Cauridor Launches Cross-Border Payment Platform in Ivory Coast

Cauridor, an Ivorian fintech is a fintech business that aims to make Africa paperless by digitizing payments. They facilitate simple payment transactions by giving companies and clients a single link to their APIs. To help them achieve their goal of making Africa cashless, they are aggressively looking for creative people.

By collaborating with leading international money transfer providers, mobile networks, banks, and regional fintech businesses, they connect the world with Africa. By giving these businesses the tools they need to accept international digital payments, they want to digitize financial services. They are committed to assisting African clients with their digital transformation, making sure that their payments are issued and received promptly. 

Cauridor is a well-funded business, and its main rivals and competitors include Square, Flutterwave, and Nuvei and soon Moniepoint may be a competitor if they increase marketing activities and strengthen their personnels to the shores of Nigeria.

Making cross-border payments used to be challenging practically everywhere in the globe until a few years ago. However, it remains a major issue in Africa, where businesses and people find it difficult to transfer money swiftly and inexpensively due to disjointed, unconnected systems, exorbitant fees, and inadequate infrastructure.

Most individuals and companies still struggle with mobile wallet connections or rely on antiquated agent networks. However, there is a real need for simpler and less expensive options, especially in underprivileged areas like Francophone Africa.

Fintech in Ivory Coast Cauridor has acquired $3.5 million in early investment to continue developing its payment rails, which will allow banks, money transfer businesses, telecom carriers, and merchants to transport money in and out of Africa.

According to Cauridor, their technology facilitates cash pickups, bank transfers, and mobile wallets via a network of over 25,000 agents across Guinea, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone, and Liberia. These agents, who are mostly small business owners with point-of-sale (POS) systems that facilitate cash deposits, withdrawals, and bill payments, are a component of a widely used distribution strategy in the area.

Similar to other fintechs in the area, Cauridor is tackling the money transfer issue with a hybrid strategy that combines digital infrastructure and cash networks for local payment requirements. However, the strategy has allowed it to run remittance corridors to important countries like Ghana and Nigeria, as well as to get into group-level agreements with significant companies like Western Union, MoneyGram, and Ria, in addition to collaborations with Orange and MTN.

While studying in Canada, Oumar Rafiou Barry and Abdoulaye Bah, the creators of Cauridor, personally witnessed the difficulties of sending money home to Guinea. Francophone Africa, a region that has long been neglected by the global remittance sector, presented them with sluggish and costly transfer choices involving remittance payments to business-to-business payments.

They founded BNB CashApp, a consumer-focused remittance platform that allows Canadians to send money to Africa, in 2019 as a result of their anger. To provide cash disbursements, the software worked directly with banks, mobile wallets such as MTN, and an agent network that included a mobile portal.

However, as the network expanded, its creators faced a more significant obstacle: Africa’s disjointed and ineffective payment system. Early on, we saw that there were hardly any railroads in Francophone Africa. Because the payments in the area were dispersed, we had to enter and begin constructing payment rails there,” CEO Barry told TechCrunch.

In 2022, the team saw an opening and changed course to construct payment rails for the area. Similar to Tanzania’s Nala and Rafiki’s business strategy, the company combined its consumer remittance business and B2B payment infrastructure under the Cauridor brand by 2023.

The change has paid off, as the company’s payment rails division now accounts for over 90% of its revenue. According to the firm, Cauridor handled 2 million transactions in 2023 and achieved a $300 million total payment volume (TPV), which increased to $500 million in 2024.

With the future plans and competition, Barry claims that his firm has stayed relevant because it constructed payment rails in areas “no one was looking at,” such as Guinea and Liberia, even though he names more well-known competitors like Onafriq and Thunes as Cauridor’s primary rivals.

He pointed out that price and providing direct customer care had also assisted in keeping clients. Fintech offers client support to address typical problems, such as denied mobile money transfers because of insufficient KYC. For instance, Cauridor can help upgrade a recipient’s account and make sure the transaction is completed if they are only able to receive $10 of a $700 payment.

Barry believes that Cauridor has an advantage in obtaining greater currency margins, which it then transfers to its clients because of its strong local presence. According to him, this edge has helped the business draw in significant customers like MoneyGram, who left rivals in search of better deals and customer service.

It’s interesting to note that cooperation is not excluded by competition in the field of cross-border payments. Similar to how Cauridor collaborates with businesses like Thunes to have a worldwide presence, some of its rivals depend on its infrastructure in particular areas.

With operations in Ivory Coast, Senegal, Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia, Cauridor employs over 200 people worldwide.

Oui Capital, a pan-African venture capital firm, led the seed round, which also included participation from Rally Cap, BKR Capital, and a few angel investors.

The firm intends to use the extra funding to strengthen its personnel, increase marketing activities, and enter new countries (new offices are opening in Mali and Nigeria this year). In order to expedite settlements and capitalize on the expanding use of stablecoins in Africa’s cross-border payment market, Barry told TechCrunch that Cauridor is also getting ready for a Series A financing and investigating blockchain integration.