In 2022, Charles Archibong faced a decision to relocate to Europe for a stable, well-paid role, or remain in Nigeria to pursue an uncertain idea. He chose the latter. Two years on, that decision has materialised into Myaza.

Myaza is a cross-border payments platform built on stablecoin infrastructure, designed to make moving money across African borders as seamless as sending a message.

The company has already processed more than ₦3 billion in transactions within its first year, without spending on paid advertising and is now targeting that same volume in a single day.

“From one customer, word of mouth spread. It was quite shocking that the little comments, the little videos we were creating, were actually making an impact in our numbers,” Archibong told Technext.

A Personal Encounter with a Continental Problem

At the heart of Myaza’s model is a structural inefficiency in African trade, which is the high cost and friction of moving money across borders.

Archibong describes the opportunity as a $150 billion gap, an estimate of the value lost annually due to delays, inaccessible systems and expensive intermediaries.

Having experienced being unable to spend naira while travelling across Africa, and encountering fraud and payment blocks, he framed the challenge not as a theoretical market, but as a lived reality.

“I saw a $150 billion problem across Africa, and I couldn’t walk away from that. Maybe the bold thing wasn’t leaving. Maybe it was staying,” he said.

Yet building from Lagos came with its own challenges, from funding constraints to operational uncertainty. While peers relocated abroad, Archibong remained focused on building infrastructure in a market still defining its regulatory and financial contours.

Stablecoins as a Practical Solution

While stablecoins are often associated with cryptocurrency speculation, Myaza positions them differently as a liquidity layer for cross-border payments.

The company’s decision to adopt stablecoin rails followed an early operational bottleneck, which was liquidity shortages during high-volume transactions.

Rather than raising additional capital, Myaza restructured its backend to rely on blockchain-based assets that offer continuous, on-demand liquidity..

For end users, however, this complexity is largely invisible. Myaza abstracts the underlying infrastructure, allowing businesses and individuals to send and receive money using simple interfaces while the platform manages currency conversion, routing and settlement.

Targeting the Underserved Middle Market

Myaza is positioning itself within a growing segment of African fintech: business-to-business (B2B) payment infrastructure.

While large corporations benefit from established banking relationships and individuals have access to remittance platforms, mid-sized businesses, such as regional manufacturers, logistics firms and traders, often lack efficient tools for cross-border transactions.

Myaza aims to bridge that gap by enabling businesses to receive payments, settle invoices and manage cross-border liquidity without the complexity or cost of traditional banking systems.

Navigating a Fragmented Regulatory Landscape

One of the key challenges facing cross-border fintech in Africa is regulatory fragmentation. With over 50 countries, each operating its own financial rules, building a unified payment system remains complex.

Archibong acknowledges progress from central banks such as the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Bank of Ghana, which are increasingly engaging with blockchain-based financial products.

However, initiatives like the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS) are still in early stages, limiting their immediate impact.

Until more harmonised frameworks emerge, companies like Myaza must navigate multiple regulatory environments simultaneously, a factor that shapes both expansion strategy and operational risk.

Launching a Stablecoin-Powered POS

In February 2026, Myaza introduced a new product aimed at merchants with international customers: a stablecoin-powered point-of-sale (POS) device.

The device allows businesses, particularly in sectors such as retail, hospitality and nightlife to accept payments from foreign customers and automatically convert proceeds into naira or route them to foreign currency accounts.

This addresses a common challenge for merchants in cities like Lagos, where international card payments can be unreliable and handling foreign currency adds operational complexity.

The product is currently in pilot with selected merchants, including fashion retailers, gadget stores and hospitality venues, with onboarding tied to compliance and business verification processes.

Looking ahead, Myaza’s ambitions extend beyond incremental growth. The company is targeting a scale where it can process in a single day what it previously handled over an entire year.

Talking Points

It is striking that Myaza was built not from abstract market research, but from a deeply personal experience with the friction of moving money across African borders.

This origin story reflects a broader structural issue: cross-border payments in Africa remain expensive, slow, and inaccessible for a large segment of businesses.

At Techparley, we see Myaza as part of a new generation of fintech infrastructure players moving beyond payments into liquidity and settlement layers.

The use of stablecoins as backend infrastructure is particularly notable, positioning them not as speculative assets but as practical tools for solving real liquidity challenges.

This approach allows Myaza to deliver a seamless user experience while handling complex currency conversions and cross-border settlements behind the scenes.

The introduction of a stablecoin-powered POS adds an interesting dimension, bridging online infrastructure with offline merchant experiences, particularly in high-traffic urban centres.

If Myaza can execute effectively, it has the potential to become a key layer in Africa’s cross-border trade infrastructure, enabling faster, cheaper, and more reliable movement of money across the continent.

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