The Open Africa Podcast

On this episode, Laolu, Furo, and Nosa discuss some recent fundraises in the ecosystem — Spiro’s $215M raise backed by Impact Fund Denmark and Equitane, Nala’s $50M credit facility, LemFi’s $34.8M extension, BFREE’s growth round led by AfricInvest, and Shiprazor’s $2.65M seed funding. They also unpack Chowdeck’s vendor trust issues and explore broader financial trends and news. This episode is spo...

On this episode, Laolu, Furo, and Nosa talk about Chowdeck using its $9 million Series A to chase a superapp strategy and whether that ambition risks diluting the operational focus that made it Nigeria's best food delivery app, ARCON arresting small business owners for running Instagram ads without prior approval under the 2022 ARCON Act, the CBN's 2026 Guide to Charges, Airtel Money’s IPO, and ot...

On this episode, Laolu, Furo, and Nosa talk about Flutterwave's acquisition of Mono to gain a National Microfinance Bank licence, the CBN's AML/CFT supervision pilot for six crypto and fintech firms including KuCoin and Paystack, Moniepoint's acquisition of restaurant management platform Orda Africa as a credit underwriting play, and OPay turning the CBN's new One Principal Rule for POS agents int...

On this episode, Laolu, Furo, and Nosa talk about Moniepoint taking Alerzo to court over ₦5 billion unpaid loan, NIN for sale and data compromise, Terra Industries’ partnership with DICON to boost sovereign defence production and give some context to Nigeria’s GSI framework for loan recovery alongside other industry news. This episode is sponsored by Busha — Nigeria’s licensed digital assets excha...

On this episode, Laolu, Furo, and Nosa talk about CBN upgrading OPay, Moniepoint, and Kuda to national MFB licences, Paystack turning 10 and launching The Stack Group, Busha launching crypto-backed loans, Raenest expanding into India, and a deep dive into why African startups have a numbers problem; with Moniepoint as case study.  This episode is sponsored by Busha — Nigeria’s licensed digita...

Welcome to a new season of The Open Africa Podcast! On this episode, Laolu, Furo, and Nosa talk about Flutterwave acquiring Mono, the peculiarities of Fintech product names, Glovo’s call out by Corporate Ewa, and Moniepoint trying to recover a ₦2.4 billion loan from ShopRite. — _ We love hearing your thoughts! Find us on X (@TheOAPod) and Instagram (@openafricapod) and tag us in your conversations...

On this episode, Laolu, Furo, and Nosa do the usual Year in Review and make few predictions for 2026! Thank you for loving the podcast all year long! _ We love hearing your thoughts! Find us on X (@TheOAPod) and Instagram (@openafricapod) and tag us in your conversations. _ We love hearing your thoughts! Find us on X (@TheOAPod) and Instagram (@openafricapod) and tag us in your conversations. Host...

On this episode, Laolu, Furo, and Nosa break down some recent and interesting moves in Africa’s fintech industry.  We explore LemFi’s FSCS-protected savings launch in the UK and what it means for retention beyond remittances. We also discuss Nomba’s remittance-first expansion into the DRC and Nigeria’s new National Payment Stack, built to modernise instant transfers and onboarding.  Fina...

On this episode, 'Laolu, Furo, and Nosa are joined by Benjamin Dada of Condia! We break down the CBN’s new Agent Banking Guidelines — exploring tighter fraud controls, new cash limits, and exclusivity rules. We also discuss the ATM exposure draft, unpack media reporting standards in fintech, the $20B remittance market boom, and how startups like Lemfi are evolving with credit-based and stablecoin...

On this episode, 'Laolu, Furo, and Nosa talk about recent developments across the continent! They start off by discussing Kredete’s recent $22 million series A funding raise, Rulebase raising $2.1 million to automate financial services compliance, new regulations for e-hailing services in South Africa, and other news. _ We love hearing your thoughts! Find us on X (@TheOAPod) and Instagram (@openaf...

On this episode, 'Laolu, Furo, and Nosa talk about Chowdeck’s growth and recent $9 million series A funding raise, Nedbank’s acquisition of iKhokha, and Nomba’s industry presence and new multi-currency wallet for businesses. _ We love hearing your thoughts! Find us on X (@TheOAPod) and Instagram (@openafricapod) and tag us in your conversations. _ We love hearing your thoughts! Find us on X (@TheO...

On this episode, 'Laolu, Furo, and Nosa are joined by Osarumen Osamuyi from The Subtext! They talk about the recent collapses of Vendease and Okra in the ecosystem, then take a closer look at Magic Beans, the first chapter of Foodpod – a limited series about Technology eating food in Africa – by Osarumen. _ We love hearing your thoughts! Find us on X (@TheOAPod) and Instagram (@openafricapod) and...

On this episode, 'Laolu, Furo, and Nosa talk about dLocal’s intention to acquire AZA Finance, Fincra’s Expansion to East Africa, Palmpay’s plan to Raise, and other alleged Industry news. _ We love hearing your thoughts! Find us on X (@TheOAPod) and Instagram (@openafricapod) and tag us in your conversations. _ We love hearing your thoughts! Find us on X (@TheOAPod) and Instagram (@openafricapod) a...

On this episode, 'Laolu, Furo, and Nosa talk about Banks—how banks make money, how banks loan money, and what most Nigerians think about bank charges, while reading commentary from Twitter (X). Read our substack about Bank Charges here _ We love hearing your thoughts! Find us on X (@TheOAPod) and Instagram (@openafricapod) and tag us in your conversations.  _ We love hearing your thoughts! Fi...

On this episode, 'Laolu, Furo, and Nosa talk about Paystack launching Zap, PayHippo’s recent $4 million raise, rebrand as Rivy and pivot to clean energy financing, alongside news of Nigerian neobanks like Kuda and Nomba launching premium tiers. _ We love hearing your thoughts! Find us on X (@TheOAPod) and Instagram (@openafricapod) and tag us in your conversations.  _ We love hearing your tho...

On this episode of the podcast, 'Laolu, Nosa, and Furo talk about Cedar Money’s $9.9 million seed round, Ghana-based fintech Oze securing undisclosed funding from Visa and DEG, Edukoya’s shutdown as a result of macroeconomic challenges, Vendease’s second round of layoffs in five months, and other industry news across the continent. _ We love hearing your thoughts! Find us on X (@TheOAPod) and Inst...

Welcome to our first explainer episode for 2025! – On this episode, 'Laolu, Furo, and Nosa talk about how cross border payments and remittances really work, LemFi’s expansion into Europe and why this is a good thing. _ We love hearing your thoughts! Find us on X (@TheOAPod) and Instagram (@openafricapod) and tag us in your conversations. _ We love hearing your thoughts! Find us on X (@TheOAPod) an...

On this episode of the podcast, 'Laolu, Nosa, and Furo talk about Moniepoint and Visa’s partnership, Accrue, SeamlessHR’s additional $9 million raise in series A extension, MoneyHash’s $5.2 million pre-series A raise, and what they think is really happening with Bento. _ We love hearing your thoughts! Find us on Twitter and Instagram (@openafricapod) and tag us in your conversations.  _ We lo...

On this episode of the podcast, 'Laolu, Nosa, and Furo talk about the KPMG Customer finance report; what exactly investing in commodity looks like, LemFi’s $53 million raise as it expands remittance services into Europe, Gokada filing for bankruptcy, some predictions for 2025, alongside other industry news. _ We love hearing your thoughts! Find us on Twitter and Instagram (@openafricapod) and tag...

…and it’s a wrap! Thank you for rocking with your favorite finance trio this year (and don’t worry, we tried not to make “doomy” predictions this time ;-) ) – On this episode, 'Laolu, Furo, and Nosa do a month by month recap of 2024 episodes. From raises to shutdowns to unicorns to migrations to fraud, this was the year it all happened. _ We love hearing your thoughts! Find us on Twitter and Insta...

On this episode, 'Laolu, Furo, and Nosa talk about Moniepoint raising $110 million in their series C funding and achieving Unicorn status, their ambitious plans of becoming a commercial bank and the Access bank playbook. We also discuss the reoccurring fraud problems at First Bank alongside other industry news. _ We love hearing your thoughts! Find us on Twitter and Instagram (@openafricapod) and...

On this episode, 'Laolu, Furo, and Nosa talk about some developments in the ecosystem in recent weeks. They consider Rise’s acquisition of Hisa; a Kenyan investment startup, Chipper’s expansion and securing Ghana’s SEC license, Fincra receiving a Third Party Payment Provider (TPPP) licence in South Africa, and other industry news. _ We love hearing your thoughts! Find us on Twitter and Instagram (...

We call this the episode that almost never was but thankfully we were able to salvage it (everybody, say thank you ‘Laolu!) and now you get to listen. _ On this episode of the podcast, Nosa, Furo, and 'Laolu talked about some new people changes at MTN MoMo, USA Mercury Bank’s decision to close accounts linked to Nigeria and implications, the Unity and Providus Bank Merger, and the 44 billion naira...

On this episode, 'Laolu, Furo, and Nosa have a guest! They are joined by Angie Jones, the Global Vice President of Developer Relations for tbd. This is Block’s new business unit focused on decentralized technologies to move money in a fast and compliant way. They discuss tbd’s flagship protocol tbDEX, and the upcoming hackathon happening at the Africa Bitcoin Conference in December. _ We love hear...

On this episode, 'Laolu, Furo, and Nosa do a deep dive into some not so exciting news in the Tech Ecosystem; Carbon shut down its debit card service over two years after launch, the reoccurring problems with Cards among Fintechs in Nigeria, Afrigo - the CBN’s Domestic Card Scheme, Prospa, and Brass’ acquisition by a Paystack-led consortium, amongst other industry news. _ We love hearing your thoug...