Powering The Financial Rails Behind Africa’s Cross-Border Transactions

Words and Curation: Oluwatomisin Amokeoja
Additional Reporting: Chanel Retief and Nicole Pillay
Art Director: Manelisi Dabata
Photography: Kelechi Amadi-Obi
Photography Assistants: Chukwudi Ademu, Vincent Okoro, Kingsley Ugwukozor, Musa Alabi, Jesutofunmi Amokeoja, Anthony Ibuzo
Stylist: Isaac Isiadinso (Kookavelli) Stylist’s Assistant: Timilehin Oshinbanjo
Outfits: VREEMD, RAEY, Soft aiv couture and Berluti
Makeup & Hair: Oluwatoyin Eko
Studio: 12 Temple, Lagos, Nigeria

“There’s no one-size-fits-all here. You need to understand every country—from exchange regulations to cultural nuances—and build something that respects that.”  

Dressed in a sharp black suit, Adewole Adedeji, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Starks Associates, is adept at multitasking. His day seems to be a mix of urgency and necessity, not unlike the market Starks operates in.  

“In Africa, there’s over $2 billion trapped due to currency restrictions,” he explains between takes, eyes darting to his laptop. “Our job is to unlock it.”  

Founded to power the financial rails behind Africa’s most challenging cross-border transactions, Starks Associates has become an invisible yet vital force in the region’s fintech ecosystem. Its specialty? Making payments seamless and compliant across over 15 African countries, with backend infrastructure built for speed, flexibility, and real-world nuance.  

Starks began by supporting some of the continent’s best-known players, including Afreximbank’s Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS). Today, it’s the silent backbone for sectors like aviation, telecoms, and FMCG companies grappling with moving money across a fragmented continent.  

Adedeji draws on an analogy from the aviation sector. “You have airlines based in Africa like Kenya Airways or RwandAir, and then you have foreign ones like British Airways,” he explains.  

“We already serve the African-based carriers—helping them extract funds from tough markets and convert them into usable currencies in countries like Kenya, Rwanda, and South Africa.”  

But this is only one side of the coin. For the foreign airlines, Starks has built an alternative corridor. 

“Instead of struggling to extract dollars from countries with tight capital controls, they can now use our pan-African infrastructure to convert and repatriate through Kenya or Nigeria, where new laws have improved FX access,” he says.  

The impact of such interventions go far beyond corporate boardrooms.  

Across Africa, small businesses routinely face delays—or dead ends—in moving capital. For trade-driven SMEs, the inability to secure credit or fund invoices creates a bottleneck that strangles growth before it begins.  

Starks is attempting to solve that problem with a layered approach: embedded AI, real-time liquidity analysis, and an understanding of trade behavior beyond traditional data points.  

“AI is a no-brainer for us,” Adedeji says. “We’re using it not for the buzz, but because we need it to score clients in countries where there’s no credit bureau, or where access to financial history is impossible.”  

That means feeding non-traditional data—like payment patterns and trade history—into machine learning models that can assess risk and recommend funding decisions. The goal is to create a system where SMEs can receive financing using trade-backed instruments, like invoices or letters of credit, even without formal credit history.  

It’s a distinctly African solution for a deeply African problem.  

“There’s no one-size-fits-all here,” Adedeji says. “You need to understand every country—from exchange regulations to cultural nuances—and build something that respects that.”  

On the multi-currency side, Starks is building its next phase: a platform where any African business open accounts across borders and settle payments within hours—ideally, within seconds.  

“Right now, we’re settling trades in a few hours,” he says. “But we’re pushing for automation to make it feel instant–flash payments across Africa.”  

At the photoshoot for FORBES AFRICA, Adedeji finishes the final frame, glances at his watch, then at the door. He barely waits for the camera to stop rolling before he dashes off for his next big meeting.