NALA CEO Benjamin Fernandes had a one to one discussion with Mwananchi Communications about the state of startups, opportunities and threats. This article reviews what had transpired in that discussion.
NALA CEO Benjamin Fernandes Biography.
🧑💼 Benjamin Fernandes:
Founder & CEO of NALA.
Early Life & Education.
– Birth & Background:
Born on November 25, 1992, in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, to Pastor Vernon and Anny Fernandes. Attended Haven of Peace Academy on scholarship.
– U.S. Education:
Earned a conditional scholarship to the University of Northwestern–St. Paul (Minnesota), graduating with top honors. Later became the “youngest African accepted to Stanford Graduate School of Business” at age 21, funded by a $160,000 Stanford Africa MBA Fellowship.
– Harvard Executive Education:
First Tanzanian to attend both Stanford GSB and Harvard Kennedy School (Exec. Ed), receiving a full scholarship.
Pre-NALA Career.
– Television Personality:
Hosted sports shows and interviewed politicians on national TV (e.g., Clouds TV, CNBC Africa) from age 17.
– Gates Foundation:
Worked on digital finance projects in Seattle, focusing on financial inclusion.
– Social Impact:
Co-founded an orphanage (Diamond Village) and organized 26 entrepreneurship seminars across Tanzania, reaching 22,000+ attendees.
Founding NALA & Key Milestones.
– Vision:
Launched NALA in 2018 to solve high-cost remittances in Africa, where fees consumed 7–8% of ~$100B annual transfers.
– Growth & Funding:
– First East African fintech accepted into Y-Combinator (2020).
– Raised “$50M+” from Accel, Bessemer Partners, and angels (e.g., Robinhood’s Vlad Tenev, Monzo’s founder).
– Achieved “profitability” with 10x revenue growth ($10M) and expanded to 21 countries.
– Innovations:
– Rafiki:
Built a proprietary B2B payments API to bypass Africa’s fragmented banking infrastructure.
– Partnerships with Apple Pay, Google Pay, and M-Pesa (2022–2023), enabling real-time transfers to 500M+ African mobile wallets.
Global Recognition.
– Awards:
– Frances & Arjay Miller Award (Stanford, 2017) for social innovation.
– Listed in ROW100 Top Tech Leaders (2022), Top 100 African Changemakers (2023), and Forbes Fintech 50 (2025).
– Advocacy:
Brand ambassador for WildAid Africa; promotes tourism, conservation, and solar energy projects in Tanzania.
Leadership Philosophy.
– User-Centric Design:
Simplified payments for offline users (e.g., icon-based interfaces for rural communities).
– Talent Strategy:
Built a global team across 18 countries, blending local expertise (ex-M-Pesa) with global fintech experience (ex-Monzo/Revolut).
– Profit-First Mindset:
Prioritized capital discipline over vanity metrics, enabling sustainable scaling .
💡 Legacy & Impact.
Fernandes exemplifies how local insight and global vision can transform financial systems. From rejecting high-paying U.S. jobs to tackling Africa’s $8B remittance fee crisis, his work underscores that inclusive finance drives development. As he stated:
> “If people have access to tools to take advantage of economic opportunities, you create a sustainable model for development“.
For further details, see [NALA’s Story](https://www.nala.com/our-story) or his [Forbes feature (2024)](https://restofworld.org/profile/benjamin-fernandes/) .
Here is a concise analysis of what was discussed with Mwananchi Communications and relevant implications.
NALA CEO Benjamin Fernandes discusses several critical opportunities and threats for startups, particularly in Africa’s fintech sector. Here’s a concise analysis of key themes and their implications:
🌟 Key Opportunities.
1. Remittance Market Potential:
– Africa receives ~$100B in annual remittances, with fees as high as 8% ($8B lost yearly). NALA capitalized on this by enabling affordable cross-border payments, moving over $1B annually to Africa/Asia and reducing fees from 6% to 4%.
– Population growth (projected 2.5B by 2050) and migration (1.1M Africans emigrate yearly) create a scalable market for financial infrastructure.
2. Infrastructure Innovation:
– NALA built “Rafiki”, a B2B payments API allowing global companies to process transactions across Africa. This solves reliability issues and unlocks new trade channels.
– Blending local expertise (e.g., M-Pesa veterans) with global talent (ex-Monzo/Revolut engineers) enables context-specific solutions.
3. Regulatory Progress:
– Tanzania’s central bank is now “5–10x more supportive” of fintechs vs. 2018, when Fernandes faced cease-and-desist letters.
– Faster licensing in Kenya (2–3 months vs. 1.5 years in Tanzania) allowed rapid scaling.
⚠️ Critical Threats & Challenges.
1. Regulatory Fragmentation:
– Africa’s 54 countries have 42 currencies and varying licensing requirements, delaying expansion. One license application took 4+ years.
– Implication:
Startups need proactive government engagement but may prioritize markets with friendlier regulation (e.g., Kenya over Tanzania).
2. Funding Gaps & Equity Dilution:
– African startups face investor bias associating the continent with “instability.” NALA raised $50M+ but only after achieving profitability.
– Founders risk losing control: Fernandes is no longer NALA’s majority shareholder after multiple equity rounds.
3. Talent Drain:
– Tech talent leaves Africa for higher pay abroad. Fernandes reframes this as an opportunity: Remittances from diasporas ($4B for Kenya) exceed traditional exports (tea: $1.2B).
– Solution:
Advocate for dual citizenship and digital nomad visas to attract global expertise.
💡 Strategic Recommendations from Fernandes.
– Start Small:
Test ideas with minimal capital. NALA’s first funding came from friends/family who risked ≤$500.
– Prioritize Profitability:
“Capital discipline” (e.g., salary cuts, rejecting costly marketing) enabled NALA’s 10x revenue growth to $10M.
– User-Centricity:
Avoid “vanity metrics” (awards/PR). Instead, personally call users weekly to iterate products.
Implications.
– For Governments:
Harmonize regulations, accelerate licensing, and promote English education to attract investment.
– For Founders:
Build adaptable teams (NALA spans 18 countries), leverage diaspora networks, and solve “real problems” rather than chasing hype.
Fernandes’ journey underscores that Africa’s startup threats—like fragmented regulation—can be turned into opportunities with localised solutions and relentless execution.
Why NALA Founder dismisses Tanzania’s Banking System as A Joke?
Benjamin Fernandes, founder of NALA, has been openly critical of Tanzania’s traditional banking system, describing it as inefficient and exclusionary—referring to it as “a joke” in context. This critique stems from systemic limitations he identified while building NALA, supported by concrete evidence from the search results:
⚙️ 1. Cumbersome Transaction Processes.
– Traditional banking relied on “USSD systems requiring up to 46-digit inputs” for basic peer-to-peer payments, making transactions slow and error-prone.
– NALA’s app streamlined this to “<10-second transactions” with intuitive interfaces, highlighting the inefficiency of legacy systems.
🚫 2. Exclusion of Marginalized Groups.
– “Women and rural populations” faced high barriers: Complex interfaces and literacy requirements excluded ~70% of rural Tanzanians from digital finance.
– Example:
“Mama Saraphina” in Misungwi initially avoided mobile money due to complexity until NALA’s icon-based design enabled her participation.
– Fernandes emphasized that banking tools failed to serve those with “the greatest potential to benefit” from them.
📜 3. Regulatory Inertia and Fragmentation.
– Securing a Payment Service Provider (PSP) license took “4+ years” of negotiations with the Bank of Tanzania, delaying innovation.
– Contrast:
Kenya granted NALA a license in “2–3 months”, enabling faster scaling.
– Africa’s “54 countries with 42 currencies” created regulatory chaos, forcing startups to navigate “fragmented and inconsistent” frameworks.
🏦 4. Infrastructure Gaps and Liquidity Challenges.
– Banks faced “rising loan-to-deposit ratios (94.6% in 2025)” and declining liquidity buffers, risking instability during market shocks.
– Productivity lagged globally:
Tanzanian banking staff averaged “$2.8/hour productivity” vs. the global average of “$70–140/hour”.
💸 5. Funding Ecosystem Failures.
– Early investors dismissed NALA’s model, claiming competing with giants like “WorldRemit was “impossible”.
– Fernandes raised initial capital from friends/family (“donate when somebody starts a business“) after VC rejections .
– Meanwhile, “30+ African startups collapsed in 2023–2024” due to funding droughts, exposing systemic investor bias.
💡 Fernandes’ Solution: Building Alternatives.
Rather than accepting the status quo, NALA addressed these gaps by:
– Launching “Rafiki”, a B2B payments API enabling global companies to bypass fragmented banking rails.
– Prioritizing “offline functionality” and security to serve connectivity-limited users.
– Achieving “profitability first” (34x transaction growth in 20 months) to attract later-stage funding.
🔮 Conclusion: A Call for Systemic Change.
Fernandes’ critique reflects frustration with a system that “equated “banking” with exclusion and inefficiency”. His actions—from leveraging $14,000 in seed money to securing $40M Series A funding —demonstrate that fixing Tanzania’s financial ecosystem requires “bypassing legacy infrastructure” and “centering user needs”.
As he stated:
“If people have access to tools to take advantage of economic opportunities, you create a sustainable model for development“.
You can watch the following videos to get more insight in the discussions involved.
Read more analysis by Rutashubanyuma Nestory
