After recurring disruptions on an external transfer service left customers waiting, FXKudi moved to develop more of its own payments software. Its technical co-founder and CTO discusses the engineering choices behind VTMoney’s Nigeria–Ghana offering.

When someone makes a cross-border payment through a fintech app, the process may appear as simple as entering an amount, confirming the recipient’s details and pressing a transfer button. But the journey does not end there.

A cross-border transaction involves more than transmitting an instruction. The application must communicate with payment services, maintain accurate transaction records and handle responses that may arrive late, unexpectedly or not at all.

Payment service providers (PSPs) facilitate electronic transactions between customers, businesses and financial institutions. They enable payments through methods such as bank transfers, cards and digital wallets, often through a single integration.

A cross-border payment may stall even when an application indicates that it has been processed. A transfer can remain pending while software services, payment partners and financial institutions investigate what happened. Yet customers usually direct their questions to the company that accepted the transfer request.

FXKudi Group encountered this problem while relying on third-party payment service providers to move money between Nigeria and Ghana. Recurring interruptions sometimes left customers waiting, while the company had limited control over the systems on which the experience depended.

In response, FXKudi decided to invest in VTMoney, a digital banking and payments platform, to take greater ownership of the software and integrations supporting its services.

Adedeji Rotibi, who joined FXKudi in 2022 as Technical Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer, led the engineering team and personally worked on the technology behind the product.

“When the provider had downtime, our customers were the ones left waiting. We decided we needed greater control over the software and integrations our customers depended on—not just another interface for the same experience,” Rotibi says.

From payment interruptions to a product strategy

FXKudi Group was established by entrepreneur Tunji Abioye in 2020. When Rotibi joined two years later, the business had experience using third-party payment services, but recurring transfer disruptions strengthened the case for developing its own platform.

The decision was not to build a bank or replace the financial institutions required to settle payments. Rather, FXKudi wanted to take greater responsibility for its application services, transaction handling and integrations with the partners that provide the underlying financial infrastructure.

VTMoney’s initial iOS release was publicly available in June 2023. The platform subsequently developed services for customers and businesses, including digital accounts and transactions involving supported currencies and markets.

The engineering beneath a transfer

Nigeria and Ghana operate with different currencies, banking arrangements and local payment requirements. That means the engineering team must account for differences between the two markets rather than assume that every integration will work in the same way.

Rotibi’s involvement in VTMoney combined system design with implementation. He worked on backend services, APIs, financial-service integrations, mobile functionality and tests, while coordinating engineers across the product. The development stack has included PHP/Laravel, Redis and Flutter.

“The customer sees a transfer button, but the engineering challenge is everything that happens after it is pressed. You have to account for interruptions, delayed responses and the need to know exactly what state a transaction is in,” Rotibi explains.

His role was not limited to supervising developers. Rotibi contributed hands-on code and technical decisions while leading the team building the platform. The distinction is relevant in a sector where responsibility for architectural choices can be as important as responsibility for delivery.

The company’s systems have to connect customer-facing features with the appropriate financial partners, rather than assume that one integration or process works identically across both countries. That makes payment reliability an ongoing software-engineering and operational responsibility.

Why the Nigeria–Ghana corridor matters

According to the United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics Database (UN COMTRADE), the World Bank, and the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) regional trade statistics, the total formal, recorded bilateral trade between Nigeria and Ghana for 2024 was valued at approximately $192.1 million.

Commercial links between Nigeria and Ghana create demand for dependable payment services. Merchants, businesses and individuals making transfers across the corridor must navigate different currencies and financial environments.

For FXKudi Group, the Nigeria–Ghana corridor presented an opportunity to address some of the difficulties customers faced when moving money across borders.

For merchants sourcing inventory and individuals making transfers, the experience involves more than whether money moves. Users need to understand the status of a transaction, while payment providers must coordinate the institutions and processes involved.

VTMoney aims to simplify access to supported financial services across these markets. Its development illustrates a broader shift in African fintech: moving beyond attractive customer interfaces to investing in the systems that coordinate payments, records and partner integrations.

Adedeji Rotibi, who studied Computer Science at the University of Lagos, previously completed two software-engineering internships at JPMorgan Chase in London. He also worked in engineering roles at consumer-technology companies Edenlife and FoodBundles before focusing on fintech infrastructure at FXKudi.

“Building VTMoney did not mean we could control every bank or payment network. It meant taking more ownership of the technology we built and the parts of the experience we could improve,” he says.

Reliability is a continuing test

FXKudi’s transaction records, supplied to the writer and reviewed by the editor, indicate that around three in ten transactions failed during 2021–2022, when the company relied on a third-party transfer provider. Following VTMoney’s launch in 2023, the recorded failure rate fell to approximately one in 100 transactions. The figures show a substantial improvement in the reported transaction experience, although the platform continues to depend on banking and payment partners.

What can be established is the engineering direction. Rather than rely solely on a third party’s customer-facing transfer service, FXKudi built and continued developing its own banking and payment application, with Rotibi combining technical leadership and direct implementation.

For West African fintech companies, the larger lesson is that a payment is only as dependable as the systems and partnerships behind it. The transfer button may be simple; making what follows predictable is the harder work.