Ghanaian fintech Affinity bags $8M to scale digital banking in a mobile money-driven market
Africa’s top digital banking platforms typically come from high-growth, populous markets like Nigeria, South Africa, and Egypt. But Affinity Africa, an upstart from Ghana, wants to join the conversation. The startup has raised $8 million in seed funding to expand its financial products further across the country, where mobile money is the dominant financial tool.
While mobile money has become the go-to for financial transactions, the traditional banking sector in Ghana and Africa as a whole remains highly profitable. Since the pandemic, banks in Ghana have recorded growth with an after-tax return on equity (RoE) that exceeds the global average.
However, these profits rely heavily on fees, while inefficiencies like high operational costs, extensive in-person paperwork, and long onboarding times have left millions underserved.
Read more: https://techcrunch.com/2025/02/11/affinity-bags-8m-to-scale-digital-banking-in-ghana/
Swypt launches Kenya’s first decentralised stablecoin as crypto regulations tighten
Swypt, a decentralized finance platform, has integrated cKES, Kenya’s first decentralized stablecoin on Mento, a separate decentralized platform, pegged 1:1 to the Kenyan shilling. This move reflects a growing trend in Kenya’s fintech landscape, where stablecoins are seen as an alternative to traditional mobile money and banking systems. However, the country’s evolving regulatory frameworks may influence the platform’s growth.
Founded in May 2023 by Davis Thoyah, Swypt seeks to address inefficiencies in peer-to-peer (P2P) crypto trading. The platform debuted at ETHSafari 2023 and officially launched in June 2024. It offers a suite of payment solutions, including stablecoin transactions and SME payments, to enhance accessibility and efficiency in the digital payments ecosystem.
Read more: https://techcabal.com/2025/02/11/swypt-launches-stablecoin/
QED leads $11M investment in Nigerian fintech Raenest
As Africa’s tech ecosystem booms, more people from the region are landing remote jobs with Big Tech firms and global startups. But getting paid remains a challenge for many of these freelancers and remote workers — they struggle to open accounts that accept U.S. dollars and face slow invoicing and payment processes, and it doesn’t help when their foreign employers use incompatible payment platforms.
Lagos-based Raenest is one of the many African fintechs that have stepped in to address this problem. Through its retail product, Geegpay, Raenest offers freelancers virtual USD, GBP, and EUR accounts to receive payments, manage multi-currency wallets, and convert currencies. It also provides virtual and physical debit cards that accept multiple currencies like U.S. dollars.
Read more: https://techcrunch.com/2025/02/11/qed-leads-11m-investment-in-nigerian-fintech-raenest/
Nearly a Third of Banks Lack a Faster Payments Plan — and Risk Losing Customers
The steady rise of instant payments has marked The Clearing House’s journey since 2017 when it launched the RTP® network, the first new payments network in the United States in decades. This month, the RTP network hit a new milestone, moving past 1 billion payments, a doubling in just 18 months. New single-day records were also set for payments volume, at 1.6 million transactions, with an attendant $1.4 billion aggregate value.
Yet, there are gaps in the market. What consumers and businesses want, and what financial institutions (FIs) are prepared to deliver, have yet to meet. PYMNTS Intelligence data found that 30% of the banks that do not yet offer instant payments said they lack a plan on how to get there.
“If you don’t start with planning, you end up with nothing,” Cheryl Gurz, vice president of RTP product management at The Clearing House, told PYMNTS.
Egypt: Aspire Capital signs block trading deal
Egypt – Aspire Capital Holding for Financial Investments (ASPI) recorded a block-trading deal at a value of EGP 17.6 million, the Egyptian Exchange (EGX) announced on February 10th.
The transaction was implemented on 64 million shares.
Aspire Capital, formerly known as Pioneers Holding Company for Financial Investment, is an Egypt-based company that operates in the financial services sector.
Read more: https://www.zawya.com/en/business/fintech/egypt-aspire-capital-signs-block-trading-deal-do6j1ng7
Ripple Teams With Unicâmbio to Power Brazil-to-Portugal Payments
Blockchain company Ripple has launched a partnership with Portuguese currency exchange provider Unicâmbio.
The collaboration, announced Monday (Feb. 10), is designed to support instant cross-border payments between Portugal and Brazil through Ripple Payments, the company’s digital-asset-focused cross-border payments system.
According to a Ripple news release, this marks the first time the company’s payment solution has been offered in Portugal, a development that both expands Ripples footprint in Europe and bolsters the Portugal-Brazil payments corridor.
StraitsX Launches Crypto Payment Card with RedotPay and Visa
StraitsX, a Southeast Asian digital asset infrastructure provider, has partnered with RedotPay and Visa to launch a new digital asset-backed card programme in Singapore.
The company is the Visa BIN sponsor for the initiative, enabling users to convert and spend their digital assets at millions of Visa merchants globally.
StraitsX’s infrastructure facilitates the seamless conversion of digital assets into spendable funds, ensuring compatibility with traditional payment systems.
Read more: https://fintechnews.sg/107618/digitalassets/straitsx-card-visa/
