Nomba, a Nigerian fintech, has secured $3 million in debt funding from CardinalStone Finance Company to expand its cross-border payments infrastructure in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
What happened? The money will give Nomba more US dollar liquidity through its banking relationships in Hong Kong and Singapore, helping businesses collect payments, settle transactions, and pay suppliers in Asia. The facility is intended to strengthen Africa–Asia trade payments. The debt capital was attractive for Nomba as it seeks to strengthen working capital without giving up equity in its business.
Catch up: Nomba entered the DRC in 2025 through remittances and physical agents handling money from high-volume corridors such as China and Dubai. It is now using the country as a base for a wider Central and East African expansion, including a DRC-to-Zambia pilot and planned payment links with Uganda, Kenya, and Angola.
State of play: Nomba sees an opportunity in real economy trade. China–DRC trade reached $26.7 billion in 2025, with China importing $21.6 billion from the DRC and exporting $5.1 billion to it. Every shipment becomes a Nomba transaction, but the size of the trade relationship shows why reliable settlement infrastructure is valuable.
Explain like I’m new here: Nomba began as Kudi.AI before moving into agency banking and business payments. It now provides merchants with payment terminals, banking tools, and software. By 2023, Nomba said it was a profitable omnichannel provider serving more than 300,000 businesses and processing about $1 billion in monthly transactions
The DRC expansion is its latest move into the infrastructure behind business transactions, helping merchants collect locally and settle payments with suppliers abroad.
Zoom out: Nomba’s raise adds to an emerging trend where growth-stage fintechs are increasingly prioritising debt. In May, Tanzanian remittance fintech NALA raised $50 million in debt funding to expand globally and deepen its stablecoin payments infrastructure. In January, Egyptian consumer credit fintech valU raised $63.6 million from the National Bank of Egypt (NBE) to grow its lending book.
The common thread is that fintechs are using debt for specific growth needs—whether that’s funding loans, expanding payment infrastructure, or entering new markets—rather than relying entirely on equity. If more fintechs continue to do this, it could signal that borrowing costs are becoming attractive.
