African companies sending funds across international borders continue to lose substantial capital to opaque foreign-exchange spreads, slow correspondent banking chains, and complex compliance frameworks unsuited for regional trade corridors.
On a typical $20,000 supplier payment, a 1.5 per cent hidden spread can cost an enterprise over N400,000 without upfront price transparency. Settlements frequently drag on for days, straining critical vendor relationships, while stalled transactions leave corporate finance teams stranded with unresolved automated tickets rather than real-time support.
This friction comes against the backdrop of persistent foreign exchange volatility and liquidity constraints across sub-Saharan Africa. The broader economic challenges have been compounded by strict foreign currency rationing in key markets like Nigeria, where commercial banks often struggle to meet corporate import demand promptly.
Consequently, regional businesses expanding under the African Continental Free Trade Area are increasingly forced to navigate high transaction costs, steep clearing fees, and cumbersome multi-currency conversions when settling cross-border trade invoices.
Addressing this structural gap, cross-border payment platform Oneremit, founded in 2024 by Hammed Afenifere, Olusola Carter, and Bolaji, announced it has expanded its operational footprint to serve more than 1,000 businesses, processing over $200m in outbound commercial transactions.
In a statement made available on Friday, Co-founder Olusola Carter highlighted the platform’s core objective, noting that existing infrastructure has failed to match the continent’s growing trade ambitions.
Running a business in Africa is already hard. Payments shouldn’t be. When we started Oneremit, we kept coming back to one idea: that Africa is part of the global market, but the payment infrastructure available to African businesses hasn’t caught up to that reality. That’s the gap we’re closing,” Carter stated.
Also commenting, Co-founder Bolaji explained that the firm relies on collaborative integration with traditional institutions to streamline liquidity flows across borders.
“We’re not trying to replace the banks or the correspondent networks. We’re working with them, a network of international providers, banks, and partners we’ve built relationships with over time, so that our customers don’t have to think about any of it. They send a payment; we handle the routing,” he said.
According to the company, its operational framework combines compliance-first infrastructure with a human concierge service model. It noted that strategic partnerships with international payment firms, including OwlPay, TerraPay, and Blockradar, continue to facilitate faster settlement times, wider corridor coverage, and enhanced transaction monitoring.
The platform currently maintains regulatory licences in Canada, the United States, and Nigeria, with licensing approvals underway in the United Kingdom, Ghana, and Tanzania as part of its plan to expand further into European and pan-African markets.
