NALA, an African payments startup, has received two major licences from the Bank of Uganda. The company has now been approved as both a Payment Service Provider and a Payment System Operator.
This is a big step for the fintech company, especially as it continues to expand its presence across Africa.
NALA is best known for its money transfer app, which allows people in Europe, the UK, and the United States to send money to several African countries in seconds.
These include Tanzania, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, and Ghana. The focus has always been on speed, reliability, and making cross-border payments feel less stressful.
In 2023, the company expanded into the European Union, adding 19 new sending countries. Around the same time, it raised $40 million in funding, a sign that investors believe in its long-term vision of connecting Africans across borders.
The consumer app itself launched in 2022. Today, it supports payments to more than 249 banks and 26 mobile money services across 16 countries in Africa and Asia. With recent approval to operate in Ghana, Uganda has now become another key market where NALA is building deeper roots.
With the new licences, NALA now holds three active approvals in Uganda. Earlier in 2024, it announced that it had secured a Money Remittance Licence. Having all three licences puts the company in a small group of firms authorised to operate across the main layers of Uganda’s regulated payments system.
For NALA, this is not just about compliance. It is part of a broader plan to build payment infrastructure that can support the next billion users across Africa.
Benjamin Fernandes, the company’s founder and CEO, described the licences as a strong signal of commitment to Uganda.
He said NALA is investing more than $2 million in local infrastructure and partnerships to build payment systems that work for people in Uganda and for those sending money from abroad.
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According to him, the company also plans to support the local tech ecosystem by building APIs that help Ugandan startups scale across Africa. The goal is to make it easier for local businesses to grow beyond borders and bring more foreign currency into the economy.
Fernandes added that the company is grateful to the Bank of Uganda for its trust and oversight, noting that strong regulation is key to building a healthy digital payments ecosystem.
For Uganda’s fintech space, NALA’s growing footprint is another sign that global and diaspora-focused payment companies see the country as an important hub for Africa’s digital finance future.
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