have had to watch out for in yourself? I do not think any specific one comes to mind right now, but just like with any role, you have to think from the perspective and objectives of the organisation and industry and leverage your unique perspective to advance them. An investor is in the business of returns. There are cases where a business might be performing well—which would naturally excite an operator—but it might not be a fit, based on several factors ranging from fund strategy to market dynamics. Being able to make the right call in those situations requires thinking in the context of your role as a VC, and not solely through your operator lens. What does a normal week look like now versus when you were running ops? There are certainly overlaps, and also some divergences. In almost every role I have had, relationship-building was an important piece of it. Likewise, entrepreneurial thinking, the ability to get up to speed on new domains rather quickly, and developing cross-domain expertise have always been at the core of what I do. The difference is that operating in a startup requires a level of depth within the industry related to that startup. In VC, you need to get up to speed on all industries where deals surface, because you have to make informed decisions. I spend a lot of time meeting founders and getting
Read MoreNigerian business banking startup Brass merges operations into Paystack MFB
Brass, a Nigerian business banking startup, will stop operating as an independent company and migrate customers into Paystack Microfinance Bank (Paystack MFB), closing the final chapter of one of Nigeria’s most closely watched fintech rescue deals. In a statement on Monday, Brass said interested customers would be migrated into Paystack MFB before July 31, 2026, as the company integrates its business banking operations into Paystack’s regulated banking infrastructure. “Brass will move its business banking into Paystack MFB,” the company said. “As part of this transition, Brass will no longer operate as an independent entity.” The shutdown marks the culmination of a turbulent two-year period for Brass, which once positioned itself as a modern banking layer for African businesses before a liquidity crisis threatened its survival in 2024. The move comes two years after a consortium led by Paystack, alongside PiggyVest, Ventures Platform, and P1 Ventures, acquired Brass following months of operational turmoil and customer withdrawal delays. Founded in 2020 by Sola Akindolu and Emmanuel Okeke, Brass built a digital banking platform for small businesses, offering business accounts, payroll tools, expense management, and cash-flow tracking. The startup emerged during a wave of African fintechs trying to replace traditional banking infrastructure for startups and SMEs. But by October 2023, the startup began experiencing delays in processing customer withdrawals, with several founders publicly complaining about being unable to access company funds. At the time, investors and ecosystem operators worried that the collapse of a deposit-taking fintech could damage trust in digital financial services more broadly. In May 2024, the Paystack-led consortium acquired Brass for an undisclosed amount in a deal aimed at stabilising operations and preventing a wider confidence crisis in Nigeria’s fintech sector. “We’re excited to act as new stewards for Brass’ mission,” the investors said at the time, describing the acquisition as part of a broader effort to make entrepreneurship “more frictionless and successful.” The acquisition led to a restructuring of the company, with Brass co-founders Akindolu and Okeke exiting the business. In Monday’s announcement, Brass said the months following the acquisition were spent rebuilding internal systems and operational processes under a new leadership team led by Philip Obosi and Yvonne Obike. “As we rebuilt and as our platform became more mature, something became increasingly clear,” the company said. “The next phase of our growth could not be achieved alone.” For Paystack, which was acquired by Stripe in 2020, the move deepens its push beyond payments into broader financial operations for African businesses. In January, Paystack entered Nigeria’s banking sector with the acquisition of Ladder Microfinance Bank. Paystack MFB offers treasury, transfers, and business banking services, making Brass’s business accounts and operations stack a closer fit within its existing infrastructure. The integration also highlights how Africa’s fintech market is evolving after years of venture-backed growth. During the funding boom of 2020 to 2022, startups often built overlapping financial products while competing aggressively for customers. As capital tightened and regulators increased scrutiny, consolidation has become more common across the sector. In January, Flutterwave, Africa’s largest payments startup, acquired open banking startup Mono. Brass framed its transition as a continuation rather than an ending. “This transition marks a new chapter,” the company said, “with even greater capability for the businesses we serve.”
Read MoreSpiro raises $215 million as race for Africa’s EV market heats up
Spiro, the electric mobility company building battery-swapping infrastructure for motorcycles across Africa, has raised $215 million in equity funding as it pushes deeper into a capital-intensive race to electrify urban transport. The round, backed by investors including Impact Fund Denmark and Equitane, comes four months after Spiro secured $50 million in debt financing and less than a year after a separate $100 million equity raise led by Afreximbank’s Fund for Export Development in Africa (FEDA). The latest investment signals continued investor appetite for electric mobility businesses that control both vehicles and the infrastructure needed to keep them running. While several African startups have entered the sector, battery-swapping networks remain expensive to build, requiring dense station coverage, battery inventory and local assembly capacity. Spiro is positioning itself for the growing demand for electric motorcycles as fuel costs rise and governments seek to reduce reliance on imported petroleum products. The company says riders can cut operating costs by up to 40% compared to petrol-powered bikes. The fresh capital will fund expansion of its swapping network, manufacturing operations and energy infrastructure, including solar-powered swap stations and battery storage systems. Founded in 2022, Spiro operates in Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Togo, Benin, Nigeria and Cameroon. The company said in a statement that it has deployed more than 100,000 electric motorcycles and built over 2,500 battery-swapping stations across its markets. The raise adds to a growing flow of climate and infrastructure capital into Africa’s electric transport sector. Investors are backing companies that combine vehicle financing, energy infrastructure and local manufacturing rather than focusing only on vehicle sales. Spiro assembles vehicles in Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda and operates a battery recycling facility in Nigeria. The company said it plans further expansion into markets including Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. “This past year marked a defining strategic milestone for Spiro,” founder Gagan Gupta said in a statement, pointing to the company’s vehicle deployments and swap-station network across seven markets. The funding strengthens Spiro’s position in a crowded market that includes players such as Ampersand, Roam and BasiGo, even as questions remain over how quickly electric mobility operators can reach profitability while financing large infrastructure rollouts across multiple countries.
Read More
In a duplex in Lagos, Cowrywise is trying to build a cathedral with 11 priests
One afternoon in February 2026, I went to Ikeja GRA, a highbrow neighbourhood in Lagos, to talk to a new crop of executives at Cowrywise, the wealth management fintech that manages money for over two million Nigerians. Four weeks earlier, at a January retreat held at a business club in Victoria Island, a highbrow area on the southern side of Lagos, Cowrywise had promoted 11 people to the title of associate vice president (AVP), the type of move that earns the rare tag of ‘unprecedented’ in Nigeria’s tech ecosystem. For a company of fewer than 80 people, it meant one in seven employees ended that day as a senior executive. My visit to Cowrywise’s office was to figure out whether this was a genuine restructuring of a growing financial institution or inflated titles meant to appease employees. What I found was more complex than either explanation. The Scale of Systemic Risk When a fintech has 10 users, risk is negligible. When it has 2 million, the complexity is systemic. Drag the slider to see why an 80-person company requires 11 Vice Presidents to survive. Active Customers 10 Startup Day 1 2 Million (Today) Risk Vectors: 2 Negligible Risk Transactions are sparse. The founders can manually review deposits, manage liquidity, and handle customer support directly. I was not alone in finding the promotions unusual. Abiola Sowemimo, a fintech human resources executive renowned for helping build Paystack’s HR team and practices, told me her first reaction was caution rather than judgment. “This is unusual. Not that it is automatically wrong, just very unusual,” she said. In a company of about 70 people, promoting 11 to AVP at once “would naturally raise questions.” “It is a leadership promotion, so the concern becomes whether this is a real promotion,” she added. But Sowemimo was equally clear that the nature of Cowrywise’s business changes the equation. “It looks like an intentional organisational move rather than business as usual,” she said. Part of what changes the equation is that Cowrywise is regulated by Nigeria’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). A company licensed to manage other people’s money faces scrutiny that an ordinary startup does not, because regulators want decision-making distributed among experienced people across important business units like risk, finance, and compliance. Cowrywise’s founders and AVPs. What does Cowrywise do? To understand the promotions, you first have to understand Cowrywise’s business model and how it makes money. Founded in 2016 by Razaq Ahmed and Edward Popoola, Cowrywise is a wealth-management company. What it does, in the words of Omowonuola Tunde-Bello, the AVP of investment management, is “invest on behalf of our clients and charge management fees.” Customers put their money in wallets via transfer or card payments; Cowrywise’s portfolio team allocates it across savings products, mutual funds, fixed-income products like treasury bills and, more recently, equities on the Nigerian Exchange Group, and the company takes a management fee on those assets. It is the same way a traditional asset-management firm like Chapel Hill Denham makes its money. Today, to fund a ₦1,000 ($0.70) investment plan, a Cowrywise user will transfer ₦1,015 ($0.70), inclusive of processing fees or set up a direct debit. They can pick from Naira portfolios that have returned between 4.33% and 51.56% so far this year. When I invested ₦1,000 ($0.73) in the highest-returning option in March, the 29.36% equity portfolio that was significantly weighted towards stocks, only ₦989 ($0.72) was reflected in my balance, indicating an additional ₦11 deduction from the invested amount. By May, my initial ₦1,000 had grown to ₦1,156, a 16.9% gain in two months. It lost ₦20 in March, gained ₦159 in April, and has added ₦17.34 so far in May. Cowrywise also partners with older asset management firms, such as Meristem Wealth Management, Afrinvest, ARM Investment Managers, and United Capital Asset Management, serving as a distribution layer and tech infrastructure for their funds. These relationships help the company’s partners bring regulated products to its customers, while Cowrywise provides the technology and distribution that get those products in front of retail customers through its app. A win-win of sorts for both parties. Cowrywise declined to share how it shares fees with its partners. How much does it cost to grow your wealth? Cowrywise sustains its operations by taking a small management fee on your investments. Play with the numbers below to see how fees and returns balance out in real-time. Initial Investment (₦) Expected Return 16.9% Estimated Platform Fee: ₦15.00 Your Net Profit: ₦154.00 Total Final Balance: ₦1,154.00 *Note: This is a simplified calculation for educational purposes, based on a flat 1.5% management fee deduction model. The startup’s digital-first model traces directly to Ahmed’s time as an investment analyst at firms like Vetiva and Meristem, where he observed that traditional wealth managers catered almost exclusively to high-net-worth clients, leaving the vast majority of Nigerians without access to investment products. In 2025, the director-general of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Dr Emomotimi Agama, said that less than 4% of Nigerians invest in the capital market. That digital path has also allowed Cowrywise to create products like Halal savings for Muslims that don’t accrue interest; Stash (a digital wallet for receiving and sending money); Circles (group savings); Triggers (a feature that automatically saves or invests when preset conditions are met, like when your football club scores a goal); and Money Badges (gamified milestones celebrating savings achievements). It also runs Sprout, a corporate treasury management tool leveraging technology and asset management solutions to help businesses invest idle cash. Cowrywise’s business has also expanded beyond retail distribution. Over the past year, the company has built a proprietary investment capability, deploying capital across public markets and other financial assets with a focus on long-term, risk-adjusted returns and begun portfolio construction for select high-net-worth clients. Abdulrauf (Rufy) Bello, the AVP for investment management, who joined a year ago specifically to lead that capability, now manages the proprietary book alongside contributing to the firm’s broader investment research and financial education output. This shift
Read MoreNigeria’s central bank expands PoS operating radius to 70 metres
Nigeria’s central bank has expanded the permitted operating radius for Point of Sale (PoS) terminals from 10 metres to 70 metres after concerns that the original restriction was too rigid for agents and merchants. In a May 29, 2026 circular, the CBN also extended the enforcement deadline for the geo-fencing policy to August 1, 2026, giving payment companies more time to comply with the directive first introduced in August 2025. The revision marks a partial retreat from one of the CBN’s strictest rules in Nigeria’s fast-growing agent banking market, which sought to tightly control where PoS terminals can operate. Under the rules, operators such as Moniepoint, OPay, and Palmpay must geo-tag all PoS terminals and tie them to precise GPS coordinates, allowing regulators to track where each transaction originates. The original framework limited terminals to operating within 10 metres of their registered business locations, a restriction designed to curb fraud, identity masking, and the movement of terminals outside registered addresses. The updated rules now expand that radius to 70 metres. “Evidence of compliance to the above should be addressed to the Director, Payments System Supervision Department via paymentdata@cbn.gov.ng not later than July 31, 2026,” the CBN said in its circular. The regulator’s push reflects growing concern over the scale and visibility of Nigeria’s PoS ecosystem. Since their 2013 introduction, PoS terminals have become Nigeria’s dominant cash access channel, with about 1,600 PoS agents per square kilometre. There were 8.36 million registered PoS terminals, with 5.90 million active or deployed as of March 2025. Transactions reached a record ₦10.51 trillion in Q1 2025, a 301.67% increase from Q1 2024. The rapid growth, however, has heightened fraud and compliance concerns, with agents sometimes unknowingly serving as access points for illicit activity. In 2024, TechCabal first reported that the Nigerian Interbank Settlement System (NIBSS) had been tasked with developing a geofencing framework to prevent terminals from being used outside their registered deployment addresses. The 2025 rule required all payment terminals to be registered with a Payment Terminal Service Aggregator (PTSA), either NIBSS or Unified Payment Services Limited, with accurate latitude and longitude coordinates reflecting the merchant or agent’s place of business and operating status. Terminals not directly routed to a PTSA are not permitted to transact, and operators must ensure their devices and applications are certified by the National Central Switch (NCS). In its new circular, the CBN asked all financial institutions to resolve all operational issues with the NCS within the stipulated timeline.
Read More“I didn’t see it becoming a business”: Day 1 to 1000 of Startbutton Africa
Mallick Bolakale laughed as he took me back to the early 2010s, when buying items from eBay in Nigeria required navigating an underground system. Then, a Nigerian needed a Virtual Private Network (VPN) to create an encrypted address and a broker with a foreign bank card and a shipping address in the United States to order items from the online marketplace, he recalled. Buyers would first send money to the broker’s naira account; the broker would convert it to dollars and pay for the item with his foreign card. The broker would then receive the items at his address before arranging their shipment to Nigeria. Bolakale, who at the time was studying law while repairing and reselling gadgets on the side to save money for law school, helped people buy electronics from eBay. Then he decided to risk the ₦500,000 (about $3,000 at the time) he had saved for law school. He used the money to buy gadgets like laptops from eBay, hoping to resell them at a profit before school resumed. The process worked the same way it always had until a friend, using his laptop, refreshed the eBay page without turning on a VPN. eBay detected the local Internet Protocol (IP) address—a unique numerical label assigned to every device connected to the internet—flagged the transaction as suspicious activity, and cancelled the order. That should have been the end of the story, but the broker refused to reconnect his card for the refund process, worried the card details could be misused while the refund was being processed. “Ladies and gentlemen,” Bolakale recalled, “that’s how I lost my law school fees.” More than a decade later, he co-founded a startup designed to solve the kind of cross-border friction that ruined that transaction. Founded in July 2023 with Kelechi Oti and Charles Idem, Startbutton Africa operates a merchant of records (MOR) system that helps businesses expand across African markets without setting up local payment operations, compliance systems, tax processes, and regulatory relationships from scratch. The startup assists businesses in new countries with payment collections and tax compliance. Businesses entering new countries often have to rebuild banking relationships, secure licences, embed payment integrations, and set up other compliance structures. Startbutton wants to simplify that process by sitting underneath expansion across the continent. Today, the company says it operates across 15 African markets, including Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Senegal, South Africa, and Uganda. Day 1: Interrupted vacations and Twitter DMs In 2022, Bolakale was in Rwanda, taking a break from work, when an unnamed company reached out to him, saying they were struggling to access Nigeria’s local payment infrastructure without local operational structures in place. A year earlier, the Central Bank of Nigeria had discontinued the sale of foreign exchange to Bureau De Change operators, worsening dollar scarcity and disrupting how individuals and businesses accessed foreign currency. By then, Bolakale had spent the past decade working across law, compliance, and fintech; he worked on compliance at Stripe-owned fintech Paystack and advised payment companies navigating regulatory and operational challenges. He had also seen how difficult expansion became once businesses crossed into markets with different tax obligations and payment infrastructure. So, he started building a workaround. “I didn’t really see it as something that was going to be a business,” Bolakale said. “I just felt like it was something I was doing to help businesses.” He incorporated Startbutton in 2023 and began manually helping businesses create local structures, connect with payment providers, and receive payments locally. Because accessing foreign currency had become difficult and expensive due to CBN’s directive, Bolakale listed his house on Airbnb, an online marketplace that lets people rent out their homes, and used the dollar payouts from bookings to settle merchants while collecting naira locally from customers. “It’s almost like what you were doing on eBay,” I pointed out during our conversation. “Exactly,” Bolakale replied. “This time, it was me doing it as opposed to using a broker.” By 2023, Bolakale and his co-founders had begun building Startbutton into an actual product. Then came the tweet that validated the idea. Bolakale recalled seeing a post from the founder of Bible Buddy, a faith-based AI startup, complaining on Twitter (now x) that despite the existence of fintechs, he still could not accept international payments because his startup was based in the United States. “That’s exactly what we’re solving for,” he remembered thinking. He replied to the tweet and sent the founder a direct message. Bible Buddy eventually tested the platform, requested a few changes, then became Startbutton’s first customer. “It was the first time it dawned on me that this was actually starting,” Bolakale said. Day 100: Frozen accounts and stablecoin settlements Weeks after Startbutton launched, it ran into its first major crisis. According to Bolakale, the company had just closed a $50,000 friends-and-family round to hire people and properly begin operations. But shortly after the funds landed in the company’s Wise account, the account was frozen. According to Bolakale, Wise flagged the account because Startbutton was using it for financial services and settlements, activities the platform did not expect the account to be used for. At the time, Startbutton was still a five-man team, trying to stabilise operations across its first markets: Nigeria, Rwanda, Ghana, South Africa, and the United States. “During that time, I self-funded the salaries,” he said. “The founders were not earning salaries.” In the two months that Wise held the account, Startbutton began settling merchants through stablecoin transactions, Bolakale said. By October 2023, Bolakale said that Wise released the funds, while Startbutton closed a $200,000 funding round. Day 500: Scaling down and structuring In addition to its merchant-of-record operations, Startbutton helped businesses incorporate locally, set up operational structures, navigate compliance processes, and, in some cases, support physical-goods expansion into African markets. Bolakale explained that at first, the flexibility helped Startbutton grow. Still, over time, he questioned whether the company was building something scalable or simply becoming a collection of expansion services for customer requests. “We realised that
Read MoreAfolabi Oyebiyi on learning how to code what he cannot see
In every conversation, there comes a point when it becomes something closer to a life guide—how things work, where they fail, and what it takes to keep going anyway. With Afolabi Oyebiyi, a software engineer at Nigerian software consulting firm Cyclone, that point arrives when he talks about the accumulation of small, technical details like the screen readers that make computers speak, the textbooks that don’t, the coding tools that assume everyone has sight. He talks about them because his condition has made him work within these confines. Before he became a software engineer, he was already learning how systems behave when they are not designed for you. Then, in 2005, when his sight began to deteriorate, his relationship with the digital world changed in ways he could not reverse, and he had to adapt. He followed a slow rebuilding, including spending time in rehabilitation centres where he first encountered screen readers, braille, and online platforms that promised self-paced learning but assumed visual interaction. He also enrolled at the Lagos branch of the National Institute of Information Technology (NIIT), an Indian-based global private skills and talent development firm, where he was the first visually impaired student, learning alongside a system that was itself learning how to include him. Even now, as a backend engineer working in industry, the struggle continues—between capability and accessibility, between what tools are designed to do and what he needs them to do. But that is only part of the picture. The other part is the work itself: writing code, solving problems, and occasionally pushing back when accessibility is treated as optional. TechCabal spoke to Afolabi about his struggles, his work, and the long, uneven path of learning to code and build a career in a system that was never designed with him in mind. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Why did you decide to become a programmer, or how did you become interested in programming as a blind person? I’ve always been interested in computers and how they work. I also have an older brother who is a software engineer. Though he is into AI now, at the time when I wanted to become a software engineer, he was one. So computers were all around me. The longer answer concerns my desire to bring about change for people with disabilities. When I was planning to get into tech, I thought I could effect change as a software engineer, given my accessibility concerns, and hopefully build technology that alleviates them. I wanted to build assistive technology because I had already been introduced to screen readers. I wanted to be able to build screen readers and accessible websites and apps, and you need coding skills specifically for that. That’s what drew me to coding. Other forms of technology professions, like graphics, were visually intensive. But with coding, you can bypass the visual intensity of it all. All you need to do is hear what you’re typing and hear your console logs. When did you lose your sight, and did you start coding before or after? My visual impairment started in 2005, and it slowly deteriorated over the next few years after that. That’s basically the origin story of my supervillain arc. I started coding actively around 2014–2015. I started by teaching myself through online platforms like Codecademy, Coursera, and W3Schools before deciding to attend a proper institute. So I went to NIIT. I did a two-and-a-half-year software engineering diploma there. One of the reasons I went there was that my brother had also gone to NIIT years earlier. That was his introduction to the tech world. So when I needed a place to study, that was naturally the first thing that came to my mind. How did they accommodate you at the National Institute of Information Technology (NIIT)? I was the first and only visually impaired student at NIIT. In my first couple of weeks there, I was actively trying to quit. Every day I would go to school and say, “Today’s my last day.” It was that difficult. And the funny thing was, at the time, we weren’t even doing coding yet. It was just basic Microsoft Word. The teachers had never taught blind people before. I had to listen in class and then go home and fight with my computer. It was extremely difficult. But I got lucky as time went by. The teachers began to adapt to me. We would have mini private sessions during class. It was a mix of the teachers’ consideration and a whole lot of extra work on my part. When I got to coding specifically, I had a teacher called Mr Andrew who was pretty much godsent. He went way beyond what was required of him under the contract. He helped me during school and after school. I remember being on the phone with this guy sometimes at 1 am or 2 am, and he never complained. I pretty much owe my career to him. I would have quit NIIT without that guy. What about the time between 2005 and 2015? Were you learning computers on your own? I somehow managed to finish secondary school. When my sight was degenerating, I was in JSS3. I was already using computers before my eyes began to degenerate, so I had to relearn everything. After secondary school, with all the despair and depression, in 2013, I went to a rehabilitation centre for the blind. That’s where I got introduced to screen readers, Braille, and typewriters. It also helped me meet other blind people. Before that period, I was a recluse. I never went out. Meeting other blind people—some who had it way worse put things in perspective for me. Learning screen readers really changed a lot for me. It gave me hope. How long did it take you to learn Braille and screen readers? I actively resisted Braille, but I had to do it for the curriculum. For screen readers, I think it was easier because it’s
Read More