E-Financial
pawaPay Secures Seed Funding of $9M
African payments company pawaPay, has secured a $9m Seed raise. The round was co-led by MSA and UK-based investment fund 88mph, with participation from Vunani Capital, Kepple Ventures and Zagadat Capital.
The capital will be deployed to scale pawaPay’s operational presence, find more talent to join the team, and expand into new markets on the continent.
Founded in 2020, pawaPay is focused on the mobile money infrastructure provided by telecommunications companies (telco) in Africa. Each telco in each country provides its own unique mobile money product, which makes the mobile money infrastructure as a whole – across borders and telcos – highly fragmented and opaque.
For merchants, this fragmentation means that it is unnecessarily expensive to use and frustratingly unstable. Through pawaPay’s simple API, merchants can access more than 300 million customers in more than ten markets and enjoy seamless, transparent and highly reliable payments.
pawaPay’s customers are large Pan-Africa/global merchants and companies needing to make payments to African consumers’ accounts.
Payments in Africa have long been made difficult by large unbanked populations, declined credit card transactions, charge-backs, fraud, dropped and lost payments, and slow cross-border settlements.
The alternative financial infrastructure created by the telco-led mobile money wallets now has more than half a billion registered accounts in Africa, making it both one of the largest financial infrastructures in the world and one of the most under-developed.
pawaPay has positioned itself as an industry leader in high volume mobile money payments and focuses on delivering reliability and transparency for merchants wishing to connect to the customers on the continent.
With a single API, pawaPay’s customers can access all telco mobile money systems and thus receive and send payments to hundreds of millions of people. pawaPay handles local operations, compliance, regulatory cover and bank accounts, making it as simple as clicking a button to start receiving payments in a new market. pawaPay is already successfully handling millions of transactions on its rails per week and has operations in 10 countries.
Commenting on the company’s raise and growth prospects, Nikolai Barnwell, CEO of pawaPay said, “Africa’s alternative financial infrastructure is in an exciting phase with double digits CAGR everywhere.
“And mobile money has come out as the de facto money infrastructure for hundreds of millions of people on the continent. A quarter of the adult population is an active mobile money user.
“A third of all wallet holders have their salaries paid into them. We’re making a bet that this infrastructure will continue to grow and offer a superior experience than traditional financial infrastructures such as card and banking.
With more than 500 million registered users on the continent – 200 million of which are active frequent users, this isn’t a fringe fad or a stepping stone to cards and swift payments.
This is an example for the rest of the world of how payments could – and should look. Most of our competitors are largely focused on bank and card payments; but over the past many years we have been laser focused on addressing the unique set of challenges that accompanies specializing in mobile money.
I think this gives us a good position to explore the opportunities that are coming up as this alternative financial infrastructure continues to grow.
“We are excited to have world-class investors supporting our vision to connect every mobile money wallet in Africa to each other, and the rest of the world, as we continue to make it simpler to do payments”.
Kresten Buch, Founder of 88mph, added “When we first invested in Africa in 2010, one of the key drivers was that mobile money was a superior payment method to credit and debit cards when used for online payment.
“So, we are excited to be an investor in pawaPay’s journey and continue to witness the development of digital infrastructure in Africa”.
Mr. Eazi, singer, songwriter, entrepreneur and Founder of Zagadat Capital, added “Being investors hugely focused on Africa and very familiar with the landscape, we believe that mobile money focused fintech is not just one of the most exciting places to invest but also one of the most important bridges to ensuring financial inclusion of the billions of people across the continent, the kicker for us was that we believe in the clear mission, vision and strategy & we are confident that the pawaPay team is the best team to achieve it”.
United Bank for Africa (UBA) has announced strategic expansion into more African countries even as it plans to open a new office in Saudi Arabia, marking a significant milestone in its mission to connect Africa with key global markets.
Oliver Alawuba, GMD/CEO, UBA group,
This emerged during the Group’s Half Year Business Review held at its global headquarters in Lagos, where Oliver Alawuba, group managing director/CEO, UBA group, met with senior executives overseeing UBA’s 24-country footprint.
The meeting reaffirmed the bank’s pan-African strategy while outlining bold new steps into global markets.
Alawuba highlighted UBA’s continued growth outside Nigeria, with more than 51.7% of Group revenues now generated from its ex-Nigerian operations.
He described the Saudi expansion as a move that positions UBA to support cross-border trade, attract investment flows, and better serve the African diaspora.
“UBA’s vision is clear—we are building a truly global institution anchored in Africa, but serving customers across continents. Our entry into Saudi Arabia signals confidence in new opportunities and commitment to supporting economic connectivity between Africa and the Middle East,” he said.
The Saudi expansion adds to UBA’s international presence, which currently includes the United Kingdom, United States, France, and the United Arab Emirates. Alawuba also disclosed that the bank is upgrading its operating licence in France to further strengthen its European operations.
“In Europe, UBA has operations in the United Kingdom and is upgrading its licence in France, expanding its capacity to serve cross-border trade, investment flows, and the African diaspora, complementing our over 40-year presence in New York,” Alawuba noted.
Since launching its pan-African journey with an entry into Ghana in 2004, UBA has expanded rapidly across 20 African countries, establishing itself as a leading driver of financial inclusion, innovation, and regional integration.
Ecobank Transnational Incorporated announced its plan to raise up to $250m in Additional Tier 1 capital through a private placement of contingent convertible notes.
In a statement filed on the Nigerian Exchange Limited recently, the capital raise was approved by shareholders at the company’s Extraordinary General Meeting held in Lomé, Togo. The private placement offer was launched on July 9 and will run for ten days.
“Following the approval of the shareholders at its Extraordinary General Meeting held on May 28, 2025, in Lomé, Togo, to raise up to $250m in additional Tier 1 capital qualifying instruments via a private placement of contingent convertible notes, Ecobank Transnational Incorporated announces the launch of the AT1 effective July 9, 2025, for ten days. Renaissance Capital Africa has been appointed as the transaction adviser to ETI.”
The move is an initiative aimed at strengthening Ecobank’s capital adequacy, enhancing financial resilience, and supporting its long-term growth ambitions across its diversified pan-African banking platform.
Additionally, Madibinet Cisse, Ecobank’s Company Secretary, said, “This proposed capital raise represents a critical step in our efforts to fortify the bank’s financial foundation and support sustainable growth across Africa.”
It would be recalled that Ecobank Transnational Incorporated, the parent company of the Ecobank Group, has raised an additional $125m through a Eurobond tap, bringing the total size of its 2029 notes to $525m.
Ola Olukoyede, chairman, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), has announced that the body has recovered lost funds from the CBEX fraud scheme.
Olukoyede did not announce the amount recovered, but he assured Nigerians that the EFCC is taking action against the promoters of the scheme.
The EFCC Chairman emphasised that the suspects found are facing prosecution.
“We have found a lot of people culpable. Those who promoted that scheme are within our jurisdiction and have been arrested. So, at this moment, they are being prosecuted. And we can also say that money has been recovered, even though the process is still ongoing for us to finally forfeit it,” he said.
Olukoyede also urged Nigerians to exercise caution when investing their resources into online platforms.
“Ponzi schemes remain one of the most pervasive threats facing unsuspecting investors. The CBEX case is a clear example. We all remember the outcry that followed the collapse of the scheme, but these unfortunate situations are preventable. Nigerians must begin to conduct due diligence before committing their resources to such platforms,” Olukoyede said.
He also stressed that the body remains committed to fishing out the culprits and recovering the lost funds.
“It was only when the bubble burst that people wanted EFCC to perform magic and recover their money. In the case we investigated in Lagos, which we dubbed Operation Flush, we arrested a large number of foreigners involved in various cybercrimes, including CBEX. I want Nigerians to know that as of today, we have secured close to 150 convictions. Some of them are already serving their jail terms. And when they are through with that, we are going to send them back to where they came from. So we are monitoring them,” he added.
He urged the public to stay vigilant, assuring them that the body will see the case to the end.
“We are no longer the EFCC that drops cases halfway. Whatever we start, we will finish. Nigerians should trust us and believe in our capacity to do justice. Some of these cases are complex and may require cross-border investigations, but we are up to the task,” he said.
EFCC Says Corrupt Politicians are Using Crypto Wallets to Launder Money
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