Nomba secures $3M debt facility to route Africa–Asia trade through the DRC
What's the deal? Nomba has raised a $3 million debt facility from CardinalStone Finance Company Limited to expand its cross-border payments infrastructure out of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The line adds US dollar liquidity through Nomba's banking relationships in Hong Kong and Singapore.
Why now? Nomba went live in the DRC in November 2025 after roughly a year building agent networks in Kinshasa, then secured regulatory approval for international money transfers there. It calls that licence a control point for business payments across both Francophone and Anglophone Africa.
What's the endgame? The plan is to make the DRC a settlement base for trade between Central Africa and Asia — a corridor long strained by currency access and slow settlement. Nomba now aims to use the country as a bridge into Central and East Africa, with Zambia and Uganda next.
Where's it expanding? In February, Nomba acquired a Canadian payments company and committed up to $2 million to build rails letting African businesses hold local Canadian dollar accounts and settle into naira and other currencies. Chief executive officer Yinka Adewale said at the time that Africa to Canada was live, with the rest of the world next.
By the numbers: Nomba says it processes more than $480 million a month in cross-border payments across its DRC and Canadian operations — roughly $5.8 billion annualised. The $3 million facility sits at well under 1% of a single month's flow, making it a working capital line rather than a growth round.
What's next? Nomba is preparing a further raise of $20 million to $50 million in the coming months and is targeting more than $1 billion in monthly volume, which would require roughly doubling current throughput. It says it is profitable across the group, including its Nigeria and DRC operations.
What they said: Adewale said African businesses are trading more with the rest of the world each year while the supporting infrastructure is "still catching up." Ayoola Adeola, managing director of CardinalStone Finance, said the deal reflects confidence in "the growth opportunity in cross-border payments."
The signal: Founded in 2016 as Kudi and rebranded in 2022, Nomba raised a $30 million pre-Series B round in May 2023. The pivot from Nigerian agency banking to intercontinental settlement rails shows how African fintechs are moving up the stack — from local payments into the plumbing of global trade.
Read more: techwithmuchiri.com
Image credit: Irene2005
