African fintech NALA turns to debt financing as stablecoin payment volumes surge. Reading Time: 3 mins read NALA has secured an initial $25 million credit facility from Liquidity, with room to expand the arrangement to at least $50 million, as the Tanzanian fintech seeks additional working capital to pre-fund customer balances and keep pace with demand that has at times outpaced its balance sheet. The deal was arranged through Mars Growth Capital, the joint venture backed by Liquidity and MUFG Bank, Japan's largest lender. For NALA, the structure matters because it provides the company with access to debt capital for operations without forcing it to return to the market for another equity round. The company said it still holds more than half of the $40 million it raised in mid-2024, so this facility helps it fund growth without putting immediate pressure on shareholder ownership. What makes this raise notable is the direction NALA has taken since its early days as a remittance app founded in Tanzania. It has grown into a stablecoin payments infrastructure company serving businesses and consumers across the US, Europe, and emerging markets. That shift also mirrors a wider move in the payments market, where stablecoin usage, especially in B2B transfers, has expanded sharply in the last 18 months, with monthly volumes crossing $30 billion by early 2026, according to figures cited from Artemis Analytics and McKinsey. Benjamin Fernandes, NALA's founder and chief executive, framed the facility as a relief valve for a business that was growing too fast for its funding structure. He said the company had at one point been doubling every other quarter and outpaced its ability to pre-fund payments in both directions across corridors. In his telling, Liquidity moved quickly and built a tailored capital solution that gives NALA the cash it needs to support customer accounts and move into its next stage of growth. The numbers behind that growth are hard to ignore. NALA's infrastructure payments business, which runs under the Rafiki brand, went from zero to $1 billion in transaction volume in 18 months, based on company disclosures earlier this year. The company says its business grew 5x in the past year and revenue rose 10x, driven by demand for compliant stablecoin on- and off-ramps in markets where correspondent banking remains slow, costly, and often unreliable. Rafiki, which launched in March 2024, now supports NALA's consumer app and a growing list of enterprise clients including MoneyGram, TransferGo, and Cadana. It connects to 249 banks and 26 mobile money services across 16 countries, giving global businesses a single API for moving money into and out of emerging markets. NALA's choice to raise debt rather than another equity round feels deliberate. Its 2024 Series A, a $40 million round led by Acrew Capital with participation from DST Global, Norrsken22, HOF Capital, and angel investors including Ryan King and Vlad Tenev, was already one of the larger Africa-focused fintech fundraises of that period. With more than half of that capital still available, the company is in a rare position: well funded on equity, yet still constrained by the cash demands of transaction settlement. That is where credit becomes a better fit than dilution. This kind of financing usually shows up when a fintech has crossed from story to infrastructure. Equity helps you build the machine, while debt helps you keep the machine fed once volumes start rising faster than settlement cycles. For a company like NALA, the test is whether the enterprise pipeline turns into a sustained flow at the scale this facility assumes. Liquidity seems to think it will, and NALA is betting that corridor growth will justify the structure.

NALA, a Tanzania-founded payments infrastructure company, has secured an initial $25 million credit facility from Liquidity, with an option to scale to at least $50 million. The facility was arranged through Mars Growth Capital, the joint venture between Liquidity and MUFG Bank. The financing will provide working capital for NALA's stablecoin-powered payments infrastructure, enabling the company to pre-fund customer accounts as transaction volumes outpace its balance sheet. NALA's B2B platform Rafiki grew from zero to $1 billion in transaction volume within 18 months, with the company growing 5x over the past year. NALA still holds more than half of the $40 million equity round raised in 2024, allowing it to deploy debt strategically without diluting shareholders. The company now holds over ten licences globally and connects to 249 banks across 16 countries.

NALA secures $50M credit line for stablecoin-powered africa-asia expansion. The New York-headquartered fintech, founded by Tanzanian Benjamin Fernandes, opts for non-dilutive debt to scale its stablecoin payment network across emerging markets, a strategic shift from its prior equity raises. AU-Startups · Brick New York-headquartered global stablecoin payments company NALA, founded by Tanzanian Benjamin Fernandes, has secured a credit facility of up to $50 million from Liquidity through Mars Growth Capital. The financing, structured as a non-dilutive credit line, marks a deliberate move away from equity raises, allowing NALA to fund its operational liquidity needs for expanding stablecoin payment corridors across Africa and Asia without further shareholder dilution. The initial commitment is $25 million, with the potential to scale to $50 million or more, tied to the company's transaction volumes. This credit facility follows a $40 million Series A equity round in July 2024, led by Acrew Capital, with participation from DST Global, Norrsken22, HOF Capital, and Amplo. NALA stated that it retains over half of the capital from that previous round, making non-dilutive working capital a logical next step to support its rapid growth. The company's transaction volume increased 34x in the 20 months leading up to its Series A, and revenue grew tenfold in the 12 months prior to that round. This growth necessitated a different funding approach to pre-fund transfers and support larger enterprise clients using its infrastructure for collections and payouts. The shift to debt financing. The decision to pursue debt financing underscores a maturity in NALA's capital strategy. For fintechs processing high payment volumes, credit facilities offer a mechanism to finance liquidity-intensive operations without diluting equity. This is particularly relevant as the company expands its B2B payments platform, Rafiki, which aims to build payment rails for a billion users, mirroring the infrastructure plays of companies like dLocal in Latin America and Airwallex in Asia. Rafiki is designed to enhance reliability, manage treasury directly, improve error mapping, reduce user costs, and streamline payouts and collections. Liquidity, an Israeli-based fintech company, and Mars Growth Capital, a joint venture between Liquidity and Japan's MUFG Bank, specialize in providing growth capital and venture debt to technology companies. Their model often involves leveraging machine learning and decision science to assess and deploy capital. This type of financing is structured to align with NALA's real-time payment flows, a crucial detail for a company whose core business is facilitating instant cross-border transactions. Stablecoins and the African landscape. NALA's expansion of stablecoin payment corridors positions it within a competitive and evolving landscape in Africa. Stablecoins, pegged to fiat currencies like the US dollar, offer a solution to currency volatility and high transaction costs that plague traditional cross-border payments in many African markets. Companies like Flutterwave and Chipper Cash are also exploring stablecoin integrations. Circle, a prominent stablecoin issuer, recently partnered with Sasai Fintech to accelerate USDC adoption across the continent. Yellow Card, a pan-African fintech, is also exploring stablecoin use cases for treasury operations and liquidity management. However, the path for stablecoin adoption in Africa is not without friction. Regulatory clarity remains a concern across various jurisdictions. While some central banks are exploring digital currencies, others have imposed restrictions, as NALA's founder Benjamin Fernandes experienced firsthand when Tanzania's central bank ordered him to shut down his initial company. Operators must navigate a patchwork of regulations, varying levels of digital literacy, and existing mobile money ecosystems that are deeply entrenched in many markets. The optimistic case for stablecoins rests on their ability to drastically reduce remittance costs - by as much as one-twentieth of traditional methods - and provide faster settlements. What this round buys. This $50 million credit line provides NALA with the necessary operational liquidity to pre-fund transfers and expand its stablecoin payment network. This directly addresses the challenge of managing liquidity for rapidly increasing transaction volumes, particularly in emerging markets where bank transfer delays and foreign exchange costs remain high. The funding will enable NALA to support larger enterprise clients and further build out its infrastructure, connecting its network of over 249 banks and 26 mobile money services across 16 countries. This non-dilutive capital extends NALA's runway, allowing it to focus on market penetration and product development, rather than immediate equity fundraising cycles. The specific action for operators on the continent is to observe NALA's execution in leveraging this debt to scale its stablecoin rails, and how effectively it navigates the regulatory and competitive nuances of connecting diverse African and Asian markets. Based on information available at time of publication. Trademarks and logos belong to their respective owners. Spot an error? Write to [email protected]. Editorial policy · Disclaimer.