Product and payments expert Kelvin Efosa Obasuyi has identified what he describes as the “invisible gap” preventing businesses across Africa from accessing efficient cross-border payment services, arguing that the world’s most mobile earners remain underserved because existing financial systems were never designed to meet their needs.

Drawing on his experience building cross-border payment infrastructure, Obasuyi said businesses trading across African markets continue to depend on brokers, informal settlement networks and even WhatsApp conversations to move millions of dollars across borders because no suitable financial product exists to replace them.

According to him, the problem is not simply one of regulation or banking restrictions but the absence of payment infrastructure designed specifically for the realities of African trade.

“Somewhere in the chain of transactions that moves money from a Chinese supplier to a Lagos importer, there is a gap that almost nothing has been designed to fill,” he said.

Obasuyi explained that while a Nigerian importer and a Chinese supplier may each have functioning bank accounts, transactions between them often pass through correspondent banks, over-the-counter brokers, advance payment arrangements and informal settlement systems that create delays and uncertainty.

“Between them is a web of correspondent relationships, OTC brokers, advance fees, informal settlement networks, and waiting—always waiting—that would be considered unacceptable in a transaction between two OECD countries but is treated, in corridors running through Africa, as simply the way things work,” he stated.

The payments expert said the idea behind Vector, the platform he founded, emerged after repeatedly encountering businesses forced to operate within this fragmented system.

“I built Vector because I kept running into businesses living inside this gap. Not small businesses. Not informal ones. Companies moving serious volume, paying real suppliers, exporting real goods, attempting to operate as functioning participants in the global economy. They were not doing this through proper financial infrastructure.

They were doing it through relationships, judgment calls, and a great deal of patience, because nothing else existed,” he said.
While many observers blame restrictive regulations, capital controls and the cautious approach of international banks, Obasuyi argued that those factors only explain part of the problem.

“It is tempting to explain this gap as a regulatory problem… All of those things are real. None of them is the root explanation. The root explanation is simpler and harder to fix: nobody has built the right product,” he noted.

He maintained that businesses engaged in cross-border trade need more than remittance platforms or digital wallets. Instead, they require treasury infrastructure capable of holding and moving value across multiple currencies while providing transparency, compliance controls and complete transaction records.

“What it needs is something that behaves like treasury infrastructure: a single place to hold and move value across currencies, with the visibility, controls and audit trail that any serious financial operation requires… designed to absorb the operational reality of hard-currency-scarce markets rather than pretending it away,” he explained.

According to Obasuyi, the payment challenge facing African businesses is not the absence of payment rails, noting that banks, mobile money operators and settlement systems already process substantial transaction volumes across the continent.

Rather, he said, the missing piece lies in the product layer that allows businesses to monitor multi-currency positions, automate reconciliation and replace dependence on brokers with reliable digital infrastructure.

“The payment gap in cross-border African trade is not a gap in rails. Rails exist… The gap sits above the rail, in the product layer… that replaces the broker relationship and the WhatsApp thread with something that works consistently regardless of whether your usual contact picks up the phone,” he said.

Obasuyi stressed that the businesses affected are not fringe operators but importers, exporters and logistics companies handling billions of dollars in trade across multiple currencies.

“The businesses caught in this gap are not marginal actors. They are the importers keeping Nigerian manufacturing alive, the exporters waiting on proceeds that are already three weeks late, the logistics operators managing working capital across four currencies simultaneously,” he said.

He also pointed to the withdrawal of several global correspondent banking relationships from Africa, saying the trend has further increased transaction costs and reduced formal payment options for businesses across the continent.

However, he insisted that the underlying problem predates that development because the payment products required by African businesses had never been built in the first place.

Sharing insights from Vector’s development journey, Obasuyi said creating such infrastructure demands years of regulatory engagement, licensing across multiple jurisdictions and close collaboration with banking partners.

“Building that layer… is not romantic work. It involves navigating multi-jurisdiction licensing, building operational depth to handle edge cases at scale, and working closely enough with regulated banking partners to be taken seriously rather than merely tolerated,” he said.

He maintained that while building payment infrastructure may not attract the same attention as consumer-facing financial apps, it remains essential to supporting businesses that drive trade between Africa and the rest of the world.

“Those businesses have been making do without proper infrastructure for long enough. The gap is not unfillable. It is unfilled. That is a different problem, and it has a different solution,” he added.