What Nomanini does

Nomanini is a South African fintech SaaS company, founded in 2011 and headquartered in Cape Town with additional operations in Johannesburg and Nairobi, that operates a merchant wallet platform serving Africa's informal retail sector. Its core technology combines cloud-based payments infrastructure, switching, a core transaction ledger, and an interoperable white-labelled wallet that connects three customer groups: financial service providers (notably banks) seeking low-cost channels into cash-first markets, FMCG manufacturers and distributors looking to finance stock onto MSME shelves, and informal retail MSMEs who use a single device to sell prepaid airtime and electricity, accept bill payments, perform cash-in/cash-out transactions, and access working capital.

The platform's principal products are the Merchant Wallet (the core offering connecting the fragmented ecosystem around informal merchants), the Merchant Channel and Merchant Business Wallet modules for banks, and the Merchant Supply Chain Finance / Last-mile Supply Chain Financing modules that pair automated credit management with sales-history-based credit scoring to underwrite uncollateralised stock advances. Nomanini reports a sub-1% loan default rate on its deployed supply chain finance book.

The company makes money through transaction fees on payments and on the loan book, complemented by platform/technology licensing of the white-labelled wallet and payments infrastructure to financial service providers. Distribution is partnership-driven: enterprise field sales target banks and FMCG majors, while hyper-localised in-country field representatives validate and activate services. Flagship commercial relationships include Nestlé (as the lead FMCG partner for supply chain financing across ESAR) and Standard Bank (as both partner and investor), with a broad ecosystem of telecom and utility integrations (MTN, Airtel, Vodafone, M-Pesa, DStv, ZESCO and others) supporting the merchant-facing transaction mix.

Name

Nomanini

Legal name

Nomanini

Website

https://nomanini.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2012

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Nomanini is a South African fintech SaaS platform, founded in 2011, that operates a merchant wallet connecting banks and FMCG distributors to informal retail MSMEs across Africa via payments, white-labelled wallet infrastructure, and supply chain financing.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Merchant Fintech Platform

NAICS

Financial Transactions Processing, Reserve, and Clearinghouse Activities (52232), Sales Financing (52222)

SIC

Short-Term Business Credit Institutions (6153)

akta.pro primary industry

Embedded Payments (Pay-ins, Pay-outs, Wallets) (FSAGALAB)

akta.pro secondary industries

Embedded Deposit Accounts & Digital Wallet Infrastructure (FSAGALAE), Merchant-of-Record (MoR) & Payment Facilitation (PayFac) Infrastructure (FSAGABAE), Marketplace / Platform Acquiring (PayFac & Sub-Merchant Management) (FSAMABAF), Merchant Acquiring & Processing Platforms (BPAMAFAB)

Keywords

• Merchant wallet platform
• Supply chain financing
• Informal retail payments
• MSME digital banking
• Cashless payment infrastructure

Headquarters

HQ city

Cape Town

HQ country

South Africa

HQ region

Africa

Offices3 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Technology or R&D, Personnel, Infrastructure, Operations, Marketing or Sales

Revenue model

1. Merchant Supply Chain Finance: Earn fees on loan book by providing much-needed working capital to merchants in the form of stock advances. Financial service providers deploy a responsible balance sheet to merchants to finance stock from FMCG manufacturers and distributors.
2. Payment Transaction Processing: Merchants can facilitate a range of electronic transactions including selling prepaid airtime and electricity, accepting bill payments, and performing basic cash in/out banking transactions.
3. Platform/Technology Licensing: White-labelled wallet and cloud-based payments infrastructure provided to financial service providers for deployment.

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels4 records

Core offering

Nomanini provides a cloud-based fintech platform built around a Merchant Wallet that connects informal retail MSMEs to FMCG distributors and financial service providers. The platform enables merchants to sell prepaid airtime and electricity, accept bill payments, perform cash-in/cash-out transactions, and access uncollateralised working-capital stock advances based on sales-history credit scoring, while providing banks and FMCG companies with white-labelled wallet infrastructure, payments switching, and supply chain financing solutions.

Product overview

Nomanini is a fintech platform consisting of a core Merchant Wallet that connects informal merchants to distributors and financial service providers, supplemented by a modular suite of solutions. For financial service providers, the platform offers the Merchant Channel (for building pervasive representation points), Merchant Business Wallet (for acquiring retail MSME customers), and Merchant Supply Chain Finance (for deploying capital to merchants). For FMCG companies, the Last-mile Supply Chain Financing solution enables stock financing and distribution optimisation. All solutions are built on a cloud-based, managed-service platform combining payments, working capital, and data analytics.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Merchant Wallet A merchant wallet that connects the fragmented ecosystem around informal merchants, enabling them to offer products and services from a range of distributors using a single device and to offer basic banking services such as prepaid airtime, electricity sales, bill payments, and cash-in/cash-out transactions to their communities. Targeted at informal retail MSMEs and their banking and FMCG partners.
• Merchant Channel An interoperable, white-labelled wallet combined with cloud-based payments infrastructure, switching, core transaction ledger, and management tools that enables financial service providers to rapidly create pervasive points of representation at low cost in cash-first markets.
• Merchant Business Wallet A fit-for-purpose interoperable business wallet for retail MSMEs that enables financial service providers to rapidly acquire retail MSME merchants as business banking customers at scale in cash-first markets.
• Merchant Supply Chain Finance
• Last-mile Supply Chain Financing An embedded supply chain financing solution that enables FMCG manufacturers and distributors to responsibly deploy productive capital to MSME retailers to stock their shelves with FMCG goods, paired with actionable data to optimise supply chain efficiencies.

Quantifiable outcome

• Maintain less than 1% loan default rate while deploying supply chain financing solution in partnership with world's largest FMCG manufacturer

Named customers1 record

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability3 records

Feature5 records

Partnerships

Two partnerships are on record, tiered flagship and core.

• NestléflagshipStrategic or Co-development Partner · 2 December 2020Nestlé partnered with Nomanini and Standard Bank to empower informal retail traders across Eastern and Southern Africa Region (ESAR). Nestlé uses Nomanini's technology to unlock business opportunities and provide working capital to retailers in the form of physical stock rather than cash.
• Standard BankcoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 2 December 2020Standard Bank partnered with Nomanini and Nestlé to deploy supply chain financing solutions to informal retail MSMEs. Standard Bank provides the capital for the working capital loans while Nomanini provides the technology platform and Nestlé supplies the stock.

Scale indicators4 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Broad incumbents

• Onafriq (formerly MFS Africa): Onafriq operates a pan-African digital payments network connecting mobile money operators, banks and merchants across the continent — comparable to Nomanini's payment switching, wallet and cross-border transactional infrastructure targeting African informal markets.
• Flutterwave: Flutterwave provides pan-African payment processing infrastructure for businesses and is progressively expanding into merchant services and embedded finance — comparable to Nomanini's payment processing, merchant acquiring and B2B platform model.
• Lesaka Technologies (formerly Net1 UEPS): Lesaka provides fintech solutions targeting the unbanked and underbanked in emerging markets, including merchant payments, lending and banking-as-a-service — comparable to Nomanini's embedded wallet, supply chain finance and merchant acquisition offerings for informal retailers.
• Cellulant: Cellulant operates a pan-African digital payments platform (Tingg) enabling merchants, banks and businesses to accept and make payments — directly comparable to Nomanini's payment gateway, merchant wallet and bill payment infrastructure across multiple African markets.

Emerging players

• Branch International: Branch is a mobile lending platform serving informal workers and MSMEs in emerging markets (including Africa) using smartphone-based alternative credit scoring — comparable to Nomanini's use of transactional sales history to underwrite uncollateralised loans for informal merchants.
• Tala: Tala extends small uncollateralised loans to underbanked consumers and informal entrepreneurs in emerging markets using alternative smartphone data — closely aligned with Nomanini's credit scoring and MSME lending approach, though Tala focuses on consumer/individual lending rather than merchant supply chain finance.
• Lipa Later: Lipa Later provides buy-now-pay-later and embedded credit for consumers and informal merchants in Africa, with risk underwriting on thin-file customers — comparable to Nomanini's alternative-data credit scoring approach for MSME lending in cash-first markets.

Direct peers

• Kazang / Lesaka Africa: Kazang provides prepaid airtime, electricity, bill payment and value-added services to informal merchants across Southern Africa via a proprietary terminal and wallet — directly comparable to Nomanini's merchant wallet, cash-in/cash-out and bill payment products for the informal trade.
• TradeDepot: TradeDepot is a B2B distribution and embedded finance platform connecting FMCG manufacturers to informal retailers in Africa, including inventory financing — directly comparable to Nomanini's last-mile supply chain financing proposition for FMCGs serving general trade merchants.
• M-KOPA: M-KOPA provides pay-as-you-go solar and digital financial services to underbanked customers across East Africa using alternative credit data and agent networks — directly comparable to Nomanini's model of using sales/usage data to extend credit and financial services to informal end-customers via merchant-style channels.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/Nomanini
• Facebookfacebook.com/Nomanini

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles2 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds7 records

Investors5 records

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Nomanini