ByteX, Cenne Merge to Build Financial Infrastructure for North America, India and Africa Trade

ByteX Financial and Cenne Financial have announced a strategic merger that brings the two companies together under the ByteX brand, combining Cenne’s AI-native business finance platform with ByteX’s regulated cross-border payment infrastructure.

The merger is aimed at creating a single company focused on building financial infrastructure for trade corridors between North America, South Asia and Africa that have remained underserved by global fintech companies.

ByteX has operated proprietary, regulated payment rails on the Canada-India and United States-India corridors since 2023, processing more than CAD $3.6 billion in cumulative transaction volume.

Cenne, which was launched at Web Summit Vancouver in 2026, developed an AI-native finance platform for small and medium-sized businesses trading between Canada and African markets.

The companies said their combination would create a single business that owns both layers of the financial system, including the payment rails and the customer experience.

Under the strategic rationale for the merger, the combined platform will enable businesses to access accounts, payments, foreign exchange and finance operations through one experience, running on settlement infrastructure owned by the company rather than infrastructure resold from third parties.

ByteX said its Canada-India and US-India payment rails were already operational, having served money services businesses, foreign exchange operators and payment merchants since 2023.

The company also said it had established a regulatory foundation over several years, holding payment service provider registration under Canada’s Retail Payment Activities Act and Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC) money services business registrations.

It added that licence applications were progressing in India and Nigeria.

According to the companies, the merger comes at a time when India and Africa are becoming increasingly important to global commerce.

They noted that India is the world’s largest remittance recipient, while Africa is home to the fastest-growing group of trading economies, but financial infrastructure connecting the continent with North America remains fragmented, slow and expensive.

The combined company is expected to deepen its North America-India corridors while extending direct settlement and local-currency payout capabilities into African markets.

The initial African expansion will focus on corridors connecting Canada and the United States to Nigeria.

ByteX said it also plans to expand into five additional African and Caribbean payment corridors in the first half of 2027.

Alongside its direct platform, ByteX will continue expanding its application programming interface (API) and white-label infrastructure.

The infrastructure will enable fintech companies, foreign exchange operators and marketplaces to embed cross-border payment capabilities without having to build their own settlement, liquidity and compliance systems.

Onyeka Akumah, Chief Executive Officer of ByteX, said the combination would simplify international financial operations for businesses in Canada.

“Businesses in Canada should not need a patchwork of banks, payment providers, FX platforms and reconciliation tools simply to operate internationally,” Akumah said.

He said the merger connected Cenne’s intelligence and experience with the payment rails ByteX had built and scaled since 2023.

Charles Sanda, President and Chief Commercial Officer of ByteX, said the company was building financial infrastructure for a new era of trade between North America, Asia and Africa from Canada.

“We are building the financial infrastructure for the next era of trade between North America, Asia and Africa and we are building it from Canada,” Sanda said.

He said the corridors being served were not niches but areas where global commerce was growing, adding that business owners should be able to pay a supplier in Mumbai or fund a contractor in Lagos with the same confidence as making a local transfer.

According to him, owning the infrastructure makes that promise possible, describing the merger as “the beginning and not a conclusion.”

Sayan Roy, Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of ByteX, said proprietary payment rails had demonstrated advantages in speed, control and economics.

“Connecting those rails to Cenne’s business-finance experience gives customers the full journey; initiation, FX, settlement, reconciliation and reporting, with the complexities kept where they belong: in the background,” Roy said.

Following the merger, Akumah and Sanda, who were Co-Founders of Cenne Financial, have joined ByteX as Chief Executive Officer and President and Chief Commercial Officer, respectively.

The companies said the merger was driven by the changing map of global trade, with goods, capital and talent increasingly moving between North America, South Asia and Africa at a pace the existing financial system was not designed to support.

They said no company operating on only one layer of the financial stack could independently close the infrastructure gap.

The combined company said the merger brings together two layers needed for the next phase of international commerce: settlement rails that are already live and regulated, and a financial platform designed for businesses to manage their operations.

ByteX said it would continue building its infrastructure corridor by corridor and pursuing licences while serving markets that other companies had considered difficult to enter.

The company said its long-term objective was to make moving money across three continents as simple and routine as moving money across town.