NALA, a Tanzanian-born fintech startup with a growing dominance in East Africa, took a ground-breaking move in the continent’s fintech industry by allowing its African diaspora users to make local payments directly. The company’s customers can now use Apple Pay to make payments from the US and the UK.
Apple Pay is an advanced mobile payment service developed by Apple Inc that digitizes card payments and is optimized for contactless in-store payments. With over 45 million users in the United States alone, the payment service is a go-to for many people in countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom, where the fintech’s users are concentrated.
NALA integration with Apple Pay comes a few months after it establishes its operations in the United States at the end of April 2022 where 6 members of Parliament from Tanzania attended their launch event in New York City.
According to NALA’s CEO, Benjamin Fernandes, “ NALA’s mission is to increase economic opportunities for Africans globally, enabling Apple Pay is a step towards connecting more global payment options with Africa. This reach allows us to build stronger financial infrastructure for Africans worldwide.”
Customers of NALA in the US and UK can use the NALA app’s Apple Pay functionality to make payments to more than 300 banks and 20 mobile money providers in Africa.
Only a small number of African fintech companies, like Paystack in Nigeria and Peach Payments in South Africa, have so far been able to include Apple Pay in their offerings. The unicorn fintech company from Nigeria, Flutterwave, declared in February that it would add Apple Pay support to its range of payment methods. However, that feature has not yet been released.
