Have you ever tried sending money from Kenya to Nigeria and felt like you were posting a letter by pigeon?
Eight percent fees, sometimes twelve, eaten up in fees. Days of waiting. Endless forms. Currency conversion headaches that make you want to scream. For millions of Africans, that’s still daily reality in 2025.
But something big is shifting, and it just got official announcement this week.
Fincra Takes Center Stage at Africa Tech Summit 2026
Fincra, the payment infrastructure company that’s quietly been building the “plumbing” for a borderless Africa, has been named Headline Supporter for the eighth edition of Africa Tech Summit Nairobi, happening February 11-12, 2026 at the Sarit Expo Centre.
This isn’t just another sponsorship logo on a banner. This is a statement.
When the continent’s most influential tech gathering puts a payments company front and center, you know the conversation has permanently moved from “Can we dream about pan-African fintech? to How fast can we actually build it?
Why This Particular Partnership Feels Different
I’ve covered African tech conferences for years. Normally the headline sponsor is a telecom giant, a global exchange, or a blockchain foundation throwing logo money around. Useful, sure. Game-changing? Rarely.
Fincra is different because they’re not here to advertise an existing product. They’re here to co-create the future of money movement on the continent. And they’re putting their balance sheet where their mouth is.
“We’re building the systems that will power the African Continental Free Trade Area, digital commerce, and seamless cross-border payments — driven by a vision to make Africa a borderless economy.”
Wole Ayodele, CEO at Fincra
That’s not marketing speak. That’s a dare to the entire ecosystem.
The Numbers That Should Wake Everyone Up
Let’s run the tape on where African cross-border payments stand today:
- Current market size (2025): ~$329 billion
- Projected size by 2035: $1 trillion
- Average remittance cost into sub-Saharan Africa: 8.3% (highest in the world)
- Only 55% of African countries allow fully electronic KYC
- Intra-African trade: still under 18% of total trade (vs 70% in Europe)
Those aren’t abstract statistics. That’s billions of dollars never reaching families, startups strangled by payout delays, and entire industries that can’t scale because moving money feels like moving mountains.
In my view, the most frustrating part? We already have most of the technology. Mobile money penetration is world-leading. Smartphone adoption is exploding. The missing piece has been interoperable infrastructure that works across borders without bleeding users dry.
What Actually Happens in Nairobi in February
Over 2,000 delegates. More than 1,000 companies. Four dedicated tracks:
- Africa Money & DeFi Summit
- Africa AI & Digital Summit
- Africa Climate Tech & Investment Summit
- Africa Startup Summit
Translation: regulators sitting next to crypto founders, central bank deputies debating with DeFi architects, climate-tech startups pitching impact investors — all while payment rails that actually work are being stress-tested in real time.
If you’ve ever been to an African tech event and left thinking “great vibes, zero deals,” this edition feels engineered to fix that. There’s a hackathon, an investment showcase, masterclasses, and — perhaps most importantly — closed-door policy roundtables where the real decisions get made.
The Bigger Vision: One API to Rule Them All (Sort Of)
Fincra’s core offering is deceptively simple: one API that lets businesses collect payments globally and make payouts locally across dozens of African countries and currencies.
Behind that simplicity sits an absolute beast of compliance, forex, and treasury management. Virtual accounts in local currencies. Instant settlements where possible. Built-in fraud detection that actually understands African name variations and informal address formats.
Think of it as the Stripe + Wise + Airwallex love child, but born in Lagos and obsessed with solving African problems first.
Their bet — and I think it’s a good one — is that the winners in African fintech won’t be the consumer apps with the flashiest UI. The winners will be the infrastructure companies nobody hears about until every other app magically starts working better.
Why Interoperability Isn’t Sexy But Changes Everything
Picture this scenario in 2028:
A solar mini-grid developer in Kigali raises funding from a London impact fund. The money lands in Rwandan francs instantly. They pay suppliers in Ghanaian cedis and Kenyan shillings the same day. Their field technicians in Senegal get paid weekly into mobile money wallets. No one pays more than 1% total fees. No one waits more than 10 seconds.
That scenario isn’t science fiction. It’s what becomes possible when payment rails actually talk to each other.
And that’s exactly what the AfCFTA was supposed to unlock — but trade agreements without payment agreements are just fancy PowerPoint decks.
Who Else Is Showing Up
The supporter list reads like a who’s-who of companies serious about Africa:
- Cardano and Wada (blockchain infrastructure)
- Moniepoint (Nigeria’s digital bank unicorn)
- Bitnob (Bitcoin on/off ramps)
- Norrsken22 (pan-African VC)
- London Stock Exchange & International Trade Centre
- Plus dozens of others
When that many heavy hitters decide the same room in Nairobi is where the future gets built, you pay attention.
My Take: This Is the Tipping Point Moment
I’ve been bullish on African fintech for years, but I’ll be honest — sometimes it felt like we were stuck in perpetual “next year” mode.
Not anymore.
When a company like Fincra plants its flag as headline supporter — when the conversation moves from awareness to actual implementation — that’s when ecosystems go from promising to explosive.
February 2026 in Nairobi won’t just be another conference. It might just be the moment historians point to and say: “That’s when Africa’s payment infrastructure finally grew up.”
If you’re building, investing, regulating, or even just curious about African tech — clear your calendar. Early bird tickets are already moving fast.
Because the borderless Africa we’ve all been talking about? It stops being a dream and starts becoming balance-sheet reality the moment companies like Fincra decide to stop waiting for permission.
See you in Nairobi.
