Nigerian tech entrepreneur Yinka Adewale leads Nomba to $3 million funding success

Nomba, the African business payments company led by Nigerian tech entrepreneur Yinka Adewale, has secured a $3 million debt facility from CardinalStone Finance Co. to expand its cross-border settlement network between Africa and major Asian trading hubs.

The facility will help Nomba strengthen its U.S. dollar liquidity through banking partners in Hong Kong and Singapore. The company plans to use its operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo to settle import and export transactions between Central African businesses and suppliers in Asia.

For African businesses, moving money across borders remains costly and slow. Fragmented banking systems, limited access to dollars and lengthy settlement times can leave merchants waiting weeks for funds to clear. Nomba said Tuesday that the new financing will help it provide more predictable liquidity for commercial clients handling international payments.

“African businesses are trading more with the rest of the world every year, but the infrastructure to support that trade is still catching up,” Adewale said. He said Nomba wants to build payment infrastructure that makes it easier for African businesses to trade with customers and suppliers outside the continent.

Nomba targets $1 billion monthly cross-border volume

Nomba currently processes more than $480 million a month in international transfers through its DRC business and a Canadian-licensed money services entity. The company aims to push monthly volume past $1 billion as it broadens its payment corridors, backed by plans to raise between $20 million and $50 million in new capital in the coming months. 

The company said it is already profitable across its operations in Nigeria and the DRC, setting it apart from many early-stage fintech companies that remain dependent on repeated equity funding to finance expansion. Its profitability gives Nomba another source of capital as it enters new markets and expands its payments infrastructure. Zambia and Uganda are next on the company’s expansion list, extending its reach into East and Southern Africa.

Ayoola Adeola, managing director of CardinalStone Finance, said the financing reflected the lender’s confidence in the growth of cross-border payments and the need for financial infrastructure that can connect African businesses with international markets.

Yinka Adewale takes Nomba payments abroad

Founded in January 2017 by Yinka Adewale and Pelumi Aboluwarin as an agency banking network, Nomba has grown into a merchant payments platform offering point-of-sale terminals, multicurrency accounts, and credit lines. The firm now processes N7 trillion ($5.3 billion) in monthly transactions across more than 600,000 businesses.

That domestic scale is now feeding an international push. In the second quarter of 2025, Nomba bought an unnamed, licensed Canadian payment service provider to run direct Canadian dollar-to-African currency settlements. The company has kept the acquisition price and the target’s identity confidential, but the move gives it a regulated foothold outside the continent.

Yinka Adewale’s real test now lies in managing foreign exchange liquidity. Clearing larger payment runs requires reliable dollar pools and deep commercial banking lines abroad to settle transfers on time, without leaving importer capital stuck between correspondent banks.

That leaves Nomba’s treasury desks carrying as much weight as its sales teams. In cross-border finance, winning client volume means little if settlement accounts run dry; keeping cash flowing across these corridors will determine whether Nomba’s regional expansion pays off.