The prestigious ceremony, held in Lagos on May 30, 2026, brought together top stakeholders, innovators, policymakers, and business leaders from across Africa’s technology ecosystem to celebrate excellence, innovation, and impactful contributions to the growth of the ICT industry.

Sunny, who currently serves as regional manager, MENA & Africa (EMEA) at Bitget, was recognized for his outstanding contributions to fintech innovation, blockchain adoption, digital payments, mobility technology, and smart infrastructure development across emerging markets.

Over the years, Sunny has built a reputation for driving large-scale market expansion, product innovation, and ecosystem growth across Africa and the Middle East.

His leadership at Bitget has accelerated P2P ecosystem development, merchant operations, payment optimization, and strategic partnerships across multiple countries, contributing significantly to increased digital financial inclusion and technology adoption.

Prior to joining Bitget, Sunny spent over three and a half years at Binance, where he played a pivotal role in operations and growth across more than 40 African markets. One of his landmark achievements was leading the rollout of the innovative Pay-in-Chat functionality in Africa, enabling users to seamlessly interact and initiate digital transactions through integrated chat experiences.

Earlier in his career at Bolt, Sunny led mobility market expansion across eight Nigerian cities, contributing to more than 10x business growth through strategic execution, operational scaling, and product adoption initiatives.

Beyond fintech and mobility, Sunny is also actively driving smart infrastructure innovation through Arkcess Technology Limited, a technology company focused on transforming estate living through digital access control, smart community management, and connected residential infrastructure.

While presenting the award, Mr. Ken Nwogbo, Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Communications Week Media, praised Sunny’s visionary leadership, innovation-driven mindset, and his consistent commitment to building technology solutions that address real-world challenges across Africa and emerging markets.

He described Sunny as “a forward-thinking innovator whose work continues to shape the future of digital finance, smart infrastructure, and technology-driven growth on the continent.”

In his acceptance speech, Sunny expressed appreciation to the organizers, industry stakeholders, his teams, and partners who have supported his journey over the years.

“This recognition represents the power of innovation, collaboration, and the limitless potential of technology to transform lives and economies. I remain committed to building solutions that create access, drive inclusion, and shape the future of digital transformation across Africa and beyond,” he said.

The Africa Beacon of ICT Awards, organized annually by Communications Week Media, remains one of the continent’s most respected platforms for recognizing excellence and innovation within the ICT ecosystem.

Sunny Joseph Imohimi’s recognition as ICT Innovator of the Year further reinforces his position as one of Africa’s leading voices in technology innovation, digital transformation, and ecosystem development. His achievements continue to inspire a new generation of innovators committed to building scalable solutions that drive economic growth and technological advancement across the continent.

The post Sunny Joseph Imohimi Wins ABoICT 2026 ICT Innovator of the Year Award appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

For millions of Nigerians who earn income globally as freelancers, remote workers, merchants, and creators, access to reliable cross border payment infrastructure has long been inconsistent. Restrictions, delays, and currency limitations have forced many to seek alternatives.

In that gap, crypto-based peer-to-peer systems quietly emerged as an alternative financial rail.

Long before global payment giants began recalibrating their approach to Nigeria, operators like Sunny Joseph Imohimi were helping build the infrastructure that allowed Africans to move value across borders with fewer constraints.

His work at Binance and now Bitget focused on one of the most critical layers of digital finance, connecting global digital assets with local payment systems and ensuring liquidity, trust, and operational reliability.

These systems now form part of the broader financial architecture reshaping how Africans transact globally.

Building access when traditional rails were constrained

At the height of crypto adoption across Africa, peer-to-peer platforms became essential tools for freelancers receiving international payments, businesses paying global suppliers, and individuals protecting savings from currency volatility.

But behind every successful transaction was an operational framework.

As Growth and Operations Manager for Binance P2P across Africa, Imohimi worked on expanding access by integrating local payment partners, improving dispute resolution systems, and scaling merchant liquidity.

His efforts contributed to measurable increases in active users and trading volume while reducing fraud exposure and transaction friction.

More importantly, these improvements helped make crypto usable for ordinary people, not just early adopters.

He later led automation and payment integration initiatives, onboarding aggregators and ensuring compliance across multiple African markets. This work strengthened the bridge between traditional financial systems and digital asset platforms.

It also demonstrated something larger. Africans were not waiting for global platforms to fully accommodate them. They were building parallel financial pathways.

The convergence of fintech and crypto infrastructure

PayPal’s renewed expansion into Nigeria signals an important shift. Global financial platforms increasingly recognize both the demand and the opportunity within African markets.

However, the financial landscape has already evolved.

Crypto platforms have spent years building localized liquidity networks, integrating payment channels, and enabling faster peer to peer transfers. These systems introduced a generation of users to borderless finance.

Imohimi was directly involved in launching features designed to simplify transactions, including chat based crypto transfers that allow users to send digital assets as easily as sending a message. One of its kind in Africa.

This reflects a broader trend. Payments are becoming more integrated into digital experiences, faster, more conversational, and less dependent on traditional intermediaries.

The distinction between fintech and crypto infrastructure is beginning to blur.

Liquidity, trust, and the invisible layer of digital finance

Today, as Regional P2P Manager at Bitget overseeing markets across Africa, the Middle East, Imohimi focuses on building merchant ecosystems and ensuring strong liquidity across fiat markets.

Liquidity is often invisible to users, but it determines whether a payment can happen instantly or not at all.

Strong liquidity networks ensure stable pricing, faster execution, and reliable access to funds.

His work involves recruiting and supporting high volume merchants, monitoring market integrity, and enabling expansion into new fiat markets. These functions form the backbone of functional digital marketplaces. Without them, platforms cannot scale.

Nigeria at the center of a global shift

Nigeria’s position as one of the world’s most active crypto markets reflects deeper structural realities. A young digital population, global talent participation, and strong entrepreneurial activity have accelerated adoption of alternative financial systems.

PayPal’s expansion into Nigeria may strengthen traditional rails, but it also validates the scale of demand that crypto platforms have been serving for years.

Rather than replacing crypto infrastructure, traditional fintech and crypto platforms are increasingly likely to coexist, each solving different aspects of the global payments challenge.

Operators with experience across both ecosystems will play an important role in shaping that future.

The builders behind the platforms

Africa’s digital finance story is often framed around platforms and policies. Less attention is given to the operators building the systems that allow those platforms to function.

Imohimi’s career reflects a new category of African technology leadership, professionals focused not just on launching products, but on scaling infrastructure across complex and fragmented markets.

From integrating payment gateways to scaling peer to peer liquidity networks, his work has contributed to expanding financial access for users across multiple regions.

As global platforms like PayPal deepen their engagement with Nigeria, the infrastructure built by crypto operators over the past several years will remain an essential part of the ecosystem.

Because in many ways, Africa’s digital financial rails were already being built.

The world is only now catching up.

With several years of hands-on experience in the ecosystem, Sunny describes himself as “one of Africa’s best in the crypto and blockchain space, a position earned through constant hard work, discipline, and real operational experience.”

His journey reflects the emergence of a new generation of African builders quietly shaping the continent’s digital financial infrastructure.

The post PayPal’s Return Signals a Shift; Operators Like Sunny Joseph Imohimi Have Been Building the Rails All Along appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

The future of Africa’s financial system is increasingly being shaped at the intersection of cryptocurrency, blockchain, foreign exchange, digital payments, fintech innovation, and evolving regulation.

As digital asset adoption continues to accelerate across the continent, the conversation has shifted beyond whether these technologies will matter. The more pressing question is how they can be deployed responsibly, inclusively, and at scale.

That conversation took centre stage at IFINEXPO Lagos 2023, the International Finance Industry Expo held at the OrientalHotel, Lagos, on November 10 and 11, 2023.

The two-day gathering brought together leaders from the cryptocurrency, blockchain, forex, payments, and fintech sectors to exchange ideas, build partnerships, and examine the trends shaping the future of innovative finance across Africa.

The Lagos edition marked an important milestone in IFINEXPO’s expansion into sub-Saharan Africa, reflecting Nigeria’s growing influence as one of the continent’s most dynamic markets for digital finance, blockchain innovation, cryptocurrency adoption, forex participation, and fintech entrepreneurship.

Held under the theme “Building a Platform for Knowledge Sharing and Resource Docking,“ the conference created a platform for global industry players and African innovators to explore opportunities and challenges across cryptocurrency regulation, blockchain infrastructure, decentralised finance (DeFi), Web3, NFTs, digital payments, forex trading, financial inclusion, and emerging technologies driving Africa’s economic transformation.

Among the industry voices at the event was Sunny Joseph Imohimi, who at the time served as Growth and Operations Manager at Binance Africa.

Through his work across peer-to-peer markets, blockchain adoption, digital payments, and crypto ecosystem growth, Sunny had become one of the emerging operators helping bridge global blockchain innovation with the realities of African markets.

His participation was especially timely.

By early 2023, conversations around cryptocurrency in Nigeria and across Africa had evolved considerably. The focus was no longer limited to adoption or market growth. Increasingly, discussions centred on regulation, consumer protection, financial inclusion, responsible innovation, and the role digital assets could play within the broader financial system.

For professionals working inside global crypto platforms, these were no longer purely commercial conversations.

They had become equally important discussions about policy, trust, compliance, and ecosystem development.

At IFINEXPO Lagos, Sunny contributed to conversations surrounding the road to cryptocurrency legalisation, the future of digital asset adoption, and the growing convergence between crypto, forex, and fintech.

Drawing on his experience at Binance Africa, he shared practical perspectives on how digital asset platforms were engaging with local users, merchants, payment systems, and emerging regulatory realities.

His insights reflected the operational side of Africa’s digital finance ecosystem.

While public attention often gravitates toward market prices, speculation, and investment trends, building a sustainable digital finance ecosystem requires far more. It depends on trust, user education, payment reliability, liquidity, compliance awareness, fraud prevention, consumer protection, and strong local execution.

These were areas where Sunny’s experience had become increasingly relevant.

At Binance, he supported growth and operations across multiple African markets, where peer-to-peer trading had become a vital bridge between local currencies and the global digital asset economy. P2P trading enabled users to access cryptocurrency using familiar local payment methods, but scaling those marketplaces required much more than demand. It required merchant education, operational discipline, payment optimisation, fraud awareness, market localisation, and sustained user confidence.

That practical experience shaped his contribution at IFINEXPO.

Reflecting on the event afterwards, Sunny described it as an important gathering for young professionals and operators working across Africa’s rapidly evolving financial technology ecosystem.

“I had a full weekend where I joined other young industry professionals at the IFINEXPO 2023 event. We deep-dived into several topics, among which was the road to the legalisation of cryptocurrencies. It was an interesting event with a lot of questions asked about the future of cryptocurrency and what it holds,” he said.

During the conference, he also participated in a dedicated interview session, where he shared his perspectives on both the cryptocurrency and foreign exchange sectors, two industries attracting increasing interest among young Nigerians and Africans.

“I also joined a special interview session at the event to share my insights on some pressing topics about the crypto space and forex space, which are gaining more attention from young people and growing rapidly in Nigeria and Africa.”

Those conversations remain highly relevant today.

Africa’s financial ecosystem now extends well beyond traditional banking and mobile money. It increasingly encompasses digital wallets, cross-border payments, cryptocurrencies, stablecoins, decentralised finance, embedded financial services, forex platforms, and blockchain-powered payment infrastructure.

For millions of young Africans, these innovations are opening new pathways into entrepreneurship, global commerce, investment opportunities, and broader financial participation.

Yet rapid growth also brings greater responsibility.

As adoption accelerates, the need for regulatory clarity, stronger consumer education, responsible trading practices, payment security, and trusted financial platforms becomes increasingly important.

That is why industry forums such as IFINEXPO continue to play an important role.

They create space for operators, innovators, regulators, investors, and ecosystem stakeholders to move beyond market hype and engage in meaningful discussions about the frameworks needed to support sustainable long-term growth.

One of Sunny’s key takeaways from the conference was the opportunity to learn from other professionals helping shape Africa’s financial future.

“I learned a lot from listening to like-minded professionals at the event. Their various insights were truly amazing, showing what the future holds and how much is happening every day to make that future a reality.”

His reflections point to a broader truth about Africa’s digital transformation.

The future of digital finance will not be built by technology companies alone. It will require collaboration among regulators, payment providers, fintech founders, investors, blockchain developers, educators, policymakers, and market operators who understand both the opportunities and responsibilities that accompany innovation.

Throughout the two-day summit, participants engaged in panel discussions, interviews, exhibitions, and networking sessions exploring practical issues such as cryptocurrency regulation, blockchain infrastructure, responsible trading, payment innovation, forex market development, and cross-border financial services.

For Nigeria, successfully hosting IFINEXPO Lagos reinforced the country’s position as one of Africa’s leading digital finance hubs. Lagos continues to attract global and local innovators seeking to shape the future of fintech, blockchain, digital payments, crypto adoption, and youth-driven financial innovation.

For professionals like Sunny Joseph Imohimi, platforms such as IFINEXPO represent far more than industry conferences.

They provide opportunities to contribute to public discourse, share practical operational experience, and help shape more informed conversations around the future of financial technology across the continent.

His participation at IFINEXPO Lagos 2023 reflected his growing role within Africa’s digital finance ecosystem, not only as an operator supporting market growth, but also as an industry voice contributing to discussions around cryptocurrency regulation, blockchain adoption, forex participation, and inclusive financial innovation.

As Africa’s digital economy continues to mature, conversations like these will become increasingly important.

The continent’s next chapter of financial innovation will depend not only on adoption, but also on trust, regulatory clarity, consumer education, responsible product development, and sustained collaboration across the ecosystem.

IFINEXPO Lagos 2023 provided one such platform.

For Sunny Joseph Imohimi, it represented another opportunity to contribute to Africa’s digital finance future, not only by helping build the ecosystem, but also by helping shape the conversations guiding its evolution.

The post IFINEXPO Lagos: Sunny Joseph Imohimi Joins Global Finance Leaders Discussing Crypto Regulation appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

Yet beneath those impressive numbers lies another story, one about the people and systems working to make digital asset transactions faster, safer, and more trusted for everyday users.

For millions of Africans, peer-to-peer (P2P) trading has become the bridge between local currencies and the global digital economy.

It enables users to buy and sell digital assets using familiar payment methods such as bank transfers and mobile money. But as P2P trading expanded across the continent, one challenge became increasingly difficult to ignore: payment confirmation remained largely manual.

A typical P2P transaction required a buyer to complete a fiat payment, return to the exchange, and manually mark the order as paid.

The merchant would then independently verify the payment before releasing the crypto asset. In high-volume markets, this process created delays, increased operational pressure, and exposed merchants to false payment claims, third-party payment risks, and avoidable disputes.

This was more than a user experience challenge. It was a question of trust.

Addressing that challenge required more than introducing another product feature. It demanded a deep understanding of African payment behaviour, merchant operations, fraud patterns, and the realities of scaling digital finance across fragmented payment ecosystems.

That is where Sunny Joseph Imohimi‘s work became particularly significant.

During his time at Binance, Sunny served as Regional Growth Manager for Africa, operating at the intersection of product execution, P2P market growth, merchant operations, payment optimisation, and regional strategy.

His responsibilities spanned more than forty African markets, where Binance P2P had become one of the primary gateways connecting local fiat currencies with the global digital asset economy.

One of the clearest examples of that work was his contribution to the African rollout and market execution of Binance P2P’s automated payment feature, known across the ecosystem as Instant Pay.

The feature was designed to address one of the most persistent weaknesses in P2P trading: the gap between a buyer claiming payment had been made and a merchant confirming that genuine fiat payment had actually been received.

By automating payment verification through supported payment channels and enabling the release of escrowed crypto once payment was confirmed, Instant Pay shifted P2P trading away from manual confirmation and toward automated payment trust.

For African P2P markets, this represented a significant evolution.

Instead of relying entirely on buyers to manually mark orders as paid and merchants to verify every payment before releasing assets, the automated payment flow enabled the platform to confirm when the correct fiat payment had been received. Once payment was verified, the crypto asset held in escrow could be released automatically.

The result was a faster, safer, and more efficient trading experience.

Users benefited from quicker and more seamless transactions. Merchants spent less time manually verifying payments and gained greater confidence before releasing assets. Across the marketplace, automated payment confirmation helped reduce false payment claims, partial payments, duplicate payments, third-party payment risks, and avoidable disputes, strengthening trust throughout the trading process.

Sunny’s contribution extended well beyond supporting a product announcement. According to accounts of the rollout, he contributed across the execution chain by providing market insights, advising on local payment partner integration, supporting technical and operational coordination, shaping go-to-market communication, preparing internal product messaging, guiding merchant education, and helping ensure the launch reflected the realities of African P2P users and merchants.

This blend of product understanding and market execution is often what separates a successful product launch from meaningful product impact.

Africa is far from a uniform payment market. Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, Francophone Africa, and other regions each have distinct banking systems, payment behaviours, liquidity dynamics, regulatory environments, and fraud risks.

A global product succeeds in such markets only when it is thoughtfully localised, clearly communicated, and adopted by the right merchants and users.

Sunny recognised that the feature needed to be positioned as more than a convenience. It had to be understood as infrastructure for trust.

That distinction mattered. Users did not simply need faster trades; they needed confidence that the payment process was secure. Merchants needed certainty that payments had genuinely been received before crypto assets were released.

The platform itself required an operating model capable of supporting greater scale without increasing dispute risk.

Viewed through that lens, Instant Pay became more than a backend improvement. It represented part of a broader shift in African P2P trading, from manual payment confirmation to automated payment trust.

The early rollout across priority African markets, including Nigeria, Kenya, and Ghana, demonstrated the potential of that shift. It supported high volumes of automated transactions and showed that payment automation could succeed in markets where trust, speed, and local payment behaviour are critical to adoption.

For users, the value was immediate: transactions became faster and more reliable. For merchants, the gains were operational: fewer manual checks, reduced delays, and greater confidence before asset release.

For the broader ecosystem, the impact was structural. Automated payment confirmation made P2P trading more scalable, more secure, and better aligned with the expectations of modern digital finance.

This is why Sunny’s contribution is noteworthy within Africa’s fintech evolution.

At a time when cryptocurrency adoption across the continent was accelerating, he helped operationalise one of the most practical improvements to the P2P trading experience. His work connected global product capability with local market realities, helping transform a worldwide product feature into a solution tailored for African payment ecosystems.

This type of execution is rarely visible from the outside, yet it is often what determines whether digital products succeed in emerging markets.

Technology companies can build products globally, but local adoption depends on operators who understand their markets deeply enough to translate innovation into everyday usage. They must understand merchant needs, user concerns, fraud patterns, payment infrastructure, and how to introduce new product behaviour in ways that inspire confidence.

Sunny’s work on Binance Instant Pay fits squarely within that category.

It reflects a practical approach to innovation, not simply creating technology, but ensuring that technology works effectively for real users under real operating conditions.

Before joining Binance, Sunny contributed to Bolt’s expansion across multiple Nigerian cities, helping scale mobility infrastructure in one of Africa’s most commercially dynamic markets.

Beyond crypto and fintech, he also founded Arkcess Technology Limited, a smart access control and residential infrastructure company focused on simplifying estate and community management through technology.

Despite spanning mobility, fintech, blockchain, and property technology, a consistent philosophy runs through his work: technology should remove friction from everyday life rather than add complexity.

That philosophy is particularly relevant in African digital finance, where innovation is measured not only by technical sophistication but by practical impact. Does it reduce delays? Does it strengthen trust? Does it make users safer? Does it help merchants operate more efficiently? Does it make financial participation easier for more people?

In the case of Binance Instant Pay, those questions found compelling answers.

Automated payment confirmation helped transform one of the most critical transaction flows in African P2P crypto trading. It demonstrated how payment automation could reduce friction, strengthen trust, and improve user experience at scale.

More broadly, it reinforced an important truth about Africa’s digital economy: the continent does not simply need access to global technology. It needs technology that is thoughtfully localised, trusted by users, and executed around African realities.

Sunny Joseph Imohimi’s contribution to the rollout places him among the African fintech operators helping shape the future of digital payments across emerging markets.

His work illustrates that the future of blockchain in Africa will be defined not by speculation alone, but by practical utility, trusted payment infrastructure, and products that make digital value transfer simpler, safer, and more reliable for everyday users.

Across Africa, many of the most meaningful technological breakthroughs are not the ones that attract the loudest headlines.

They are the systems quietly improving how people transact, build trust, and participate in the digital economy every day.

That is the story behind automated P2P payments in Africa. And it is one that Sunny Joseph Imohimi helped bring to life.

The post Automating Trust: The African Fintech Operator Behind Binance’s Automated P2P Payments Rollout appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.