Nomba has secured a $3 million debt facility from CardinalStone Finance Company Limited, a Nigerian investment bank. The term loan, priced at market rates, will be used to expand Nomba’s cross‑border payments platform targeting the Africa‑Asia trade corridor, with initial routes from Nigeria and Cameroon to China, India, and Southeast Asia.

The proceeds will fund API integrations with local banks and mobile money operators in Chad, the DRC, Gabon, and the Republic of Congo, as well as develop settlement rails that allow Asian merchants to pay in local currencies. Nomba says it already processes over $1 billion in transaction volume domestically and sees the new corridor as a way to capture a slice of the estimated $12 billion annual trade flow between Central Africa and Asia.

For African SMEs importing goods from Asia, the current correspondent banking model adds 7‑10% in fees and takes 3‑5 days to settle. Nomba’s aim to cut fees below 2% and enable same‑day settlement via lightweight blockchain‑inspired rails could unlock significant value and encourage more formal trade. By lowering friction, the fintech could help shift informal remittances into tracked, taxable flows.

Choosing debt over equity shows confidence in Nomba’s cash‑flow generation and reduces founder dilution, while also highlighting a nascent African debt market that can fund fintech growth without relying on foreign venture capital. The move puts pressure on incumbent banks and mobile money giants to improve their cross‑border offerings or risk losing market share to agile, locally backed players.

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