Nomba has secured a $3 million debt facility from CardinalStone Finance Company Limited. Rather than simply funding the Nigerian fintech’s commercial expansion, the facility is intended to increase the US dollar liquidity Nomba can deploy through its banking relationships in Hong Kong and Singapore, strengthening its ability to settle commercial payments between Central Africa and Asia.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo sits at the centre of that strategy. Nomba is using its DRC operation as a settlement base for trade between Central Africa and Asian markets, with Zambia and Uganda identified as its next expansion markets.
The significance of the transaction, however, goes beyond the amount raised. It exposes one of the less visible components of cross-border payments: liquidity.
An international payment is more than a payment instruction
From the customer’s perspective, a cross-border payment can look straightforward: a business sends an instruction and its supplier receives the money.
For the payment provider, several processes have to work together.
Funds first need to be collected from the business. In the DRC, Nomba offers local and international payment services, including CDF and USD collections and connectivity to banks and major mobile money networks.
The provider may then need to perform the foreign-exchange conversion required for settlement.
A third, less visible layer is making sure enough money is already available in the currency and banking infrastructure required to pay the beneficiary.
Finally, the supplier must be settled, the payment confirmed and the different legs of the transaction reconciled.
At a high level, the service therefore consists of four layers:
Collection → FX → Liquidity → Settlement and reconciliation
Technology can move the payment instruction quickly. It does not automatically create the dollars needed to settle it.
Why Nomba needs more dollars
This is where the CardinalStone facility matters.
Nomba says the $3 million will provide additional USD liquidity that can be deployed through its banking relationships in Hong Kong and Singapore, allowing it to support more transactions and faster settlement between African businesses and Asian trading partners.
Consider a Congolese importer paying an Asian supplier.
Even after the payment provider has collected or secured the customer’s funds in the DRC, there can be a timing gap before the corresponding funds become available in a form that can immediately be used to pay the supplier.
Pre-positioned liquidity reduces the need to wait for money to move sequentially through every step of the banking chain.
In practice, faster settlement can therefore require a provider to make settlement capacity available before its treasury position has been fully replenished.
That is a treasury problem as much as a technology problem.
How can $3 million support $480 million in monthly flows?
The two figures can appear contradictory.
Nomba says it processes more than $480 million in cross-border payments per month and aims to exceed $1 billion. Importantly, the $480 million figure is not DRC–Asia volume alone. According to the company, it combines its DRC operations with its Canadian-licensed money services business.
The numbers are also company-reported figures, rather than publicly audited transaction data.
It would therefore be misleading to assume that the $3 million facility is expected to finance hundreds of millions of dollars in transactions by itself.
The facility adds to an existing liquidity and settlement infrastructure. Settlement funds can also be replenished and reused over time.
Public information, however, does not disclose the facility’s maturity, interest rate, whether it is revolving, its collateral arrangements or how quickly the liquidity can be recycled.
That means the actual transaction-volume multiplier cannot be calculated from the information currently available.
Nomba has nevertheless indicated that the $3 million is only part of a broader financing effort. The company says it is preparing to raise a further $20 million to $50 million in debt to expand its cross-border infrastructure.
Why the DRC matters
The commercial backdrop is significant.
Trade between China and the DRC reached approximately $26.7 billion in 2025, including $5.1 billion of Chinese exports to the DRC and $21.6 billion of Chinese imports from the country.
Those trade flows create recurring needs for businesses to collect funds, exchange currencies, pay overseas counterparties, manage banking delays and reconcile international settlements.
Competition in cross-border payments is therefore not only about building a better app or API.
It is also about securing banking relationships, managing FX positions, maintaining funds across jurisdictions and having settlement capacity available when customers need it.
Where could PAPSS fit?
Nomba's model also raises a broader question about African payment infrastructure.
PAPSS enables cross-border payments between African markets in local currencies. Its own architecture relies on three core processes: instant payments, pre-funding and net settlement. Participants need funding arrangements that ensure liquidity is available before real-time payments are completed.
The parallel is important. Even infrastructure designed to make payments near-instant still has to solve the liquidity problem.
PAPSS would not, however, replace the Africa–Asia leg of a transaction where the final beneficiary is in Hong Kong, Singapore, China or another Asian market. Its core role is to facilitate payments between African markets.
In a future multi-leg corridor, infrastructure such as PAPSS could potentially handle an intra-African portion of the payment where the relevant markets and institutions are connected. A separate layer would still be required for FX, liquidity and settlement into Asia.
Cross-border payments need more than technology
Nomba's financing highlights a basic reality of international payments.
An interface can feel instant. An API can send an instruction in milliseconds. A transaction status can appear on a screen immediately.
But somewhere in the chain, actual funds must be available in the right currency and the right settlement infrastructure.
Cross-border payment companies are therefore not only building technology products. They are also building banking networks, treasury structures, foreign-exchange capabilities and pre-funding arrangements.
Seen through that lens, Nomba's $3 million facility is more interesting as a window into the economics of cross-border payments than as another fintech funding announcement.
The customer sees a transfer. The provider has to manage the liquidity that makes it possible.
