Expensive transfers, currency barriers threaten Africa’s trade potential — Agunbiade

Founder and CEO of Vepay, Oluwagbenga Agunbiadea, is a Nigerian fintech transforming cross-border payments across Africa. Since launching Vepay in 2025, he has led its growth from virtual dollar cards to real-time remittances spanning 70 countries.

His vision is to connect Africa to the global economy by building secure, scalable, and accessible financial infrastructure.

A member of ForbesBLK and PremiaBN, Oluwagbenga is recognized for his leadership in innovation and entrepreneurship.

With a background in accounting and finance, he combines technical expertise with strategic insight, driving financial inclusion and empowering individuals, freelancers, and businesses with borderless payment solutions.

In this interview, he speaks with Head, ICT & Digital, Caleb Ohaeri, on his activities and the progression of the organization.

Vepay was created around the challenge of moving money across borders. What experience or market gap convinced you that Africa’s cross-border payment system needed to be fundamentally rethought?

For me, the opportunity became clear from looking at how difficult it still is for an African individual or business to transact beyond their immediate market. We have seen tremendous progress in domestic payments across Africa, but once a transaction crosses a border, the experience can become very different. You are dealing with different currencies, settlement systems, costs, payment methods and regulatory environments.

That gap was what interested me. I felt there was an opportunity to build a product that brings more of these fragmented experiences together. Vepay was built around that idea: making it easier for individuals and businesses to send, receive and use money across markets without having to understand all the complexity happening behind the transaction.

Despite Africa’s growing digital economy and increasing intra-African trade, sending money across African borders can still be expensive, slow and complicated. What are the major obstacles preventing seamless cross-border payments?

Fragmentation is one of the biggest challenges. Africa is not a single financial market. Every country has its own currency, banking infrastructure, payment systems, regulations and settlement processes. A payment that looks simple to the customer may involve several institutions and different layers of infrastructure before it reaches the recipient.

Foreign exchange is another major factor. Liquidity and currency conversion can affect both the cost and speed of a transaction. Regulation is equally important because cross-border payments involve compliance requirements across multiple jurisdictions.

I think the long-term solution will require greater interoperability between payment systems, better regional infrastructure and stronger collaboration between regulators, banks and fintech companies. The technology is important, but technology alone cannot solve the entire problem.

Vepay started with virtual dollar cards and has evolved into a broader cross-border payment platform. How has your understanding of the African fintech and payments market changed since you founded the company?

One of the biggest lessons has been that customers do not necessarily think about financial products in the same categories that companies do. A customer does not wake up thinking about payment infrastructure. They simply want to pay someone, receive money, make an online payment or access their funds without unnecessary difficulty.

Our early focus on virtual dollar cards helped us understand a specific problem, but it also exposed us to the broader challenges customers face around international payments. That influenced how we thought about Vepay. Rather than building around one product, we began thinking about the wider financial relationship customers have across borders.

I have also learned that payments are as much about infrastructure, partnerships, compliance and reliability as they are about building a good application. That understanding has shaped how we are building the company today.

For African freelancers, SMEs, entrepreneurs and digital creators earning or paying internationally, exchange rates, transaction charges and settlement delays can significantly affect their businesses. How is Vepay addressing these challenges?

Our approach is to reduce the number of unnecessary barriers between the customer and the transaction they are trying to complete. Vepay brings cross-border transfers, currency exchange and international payment capabilities into a simpler experience, while working with payment and financial infrastructure partners to facilitate the underlying transactions.

We also believe transparency matters. Customers should have a clear understanding of exchange rates and applicable charges before completing a transaction, rather than discovering unexpected costs afterwards.

For businesses in particular, the challenge goes beyond sending money. They need reliable ways to receive payments, manage transactions and operate across markets. That is also part of the thinking behind Vepay Business as we continue developing our offering for businesses.

The African Continental Free Trade Area is expected to increase trade among African countries. How critical is efficient digital payment infrastructure to achieving AfCFTA’s full potential?

It is extremely important. Trade cannot become truly seamless if the movement of money remains difficult.

A business may be able to find customers or suppliers in another African country, but if receiving payment involves high costs, long settlement periods or complicated currency conversion, that friction eventually becomes a barrier to trade.

AfCFTA creates an important framework for increasing intra-African commerce, but payment infrastructure is one of the systems that will determine how easily that commerce actually happens. Over time, greater interoperability between African payment systems and more efficient cross-border settlement could make it much easier for businesses of all sizes to participate in regional trade.

Security and trust are major concerns in digital finance. What measures has Vepay put in place to protect customers against fraud, unauthorised transactions and emerging financial threats while maintaining a seamless user experience?

Our approach combines identity verification, transaction monitoring, authentication controls and internal compliance processes, alongside the controls provided through the regulated financial and payment infrastructure partners we work with. We also continuously look at how transactions behave because fraud patterns evolve, and controls have to evolve with them.

At the same time, security should not make a legitimate customer’s experience unnecessarily difficult. The objective is to apply the appropriate controls at the appropriate points while keeping normal transactions straightforward.

We also recognise that no financial platform should describe security as a finished job. It requires continuous monitoring, improvement and adaptation as new risks emerge.

As Vepay expands across different African markets, how do you navigate varying regulatory requirements, and what regulatory reforms would make it easier for fintech companies to provide truly pan-African payment services?

We approach each market individually because regulatory requirements differ significantly across jurisdictions. Our model involves working with established payment and financial infrastructure partners where appropriate, while ensuring that products are introduced according to the requirements applicable to each market.

For the wider industry, greater regulatory coordination across Africa would be valuable. Today, a fintech looking to operate across several countries can encounter very different licensing, reporting, foreign exchange and compliance frameworks in each jurisdiction.

This does not mean regulation should be weakened. Financial services require strong oversight. But greater harmonisation, clearer frameworks for cross-border fintech partnerships and improved regulatory cooperation could make it easier for responsible companies to expand while still protecting consumers and the financial system.

Nigeria has one of Africa’s most competitive fintech markets. What differentiates Vepay from other companies offering international transfers, dollar cards and cross-border payment solutions?

We are not trying to differentiate Vepay simply by having another card or transfer product. Our focus is on bringing together the different things an individual or business may need when operating across borders.

Someone may need to send money internationally, receive funds, exchange currencies or make an international payment. A business may need a different set of tools for receiving and managing payments. We see these as connected problems rather than completely separate products.

The long-term differentiation we are working towards is therefore the experience and infrastructure around that relationship – making Vepay a platform customers can use for multiple aspects of their cross-border financial activity rather than having to rely on a different solution for every need.

Africa has a rapidly growing population of remote workers, freelancers, entrepreneurs and creators earning income from global markets. How is this emerging workforce changing demand for cross-border financial services, and what opportunities does it create for Vepay?

It is changing the definition of what a financial customer in Africa looks like. Someone can live in Lagos, Nairobi or Kampala and work for a company or client thousands of kilometres away. Their income and expenses may exist in different currencies and across completely different financial systems.

Traditional financial products were not necessarily designed around that type of customer. This creates demand for products that are more international by default.

For Vepay, that is an important opportunity. We want to build around people and businesses whose financial lives increasingly extend beyond one country. As more Africans participate in the global digital economy, the infrastructure that allows them to receive, convert, send and use money efficiently will become increasingly important.

Looking five to ten years ahead, what do you want Vepay to have changed about the way Africans send, receive, spend and do business across borders, and what would a truly connected African payment system look like?

My ambition is for the border to become much less visible in the customer’s payment experience.

If someone in one African country wants to pay a person or business in another country, the complexity of currencies, settlement networks, and financial infrastructure should largely happen in the background. The customer should be able to focus on the transaction rather than the infrastructure required to complete it.

For businesses, I would like to see a future where being based in one African country does not significantly limit the markets in which they can sell, collect payments or operate.

If Vepay can contribute meaningfully to that future by building products and partnerships that connect more individuals, businesses and markets, then we would have achieved something important. Also, we’re working towards having Vepay become part of the financial infrastructure that makes doing business across African borders feel as natural as doing business domestically.