Last year, the streets of Lagos were painted yellow. Nomba, the Nigerian fintech once known primarily for its ubiquitous point-of-sale (PoS) terminals, deployed an army of campaigners to distribute flyers, fighting for turf in a market already dominated by giants like Opay and Moniepoint.
But while the battle for the Nigerian street remains fierce, Nomba’s leadership has spent the last year looking across the Atlantic.
Nomba has confirmed the acquisition of a licensed Canadian payment service provider and money services business (MSB). The deal, completed in Q2 2025, marks a pivotal shift for the company: it is no longer just a local payment processor, but a cross-border infrastructure provider.
By investing $2 million into the acquired entity, Nomba is building a direct pipeline between the Canadian Dollar (CAD) and African currencies — a move that allows the startup, and its clients, to bypass the erratic fluctuations of the Nigerian Naira.
Owning the Rails
The acquisition allows Nomba to offer local CAD accounts to African businesses, providing near-real-time settlement and reducing reliance on the slow, expensive network of global intermediary banks. According to Nomba, this infrastructure can lower transaction costs by 40–60%.
While most fintechs chase the consumer remittance market (sending money home to family), Nomba is strictly targeting B2B trade.
“Cross-border trade payments for African businesses are still built on infrastructure that was never designed for speed or transparency,” Yinka Adewale, CEO of Nomba, said. “Owning regulated infrastructure allows us to remove layers of complexity and give businesses predictable, reliable rails.”
The strategy is already yielding results. In January 2026, Nomba processed over $3 million through its Canada-Africa corridor, serving clients like Nigerian oil and gas firms that need to bill Canadian partners and receive funds the same day for payroll and operations.
The “License Rush”: A Nigerian Phenomenon
Nomba is not alone. Its expansion is part of a broader, aggressive trend where Nigerian fintechs are buying their way into regulatory favor. Between 2025 and early 2026, Nigerian startups accounted for 40% of all tech M&A activity in Africa, despite the country representing only 17% of the continent’s GDP.
| Tech Firm | Target Jurisdiction | Strategic Value |
|---|---|---|
| Nomba | Confidential MSB | Canada CAD-to-Naira B2B settlement |
| Moniepoint | Bancom | UK diaspora banking & FCA coverage |
| Flutterwave | Mono | Nigeria open banking & data integration |
Fleeing the Naira
The underlying driver for this international M&A surge is the fragility of the local environment. By acquiring assets in the UK, Canada, and soon the UAE and Singapore, Nigerian fintechs are effectively “de-risking” their balance sheets.
Operating in CAD or GBP provides a stability that the Naira cannot offer. It also allows these firms to serve the Nigerian diaspora — an estimated 15 million people who represent a high-income, stable market that traditional Western banks often overlook due to a lack of local credit history.
Nomba’s next stops are the UAE and Singapore. If successful, it will have built a trade corridor that spans from Kinshasa to the Asian markets, ensuring that while its campaigners may still wear yellow on the streets of Lagos, its capital is safely moving through the world’s most stable financial hubs.