Benjamin Fernandes, CEO of Nala : « Our mission is to build payments for the next billion »

Benjamin, can you tell us about your background and what led you to create Nala?

I’m from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. I grew up there. When I was 17, I got a scholarship that took me to America for the first time—for school. I never lived in America before. And then I moved back, and then I became a TV host. I used to host on local TV in East Africa. And then TV is what got me involved in payments. We were trying to figure out ways to enable people to pay for TV subscriptions on mobile money—on M-Pesa and Airtel Money in East Africa. And then that project got me a full scholarship to Stanford. So that’s where I went to grad school to study and learn more—a little bit about building a technology company. And then I ended up working for the Bill Gates Foundation on the payments team, and from there, I decided to quit and start building Nala.

Nala stands out for its cross-border payment services. Can you explain exactly what your business does?

At Nala, we do two things. We have two businesses—our core business. We enable people from the US, UK, and Europe—19 countries in Europe, including Italy, Spain, France, and Germany—to send money to 11 countries in Africa. This allows diasporas to send remittances back home to their loved ones. But also, we have a B2B service where we work with large businesses that are doing cross-border payments for distribution, for payroll, for large remittance companies, and other services directly. So we build payments infrastructure across Africa.

How has Nala evolved, and what impact has it had on its beneficiaries?

Yeah, no, it’s really inspiring to see. Three years ago, we had like ten customers. Today, we have 500,000. And seeing people move literally billions of dollars with us every year—it’s like helping local economies, helping local families, establishing local businesses. So we’ll see a Rwandan in Belgium sending money with us to Rwanda, but building a small shop or an Airbnb for tourists to go see the gorillas, and so on. We see a lot of these behaviors where the diaspora, who move abroad, create opportunities for those back home—not just sending money but also creating job opportunities by starting businesses.

A large amount of impact, especially with women. Women are our most loyal customers—about 60% of our customers are women. They send most frequently and are the most loyal to their recipients. So we know that on the 25th of the month, once they get their salary, this person is going to send money to Kenya, to Nigeria, to Uganda, to Rwanda, to Tanzania—guaranteed.

Nala has also managed to reduce money transfer fees…

Yeah, we’ve reduced fees from 6% to 4%, and we’re trying to bring them down even further. I don’t believe that the lowest-income region in the world should be charged the highest fees. One of our biggest goals is to make cross-border payments more accessible and less expensive. This not only saves money but also supports the local economy by making these services available to more people.

What are the next steps for Nala, and what are the biggest challenges in achieving them?

I could sit here for ten days just talking about challenges. One big challenge is across different countries. Africa has 42 different currencies, nearly 50 different central banks, across 54 different countries. You go to this country, you need this license. You go to another country, you need another license. We don’t have a unified body like in Europe, where you get one license in the Netherlands, and you can use it in Belgium, Italy, Germany, or France.

It’s a lot more complex when you’re trying to operate in multiple countries because every government has its own rules. One government will say, “Benji, if you want to operate here, I want you to hire 50 people in my country.” And I’m like, “Okay, what am I going to do with 50 people there?” Because we’re a software company—we don’t need 50 people. Maybe we need five. But that’s the regulation.

Part of the reason I’m here at this forum is to meet regulators. We are regulated in six countries in Africa. I’m trying to get regulated in 11. Some of these licenses take forever. In one of the countries here, I met with a regulator earlier—I applied for a license four years ago, and I still haven’t received it. How do you really build impact and scale businesses when you can’t even get licensed to operate in these markets?

How do you see the future of Nala and the African fintech ecosystem?

We have a clear mission: to build payments for the next billion people. We already operate in Asia and Africa, and we’re preparing to expand our services in India.

Nala has grown rapidly—from seven employees to 157 in 20 months. But this is just the beginning. We want to expand into more markets and enable more people, especially in emerging markets, to access modern financial services.

The work we’re doing today is fundamental for the future, and we’re ready to take on the challenges ahead to create a global impact.