• Women-led innovation at the forefront, with 8 female founders and 90 per cent of startups featuring female leadership
• 86 African fintechs has been accelerated through the program to date, with a cumulative $1.3 billion valuation across the four cohorts

Visa, a global leader in digital payments, convened founders, investors, corporate partners, and industry leaders in Cape Town on 1 December 2025 for the Visa Africa Fintech Accelerator  program Cohort 4 Demo Day.

The event spotlighted 22 high‑growth fintech startups from across the continent, marking the culmination of an intensive three‑month journey to develop and scale innovative digital commerce solutions.

Cohort 4 reflects the continued momentum of Africa’s fintech landscape and demonstrates the strength, diversity, and ambition of the region’s innovators.

This year’s group includes startups headquartered in 12 African countries and operating across 31 markets.

Women-led innovation stands out as a defining feature of this cohort, with eight female founders and 90 percent of participating startups having a women part of their leadership team.

With Cohort 4, Visa has now accelerated 86 African fintech startups, which collectively hold a cumulative valuation of USD 1.3 billion. Alumni continue to scale into new markets, secure follow‑on investment, and develop deeper commercial engagements with Visa.

Structured pathways to investment and global partnerships

The Visa Africa Fintech Accelerator program offers startups a pathway to scale through hands-on, specialized support. Participating companies receive guidance across product design, marketing, finance, and sales, as well as one‑to‑one mentorship from experienced founders and industry specialists.

The program also helps startups build strategic partnerships and access investment opportunities through Visa’s extensive global network.

This year’s program also deepened collaboration with three strategic corporate partners – Bank of Africa, Onafriq, and First Bank of Nigeria Ltd.

Each partner played a pivotal role by sharing industry expertise, market insights, and access to their broad operational capabilities.

Their involvement not only enriched the cohort experience but also opened pathways for potential commercial partnerships, investment opportunities, and proof-concept engagements.

Together, this expanded strategic community is helping to unlock new business opportunities and drive collaborative growth across Africa’s financial ecosystem.

A Sector on the Rise

Fintech continues to be the engine of Africa’s venture ecosystem. McKinsey estimates that Africa’s fintech revenues could reach US$47 billion by 2028, rising from approximately US$10 billion in 2023, a trajectory that highlights the sector’s significant commercial potential.

The broader ecosystem is expanding at pace as well: the number of active fintech companies nearly tripled between 2020 and early 2024, increasing from 450 to 1,263 firms, according to the European Investment Bank.

Together, these indicators reinforce the strong investor confidence and growing consumer demand driving the adoption of digital‑first financial services across the continent.

Andrew Uaboi, vice president/cluster head Visa West Africa said:

“Africa’s fintech landscape continues to expand at extraordinary speed, powered by founders solving real-world challenges and reshaping the future of digital commerce. The startups in Cohort 4 truly capture the energy and ingenuity driving Africa’s fintech transformation. We are proud to stand behind their journey and eager to see the new possibilities they unlock as they scale across the continent.”

With the subscription market projected to reach $406 billion by 2025, this new service addresses the growing need for managing payments in various sectors like retail and food.

Visa’s new Subscription Manager streamlines key aspects of recurring payments in one place, allowing cardholders to see where their card details are stored, view which recurring payments are attributed to their card, and stop recurring payments.

“Navigating through each platform’s unique terms can potentially lead to unnoticed charges, even after a subscription is cancelled,” said Andrew Uaboi, Vice President and Head Visa West Africa. “Our goal is to make this process simpler and ensure cardholders know exactly where their money is going, and when.”

As consumer expectations for seamless, secure digital payments grow, it’s important for issuers to keep pace. A forthcoming Visa report supports this trend, revealing that 63% of surveyed consumers are comfortable with a future that relies entirely on digital money.

The rapid introduction of new digital financial tools and services is propelling this shift, with consumers increasingly turning to apps and mobile wallets to manage their finances.

The same report also found that over half of the consumers surveyed have adopted the use of mobile wallets in just the past year.

Subscription Manager is the newest addition to Visa’s Digital Enablement product suite, a comprehensive set of tools and flexible solutions aimed to help issuers offer better digital experiences for their cardholders.

The new solution supports Visa’s ongoing efforts to increase transparency and control in the subscription economy, building on initiatives such as its 2020 mandate that requires merchants to obtain cardholder consent after free trials or introductory promotions before initiating billing.

Subscription Manager is currently available in Nigeria. For more information on this, as well as Visa’s issuing solutions and other value-added services for businesses, please visit the Visa Developer Center.

• Rapidly increasing social media penetration in Nigeria is prompting SMEs to establish an online footprint, with social media increasingly the de facto online storefront to compete and drive sales
• E-wallets are making significant in-roads, catalyzing SME digitization and enabling businesses to receive digital payments and increase operational efficiency
• A significant portion of SMEs in Nigeria do not have formal SME bank accounts due to high fees and account minimums posing valiant obstacles

A new study from Visa, the SME Megatrends report, delves into the ever-evolving financial landscape for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Nigeria.

The report identifies significant opportunities for growth and innovation, particularly in the digital and financial domains, with clear insights that can be leveraged by issuing banks to unlock new revenue opportunities and gain a competitive edge.

Businesses in Nigeria are in the midst of significant transformation, as high internet and social media penetration incentivize SMEs to build an online presence and growing e-wallet use spur digitalization.

This is creating a latent demand for SMEs to develop online presence and ecommerce capabilities to reach new customers, with a need for robust and simplified tools to enable access.

However, SMEs remain underfunded and underbanked, requiring access to formalized credit to expand businesses and meet day-to-day cashflow constraints.

Rapid digital acceleration in Sub-Saharan Africa’s SME sector presents a wealth of new revenue opportunities for issuing banks who, by facilitating access to essential financial products and services, can tap into this potential, leading to an expanded customer base, increased transaction volumes, and heightened revenue prospects within the digital payments landscape.

Andrew Uaboi, vice president, and Head of Visa West Africa, remarked,

“At Visa, we are dedicated to empowering issuing banks to tap into the vast potential of SME financing, focusing on bridging the critical funding gaps that impede SME growth – an approach that involves transforming challenges into tangible opportunities. We are confident that the insights provided by the SME Megatrends report will empower banks to enhance their services. Through strategic partnerships with these banks, we aim to offer the essential resources required to develop tailored financial solutions that meet the specific needs of SMEs.”

The Visa SME Megatrends report serves as an indispensable tool for issuers to better understand SME needs while identifying actionable strategies to customize their offerings for this market segment.

Crucially, the report reaffirms Visa’s unwavering commitment to expanding SMEs’ access to the digital economy, fostering a resilient and mutually beneficial business environment for all stakeholders.

Spotlight on Nigeria’s SME landscape

Here are seven key insights from the Nigeria SME Megatrends report:

1. Greater Desire for Formalized Financial Services: SMEs in Nigeria remain heavily underserved and underbanked. With SME card penetration at a nominal level, businesses seek improved access to accessible, affordable formal financial services.
2. Need For Easier Access to Credit to Facilitate & Optimize Cash Flow: A considerable amount of SMEs rely on personal loans and informal credit, as they face obstacles and requirements that make it difficult to secure loans from banks and other formalized lending institutions.
3. Integration with Social Media Platforms & Communication Tools to Drive Sales: Nigeria’s digital advertising landscape is evolving quickly, contributing to the growth of e-commerce and digital payments. Streamlined and user-friendly tools are helping SMEs establish an online footprint to compete and drive sales.
4. E-Wallets are Playing a Growing Role in Digitizing SMEs: E-Wallets are building ecosystems where consumers and businesses interact and are well-positioned to increase digital and payment card acceptance among SMEs.
5. SMEs Need Support To Build an Online Presence: The rapid growth of mobile and internet penetration in Nigeria is creating a latent demand for SMEs to develop online presence and ecommerce capabilities to reach new customers, with a need for robust and simplified tools to enable access.
6. Moving Towards Real-Time Payments: As real-time payments expand, SMEs will come to expect to pay and be paid faster.
7. Investment in SME Digitization Tools is Increasing: Lack of digitization remains a major challenge for SMEs but a growing fintech ecosystem is bringing new, locally oriented digitization tools to market.

Empowering the Ecosystem, Powering Growth

Visa recognizes the pivotal role of SMEs in driving economic growth and is committed to integrating them into the digital economy.

Through its extensive network, innovative business solutions and value-added services, Visa collaborates with issuing banks to facilitate SME access to digital tools and financial services, bolstering the digital transformation of SMEs.

Visa has already digitally enabled nearly 67 million SMBs worldwide, leveraging its extensive expertise and partner network, exceeding our three-year goal of digitally enabling 50 million SMBs globally.

This achievement underscores Visa’s profound expertise and the strength of its partnerships. By pinpointing ways for issuers to provide SMEs with vital financial products and services, Visa seeks to foster economic growth collaboratively.

This effort not only aids SME development but also contributes to a flourishing cycle of prosperity, offering substantial benefits for the economy at large.

[Featured Image Credit]

Read Visa’s Nigeria SMEs Megatrends report here and discover how Visa’s SME products and services can be leveraged by issuers in the country.

Within the Nigerian economic landscape, small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) constitute over 90% of the total business landscape.

As Nigeria embraces digitization, SMBs equipped with the right tools and payment solutions are poised to thrive.

Digital payments are transforming opportunities for SMBs to pay and be paid, making it possible to reach new audiences, easily accept secure payments, track and monitor spending, increase security and safety, improve efficiencies, and grow like never before.

Contactless payments are the catalyst for the next generation of payments, and the gateway for the countless possibilities in the world of connected devices.

They continue to gain traction among consumers, merchants, and banks worldwide. In Australia, for example, nearly 90% of card-present transactions are made through contactless payment means. In London, the transportation system works with the same technology.

This technology could streamline payments in Nigeria, producing significant benefits for the entire ecosystem.

The Central Bank of Nigeria has released guidelines for contactless payments. The guidelines seek to ensure that participants in contactless payments implement appropriate risk management measures, while keeping to best industry standards.

Contactless payment technology is a fast, convenient way to make everyday purchases, especially at supermarkets, fast-food restaurants, gas stations and in public transportation, helping consumers transform their lifestyle by streamlining their payment experience – all in just a few seconds for each transaction. 

Consumers are the biggest winners: contactless technology allows payments to be made simply by bringing the card over the payment terminal via short-range wireless technology.

There is no need to swipe or dip the card, and in many cases, it isn’t necessary to enter a PIN or password. This technology has the same security standards employed by chip cards.

Say goodbye to the long lines at checkout! This technology provides benefits to storeowners, who can use it to ensure quick, streamlined payments at the register and increased operational efficiency by reducing cash usage.

This in turn improves the user payment experience and increases sales. Without this technology, there is no interoperable platform for the growth of mobile payments in Nigeria or the use of increasingly popular new payment devices, including bracelets, watches, and rings.

Consumers want to use those devices wherever they go, in a universal manner, as it is currently done in more than 200 countries around the world when using their cards.

Contactless payments allow you to build new experiences to replace cash usage. Additionally, it offers powerful benefits to issuer banks. Not only does it help penetrate small-ticket transactions and participate in new acceptance categories, but it also accelerates digital migration by driving preference for the banks’ products and developing new payment uses by combining tokens, biometrics, and other available platforms to improve the user experience.

Africa’s digital payments landscape has experienced significant growth over the last decade and South Africa leads the charge of contactless payments adoption on the continent, with more than 50% of all digital transactions being contactless.

The introduction of new technologies such as contactless in Nigeria will further support the CBN’s cashless policy to reduce the reliance on cash transactions.

The opportunity to expand contactless payments is huge, as it brings benefits to all ecosystem participants.

Contactless payments are the catalyst for the next generation of payments, and the gateway for the countless possibilities in the world of connected devices.

They continue to gain traction among consumers, merchants, and banks worldwide. In Australia, for example, nearly 90% of card-present transactions are made through contactless payment means. In London, the transportation system works with the same technology. This technology could streamline payments in Nigeria, producing significant benefits for the entire ecosystem.

The Central Bank of Nigeria recently released guidelines for contactless payments, making this the first-time contactless solutions will be formally enabled in the country. The guidelines seek to ensure that participants in contactless payments implement appropriate risk management measures, while keeping to best industry standards.

Contactless payment technology is a fast, convenient way to make everyday purchases, especially at supermarkets, fast-food restaurants, gas stations and in public transportation, helping consumers transform their lifestyle by streamlining their payment experience – all in just a few seconds for each transaction. 

Consumers are the biggest winners: contactless technology allows payments to be made simply by bringing the card over the payment terminal via short-range wireless technology. There is no need to swipe or dip the card, and in many cases, it isn’t necessary to enter a PIN or password. This technology has the same security standards employed by chip cards.

Say goodbye to the long lines at checkout! This technology provides benefits to storeowners, who can use it to ensure quick, streamlined payments at the register and increased operational efficiency by reducing cash usage. This in turn improves the user payment experience and increases sales. Without this technology, there is no interoperable platform for the growth of mobile payments in Nigeria or the use of increasingly popular new payment devices, including bracelets, watches, and rings. Consumers want to use those devices wherever they go, in a universal manner, as it is currently done in more than 200 countries around the world when using their cards.

Contactless payments allow you to build new experiences to replace cash usage. Additionally, it offers powerful benefits to issuer banks. Not only does it help penetrate small-ticket transactions and participate in new acceptance categories, but it also accelerates digital migration by driving preference for the banks’ products and developing new payment uses by combining tokens, biometrics, and other available platforms to improve the user experience.

Africa’s digital payments landscape has experienced significant growth over the last decade and South Africa leads the charge of contactless payments adoption on the continent, with more than 50% of all digital transactions being contactless.

The introduction of new technologies such as contactless in Nigeria will further support the CBN’s cashless policy to reduce the reliance on cash transactions.

The opportunity to expand contactless payments is huge, as it brings benefits to all ecosystem participants.

Applications are now open in Nigeria for the 2023 edition of the Visa Everywhere Initiative (VEI), a global open innovation competition that sees startups pitch their innovative solutions to solve tomorrow’s payment and commerce challenges. 

In addition to monetary prizes, VEI winners gain access and exposure to Visa’s vast networks of partners in the banking, merchant, VC, and government sectors. The winners also benefit from receiving recognition from one of the world’s most trusted and valuable brands. 

The Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa (CEMEA) finals will be livestreamed on July 27 on TechCrunch – a leading online publisher focused on the tech industry and the startup ecosystem. The startup that wins at the CEMEA Regionals will participate in the global finale, which will be held on September 19 at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco. 

This year, Visa’s VEI CEMEA is set to introduce for the first time an award in the Risk and Security domain – Fintechs Innovating in Risk Excellence, or ‘FIIRE’, Award. Through this Special Edition, Visa in partnership with Emirates NBD are scouting for global Fintech players across fraud management, cybersecurity, and credit risk, among others. Following a joint review by Visa and Emirates NBD representatives, the winning Fintech will receive a $25,000 prize and an opportunity to work with Emirates NBD, a leading bank in the region.

“The Visa Everywhere Initiative is a platform that empowers fintechs and entrepreneurs to showcase the most ground-breaking, impactful solutions in the world of payments and commerce,” said Andrew Uaboi, Vice President, and Head of Visa West Africa.

“Through their technology-driven, innovative solutions, fintechs have the potential to offer broad social benefits to the markets they operate in – particularly when it comes to providing financial services to those who have traditionally been underserved. At Visa, we believe access to the digital economy drives equitable, inclusive growth, and VEI is an important means of supporting the innovators playing a leading role in this space.”

Since its launch in 2015, VEI has helped startups representing more than 100 countries collectively raise more than $16 billion USD in funding, with a network that includes nearly 12,000 startups from across the globe.

Last year, VEI awarded more than $530,000 USD in prize money over the course of the competition, which saw over 4,000 startups participate from five regions. VEI 2022 saw Nigeria’s ThriveAgric take home the VEI Global grand prize of $100,000 USD. ThriveAgric also won the $20,000 USD Visa Direct prize. 

VEI is seeking innovative and ambitious entrepreneurs who are uplifting communities by solving payment and commerce challenges faced by businesses of all sizes and sectors, including:

Eligibility

Enablers of digital services and digital issuers

• Blockchain and cryptocurrency
• Crowdfunding
• Banking-as-a-Service
• BIN sponsors
• Issuer/processors
• Program managers

Digital issuance

• Blockchain and cryptocurrency
• Alternative lending
• Personal financial management
• Money transfer and remittance
• Digital banking (aka neo banks)
• Digital wallets, peer-to-peer (P2P) and transfers
• Employee benefits
• Payables
• Corporate cards (aka expense management)

Value-add for merchants and/or consumers in the finance space

• Data and analytics
• ID, authentication and security
• InsurTech
• Loyalty
• Merchant services and tools
• Process and payment infrastructure
• Retail technology
• Other

Small- and medium-sized business recovery

• Money movement (disbursements, Intra-account, P2P vendor and payments)
• Acceptance (e-commerce and mobile acceptance)
• Risk management (chargebacks, etc.)
• Brand management (Community building, etc.)
• Other

New categories for 2023:

• Sustainable fintechs
• Risk 
• Urban mobility 

This year’s prizes 

• VEI CEMEA Regionals 1^st place: $20,000 
• VEI CEMEA Regionals Audience Favorites: $10,000
• VEI CEMEA Regionals Risk Winner: $25,000

For more information about VEI, please visit the website.  

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As Africa’s largest economy, Nigeria offers substantial growth potential across several sectors. While much of our economic potential has traditionally been based on our status as one of the world’s ten largest exporters of crude oil, the government is keen to diversify by developing other industries.

However, one major hurdle to overcome first, is financial inclusion. By the end of 2020, just 64% of Nigerians were part of the formal financial system – still short of the government’s target of 80%.

The big question remains, how do we bridge this gap? While fintech partnerships are an important route towards improving access to the digital economy, the creation of a favorable ecosystem is also a critical factor, all geared toward establishing optimal conditions for innovation and entrepreneurship.

There is a large body of published literature that offers frameworks outlining the right conditions for innovation, and this is something that Visa strives to enable through its network of global Innovation Centers, offering our partners a space to experiment and build solutions that bring more people and communities into the digital economy.

On digitalization of Nigeria’s economy, the agricultural sector is posed to reap the biggest benefits. In 2021, the sector contributed 25.9% to our real GDP and it employs more than 70% of our population – primarily at a subsistence level.

This is why the government sees the development of agriculture as an important means of employment generation, food security, and poverty reduction.

We saw this in the Agriculture Transformation Agenda 2011-2015, followed by the Agriculture Promotion Policy 2016-2020; two development frameworks that outline specific strategies – doubling the growth rate of the integrated agriculture sector to increase its contribution to the national GDP; reducing food imports to become a net exporter of key agricultural products; and integrating agricultural commodity value chains into the broader supply chains of domestic and foreign industries.

Given the importance of the agricultural sector to Nigeria, ThriveAgric, a start-up focused on digitizing the entire value chain for farmers, is a worthy regional winner of the 2022 Visa Everywhere Initiative (VEI) for the Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East, and Africa (CEMEA) region.

VEI is an innovation program that helps start-ups unlock new opportunities, giving them a global platform to demonstrate their innovation, ideas, and groundbreaking solutions.

Over the seven years since VEI’s launch, nearly 12,000 start-ups have taken part in the initiative, raising a collective $16 billion in funding.

ThriveAgric’s Agricultural Operating System helps map farmer’s lands, onboarding, recording visitations, record valuable harvest data, manage inventory, and monitor the progress of farms in real time. Over the past five years, it has disbursed financing worth more than $70 million to over 240,000 farmers, helping them double their income and triple their output.

Now, as a Visa partner, ThriveAgric will deploy Visa cards to farmers across the continent – speeding up disbursements, offering secured transactions, access to credit scoring, digitized payment flows, among other things.

Visa’s core purpose is to expand access to the digital economy – for both individuals and small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) – because we believe this is the key to driving both inclusive growth and prosperity for everyone, everywhere. ThriveAgric is the perfect partner for driving such growth, bringing individuals and SMBs into the digital economy while supporting the digitalization and development of one of the continent’s most important sectors.

Further development of Nigeria’s healthcare system is also critical for future growth. CarePay, a Nigerian health tech start-up, was selected as another finalist for VEI.

CarePay negotiates, aggregates, and coordinates discounts across hundreds of healthcare merchants to provide healthcare services to both insured and uninsured individuals and households.

During VEI’s CEMEA regional finals, the health tech start-up displayed how its model can drive both customer and brand retention for a range of stakeholders which includes Fintechs, card networks, banks, telcos, and pension funds and those who adopt the CarePay healthcare discount product as loyalty benefits for their customers.

The company’s drive to use digital technology to help consumers access affordable healthcare, when scaled, could result in a significant boom to Nigeria’s economy.

While ThriveAgric and CarePay have digitalized agriculture and healthcare, Lagos-founded Paga aims to boost merchant access to digital payment acceptance – which can help boost financial inclusion.

By March of 2020, when it became a Visa partner, the start-up had created a multi-channel network for more than 14 million customers in Nigeria to transfer money, pay bills, and make digital purchases through its mobile app and 24,840 agents.

Through these mini case studies, we all see why the continued development of ecosystems that foster innovation and entrepreneurship is critical.

Platforms such as VEI will continue to play a role in highlighting the best use cases of digitalization across a range of sectors, helping founders to secure valuable funding to turn their ideas into a reality while providing them access to Visa’s sizeable and global network.

Andrew’s appointment is in line with Visa’s vision to continue to build a solid regional team by matching unique strengths and talents with critical business opportunities.

Speaking on the new appointment, Senior Vice President at Visa and Head of Sub-Saharan Africa, Aida Diarra said, “Andrew’s appointment reflects the importance we place on the West Africa markets and in supporting our clients and partners. The depth of experience that he brings will enable him to make immediate contributions to our strategy and growth within the region and Sub-Saharan Africa.

We look forward to Andrew’s leadership in building on our continued efforts to help accelerate digitizing commerce in West Africa”.

Prior to this new role, Andrew Uaboi held various positions in Visa including Country Manager for Nigeria and more recently as interim lead of the West Africa cluster. In that time, he has driven the continuous growth of the business with key accomplishments.

Andrew Uaboi brings over 18 years of experience across different industries including telecommunications and banking and is ideally placed to accelerate the current momentum of the West Africa business at Visa.  

With this win in the CEMEA region, ThriveAgric will receive a monetary prize and a spot in the Global Finale scheduled to be held in Qatar, in November 2022. 

Carepay, another Nigerian fintech, also made it to the final five and won the Audience Favourite Award.

More than 1,300 applicants entered the Visa Everywhere Initiative 2022 competition from across the region, each with solutions aimed at delivering innovative payment and commerce solutions to consumers and businesses. 

 “We have witnessed substantial growth in the fintech sector in Nigeria. Last year, Nigeria had the most entries from Central Europe, Middle East and Africa, this year two indigenous startups made it to the finals with ThriveAgric emerging as the winner. This is a clear demonstration of the country’s significance in the fintech sector, and the growth potential of the digital economy,” said Andrew Uaboi, Country Manager, Visa Nigeria.

Ayo Arikawe, Co-Founder, ThriveAgric, said, “Agriculture is at the centre of the Nigerian economy, yet the sector faces productivity-limiting challenges like access to finance, poor access to the market, and technical know-how. This is why our goal at ThriveAgric is to provide profitable support for smallholder farmers and enable food production efforts, leveraging technology. So this partnership with Visa is a testament to the work we have put in so far and we look forward to scaling our solutions to more farmers.“

ThriveAgric is a technology-driven agricultural company passionate about food security, that enables strategic partnerships with financial institutions & agriculture value chain players to provide smallholder farmers with capital (in form of agriculture inputs), data-driven best practices, access to local & global markets for their commodities, as well as financial, e-commerce, and payment services.

CarePay is an aggregator of health services, driving accessibility and affordability of healthcare services through insurance and discount plans.