Table of Contents
TL;DR,
- Accrue Fintech’s stablecoin remittance feature exploded from 4% to 60% of revenue in just seven months, revealing massive demand for its human-powered cross-border payment solution.
- By training 500 verified agents (selected from 16,000 applicants) to convert cash to stablecoins, Accrue created a familiar, trust-based alternative to algorithmic payment systems—mirroring the M-PESA model but running on blockchain rails.
- Accrue achieved profitability by mid-2023 and raised $1.58M in seed funding, positioning stablecoins as the future settlement layer for African money movement with lower fees (flat 1.5% vs. traditional 3% stacked costs) and instant transfers.
Each nation operates its own distinct payment ecosystem. Ghana runs on mobile money. Nigeria relies heavily on bank transfers. South Africa favors cards and traditional banking. This pattern creates invisible borders that make moving money across African countries more difficult than sending funds halfway around the globe. Accrue Fintech was built to demolish these barriers.
Inside Accrue Fintech’s Accidental Pivot
The three co-founders, Clinton Mbah, Adesuwa Omoruyi, and Zino Asamaige, didn’t initially set out to solve cross-border payments. After leaving Helicarrier, Nigeria’s crypto infrastructure platform that housed BuyCoins, they launched in 2021 with a dollar-cost averaging investment app. The tool allowed beginners to invest as little as $5 daily in cryptocurrencies, removing the anxiety of timing volatile markets.
But something unexpected happened. A modest in-app feature enabling users to convert cash to stablecoins and back began quietly gaining traction. Within seven months, this stablecoin remittance in Africa functionality exploded from just 4% of revenue to approximately 60%. Mbah’s friend in Ghana discovered she could deposit Ghanaian cedis with an Accrue agent, receive stablecoins, and send payment through another agent in Nigeria. It worked flawlessly.
That moment crystallized the real opportunity: providing instant, reliable cross-border value transfer across African borders.
Cashramp: The M-PESA Model Meets Blockchain Rails
Cashramp was the product that sparked real change, becoming Accrue’s most popular product. Operating across 11 African countries, Cashramp functions as a stablecoin agent network that ordinary people can understand and trust. The system mirrors familiar mobile money operations but runs on stablecoin infrastructure.
Accrue co-founders: Clinton Mbah, Adesuwa Omoruyi, and Zino Asamaige
Cashramp performs peer-to-peer cross-border transfers in a straightforward manner.
Typically, a Ghanaian user visits a local agent, hands over cedis, and receives the stablecoin equivalent at prevailing market rates. When those funds need to reach Nigeria, the stablecoins travel instantly across borders—no banks, no delays, no byzantine paperwork. A Nigerian agent then converts the stablecoins to naira and deposits them directly into the recipient’s account. Users never grapple with cryptocurrency complexity; they simply experience fast, affordable transfers.
“What we did was train these agents and give them the ability to convert cash to stablecoins. Once people have stablecoins, they have borderless money,” Mbah explained.
This approach taps into growing recognition that stablecoins offer faster, cheaper alternatives to legacy remittance systems. Accrue Fintech leverages human-powered on-ramps to interconnect Africa’s fragmented state.
Confronting Regulatory Complexity and Market Fragmentation
Regulations have always been a must-consider factor for any company dealing with stablecoins. When the team began building their stablecoin agent network, stablecoins barely registered outside cryptocurrency circles. Convincing people that digital tokens could preserve value and facilitate frictionless peer-to-peer cross-border transfers required persistent education.
Regulatory hurdles loom even larger. African governments have historically regarded cryptocurrencies with suspicion. Think of how Nigerian regulators, now Africa’s leading crypto ecosystem, viewed crypto. Co-founder Omoruyi described it as a delicate situation involving hours of convincing regulators that Cashramp isn’t a threat to fiat currencies.
Additionally, Africa isn’t monolithic, an assumption most often made. The issues plaguing Kenya are quite different from those in Nigeria or Ghana. Yes, we do have various overall factors, like financial inclusion and the fiat inflation rate, but the difference lies in how each nation deals with them.
For instance, Nigeria is saturated with fintech options, leading Francophone West African markets. On the other hand, fintech had to deal with Mpesa’s dominance in East Africa despite their high transaction rates.
The difference in regulatory approaches varied, with most regions either imposing bans or remaining in a vague grey zone. However, this didn’t deter performance. In February 2025, the company raised $1.58 million in seed funding, fueling expansion from seven to eleven markets and supporting their push into French-speaking West Africa.
The Human Element: Trust Before Technology
What distinguishes Accrue from algorithmic competitors and traditional remittance providers is its human-centered philosophy.
“We have built a model that people are familiar with. With traditional stablecoin on/off ramps, it’s usually an algorithm that runs the process. We’re pioneering a unique model where you interact with a human,” Asamaige noted.
This agent-based payment systems approach leans on cultural familiarity. Users already understand mobile money agents, making them naturally more comfortable trusting a Cashramp agent after their first successful transaction. It’s an adaptive playbook drawing from how Mpesa and Airtel have dominated East Africa.
The stablecoin agent network currently comprises 500 verified agents carefully selected from over 16,000 applicants. These agents aren’t introducing new costs; most were already mobile money operators or informal foreign exchange traders managing float daily. Cashramp simply overlays stablecoin liquidity onto familiar practices, and agents earn 15% commission on customer withdrawals.
The peer-to-peer nature of cross-border transfers drastically reduces costs. In Ghana, for example, traditional collections via payment service providers often stack costs—about 1% MoMo transfer fees plus up to 2% PSP collection fees. With Cashramp, customers transfer directly to a verified agent’s MoMo, bypassing that second fee. For merchants, Cashramp’s checkout/API offers a flat 1.5% transaction fee (capped at $2) while settling in USD stablecoins—useful when preserving value against depreciating currencies.
What makes the model stick in so many markets?
The co-founders envision Accrue fintech as the foundational settlement layer under girding African money movement. Their ambition extends beyond current stablecoin remittance in Africa services to positioning them as the universal gateway where stablecoins seamlessly enter and exit ordinary people’s financial lives.
With 200,000+ users across 11 countries and profitability achieved by mid-2023, the company demonstrates both product-market fit and sustainable unit economics.
“It’s always been evident to us, and people are catching up to the fact that stablecoins will be how people move money before the end of the decade,” Mbah declared.
If that’s right, then the winning rails will be the ones that feel familiar. By grounding digital value in human relationships, agent-based payment systems become the bridge between modern settlement and everyday use. And if Accrue continues converting that insight into consistent execution, stablecoin remittance in Africa may increasingly run on human-powered rails that are fast, affordable, and built for trust.
