Nomba raises $3 million to target Africa–Asia payment corridor

Nomba, a Nigerian fintech that enables businesses to collect payments and access banking services, has raised a $3 million debt facility through CardinalStone Finance Company Limited, the financing arm of CardinalStone Group, to expand its cross-border payments infrastructure across Central Africa.

The company said the debt facility will give it more USD liquidity to deploy through its banking relationships in Hong Kong and Singapore. With more liquidity available across currencies, the company can support more transactions and settle payments to deepen existing trade corridors and expand into new ones. 

Nomba’s fundraising comes as the DRC and Asia, particularly China, continue to share a significant commercial relationship. In 2025, trade between China and the DRC reached $26.7 billion, with China importing $21.6 billion from the DRC and exporting $5.1 billion worth of goods to the country. That trade volume presents an opportunity for Nomba, as demand for reliable payment infrastructure surges.

“This facility gives us more room to move — more liquidity, more corridors, faster settlement,” said Yinka Adewale, Nomba’s chief executive officer. “It’s also a strong signal of confidence in what we’re building for the next generation of African businesses. We plan to keep scaling our cross-border infrastructure this year, expanding into new African markets and deepening the payment links between Africa and its trading partners in Asia.”

Founded in 2017 as Kudi.AI, an AI chatbot that helped users process online payments, the company launched an agency banking solution in 2018. It then evolved into a provider of payments and banking services for businesses, generating revenue by charging fees on transactions processed through its platform. In 2023, Nomba raised $30 million in a pre-Series B round, valuing the company at more than $150 million and supporting its expansion into new business banking products.

Nomba announced its expansion into DRC in November 2025, after quietly operating in the market for several months. Its initial entry into the market centred on remittances, with the company recruiting physical agents to handle inflows from high-volume corridors, including China and Dubai. At the time, Nomba described the DRC as its entry point into Central Africa, using remittances to build its market presence. 

The company’s ambition has since expanded. Over the past 18 months, Nomba said it has combined banking relationships and local market operations to address the currency access and settlement challenges that can slow cross-border trade.

With Nomba’s DRC product, businesses can collect payments online or through point-of-sale terminals, accept card and mobile money payments, and then pay suppliers in Asia, the company said.

“This transaction reflects our confidence in the growth opportunity presented by cross-border payments, and the role innovative financial infrastructure can play in connecting African businesses to global markets,” said Ayoola Adeola, managing director, CardinalStone Finance. 

In April, Nomba disclosed that its 18-month credit partnership with Globus Bank, a tier-3 commercial bank, disbursed up to $15.3 million to Nigerian businesses, with less than 1% of the loans classified as non-performing.

Nomba said it considers the DRC as a starting point for its expansion across Central and East Africa, and has already begun piloting a DRC-to-Zambia corridor. It added that it sees business-to-business (B2B) demand connecting the DRC with Uganda, Kenya and Angola. Its approach is to use cross-border demand to establish new corridors before determining if there is a large enough opportunity to build a deeper local presence. 

Nomba said it currently processes more than $480 million in cross-border payments each month across its DRC operations and Canadian-licenced money service business. It plans to raise another $20 million to $50 million in debt in stages, giving it more capacity to support cross-border trade and work towards its goal of processing $1 billion in monthly payments.

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