Pesalink joins PAPSS

 Uche Ukonu Jnr is an operator and venture builder based in Lagos, Nigeria. His expertise is helping companies, firms, and other stakeholders execute special projects, optimise operations, and validate product/project pilots for scale across West and East Africa.

He also founded and bootstrapped Smallchops.ng to profitability, worked as Chief of Staff in EdenLife's food production arm (Homemade), and most recently led the team that executed one of the largest single-entity owned electric vehicle (EV) ecosystems in Nigeria.

I help people build their biggest ideas properly so that they don’t fall apart. Sometimes “adults” have powerful ideas, but they’re messy, like toys everywhere on the floor. I help organise the toys, decide which ones are important, show everyone how to play together properly, and make sure they remember how to play nice even when I’m not there.

The first thing I look at is the definition of what success is to the sponsors and stakeholders of the operation, and this usually comes from gaining clarity on what the success indicators are, their dependencies, what the operating environment currently looks like, what the execution risks are, and how much time there is to convert the “messiness” to excellent execution.

Once success is clearly defined, the mess usually becomes a systems problem, and systems can be redesigned and optimised.

One thing consumer startups underestimate is operational complexity at scale. They usually find out too late how unforgiving it can be. Demand is exciting, but if your supply chain, quality control, and cost discipline aren’t tight, growth actually magnifies your problems.

So the real work isn’t growth. It’s designing repeatable systems where quality, cost, and speed can coexist, because scale doesn’t fix weak systems. It exposes them.

Pesalink, Kenya’s interbank money transfer platform, has connected to the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS), the intra-African payment network linking over 200 financial institutions, for banks and mobile money operators in Kenya to receive cross-border transfers in local currency. 

It’s a big deal: Cross-border payments in Africa are still slow and expensive. Transfers often clear offshore, which incurs FX spreads and can take days. PAPSS’s whole mission is to fix that. It already piloted local-currency settlements in West Africa, including Nigeria and Ghana. 

Kenya is now in the mix, with Pesalink acting as the technical bridge on the Kenyan side. Now, when money moves from a bank connected to PAPSS in another African country to Kenya, it can route funds directly into a Kenyan bank account, with settlement handled locally.

What happens to the crypto corridors? A recent trend in the cross-border payments sector is fintech startups building cross-border payment corridors using stablecoins and blockchain rails. Many of them use dollar-backed stablecoins or integrate with networks like Polygon as settlement layers to move money instantly and then convert to local currency on the other end. Their pitch is usually faster and cheaper payments, which sounds… very similar to what PAPSS is trying to achieve.

Will it become a bank vs blockchain race? Not quite. PAPSS brings regulatory comfort and integration into the formal banking systems, while stablecoin-based corridors promise speed. The winner that will take it all will be the rail that adequately balances pricing with reliability and user experience.

Nigeria has secured fresh funding for Project BRIDGE, the federal government’s plan to blanket the country in fibre-optic cable. After a two-week investment tour across six European countries, the Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, Bosun Tijani, announced that the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) approved a $100 million investment into the project.

This adds to the $500 million already secured from the World Bank. On top of that, the European Union (EU) signed a €45 million ($53 million) Digital Economy Package. Out of that, €22 million ($26 million) is a direct grant for Project BRIDGE, while the rest goes into digital public services.

What exactly is Project BRIDGE? Project BRIDGE is Nigeria’s plan to expand its fibre backbone from about 35,000 kilometres to 125,000 kilometres. The goal is to connect all 774 local government areas with high-speed broadband infrastructure. Right now, fibre coverage is concentrated in major cities like Lagos and Abuja. BRIDGE wants to expand that connectivity bandwidth into underserved regions.

Why it matters: More fibre is not just about having your Netflix load faster or your messages delivered at greater speeds. Infrastructure capable of supporting AI, fintechs, edtechs, SMEs, or digital public services all need a strong fiber backbone to run smoothly. And the willingness of European development lenders to commit capital suggests growing confidence that Nigeria’s fibre ambition is bankable.

Source:

* Data as of 06.37 AM WAT, February 27, 2026.

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