According to the World Bank, in 2023, African immigrants sent home more than $54 billion in remittances. These transfers are not extras for families in Lagos, Nairobi, or Accra; they are lifelines that pay rent, buy food, and fund education.
Yet when those same immigrants apply for a loan, a mortgage, or even a basic credit card in their new locations, those payments count for nothing.
This disconnect has left millions of Africans abroad financially unrecognised, even as they participate in one of the most resilient and essential flows of capital into the continent.
A Nigerian nurse in New York may send hundreds of dollars monthly back home, but when she approaches a bank for a mortgage, her remittance records do not exist in the credit scoring system.
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That is the problem Kredete, a fintech startup founded in 2022 by Adeola Adedewe, wants to solve. And with its fresh $22 million Series A round, the company has signalled that it is no longer an experiment on the margins of fintech. It aims to reshape how remittances and credit are understood and to do so globally.
In a LinkedIn post announcing the raise, Adedewe wrote: “We started Kredete to solve a personal problem — how immigrants can be recognised for their financial responsibilities. With this funding, we are closer to making remittances count as credit globally.”
The promise of Kredete
Kredete’s premise is simple: what if sending money home could also build your credit abroad?
The startup links cross-border remittances with a custom-built credit-building engine. Users in North America and Europe can send money to more than 30 African countries while reporting those transactions to credit bureaus in their host nations. In effect, a routine remittance becomes a data point that boosts credit scores.
The company claims over 700,000 monthly users, has processed $500 million in remittances, and reports an average 58-point increase in U.S. credit scores among its active customers.
Beyond individual users, Kredete has built an API for businesses, allowing cross-border payouts into Africa using stablecoin networks— a move that positions it as a consumer-facing app and a financial infrastructure provider.
And the ambitions go further. With this new funding, the startup is rolling out Africa’s first stablecoin-backed credit card across over 40 countries, introducing rent reporting, savings-linked credit, and goal-based loans. It’s a bold vision: to make remittances count for families receiving them and immigrants who send them.
“We believe remittances are not just money transfers,” Adedewe noted. “They are proof of financial responsibility, and with Kredete, immigrants can finally be recognised for that.”
Why this matters
The stakes go well beyond one startup.
Remittances are not just money transfers; they are a significant source of foreign exchange for many African economies. In 2023, they accounted for more than 3 per cent of Sub-Saharan Africa’s GDP, often surpassing foreign aid and, in some cases, foreign direct investment.
Yet, for the senders, remitting has long been treated as charity rather than creditworthiness.
Kredete challenges this by reframing remittances as evidence of financial responsibility. If an immigrant can consistently send $300 home every month for years, why should that not count toward their ability to manage a mortgage or a car loan?
This model, if scaled, could:
- Lower remittance costs by leveraging stablecoins and bypassing costly intermediaries.
2. Boost immigrant credit access in host countries, opening doors to affordable loans and mortgages.
3. Strengthen African economies by ensuring inflows are more efficient and digitally traceable.
But optimism must be tempered with hard questions. Kredete is not the first company to promise to transform remittances or credit systems, and the graveyard of fintech startups is filled with well-meaning experiments that stumbled on execution.
Regulation is the first hurdle. Although stablecoins may offer cheap and fast transfers, they are under increasing scrutiny from U.S., European, and African regulators.
Governments fear unregulated stablecoin flows could destabilise financial systems or enable illicit transactions. Kredete must navigate these complex frameworks while convincing regulators its model strengthens rather than undermines financial oversight.
Trust and adoption pose another challenge. Remittances are mainly personal; families rely on them for survival. Will immigrants entrust their money and credit histories to a relatively young startup?
The incumbents, Western Union, MoneyGram, and Wise, may be expensive but are trusted names. Kredete must prove its efficiency and reliability.
Competition is fierce. From pan-African fintechs like Chipper Cash and Onafriq to global payment giants, the remittance space is crowded. Kredete’s differentiator is its credit-linking feature, but scaling across multiple countries, each with different credit bureau structures, will not be easy.
Finally, execution at scale remains a risk. Reporting remittances consistently and accurately to credit bureaus across the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and Europe will require a strong technical and compliance infrastructure. Even one high-profile error could irreparably damage user trust.
The remittance’s bigger vision
Still, dismissing Kredete as just another remittance app would be a mistake. Its innovation lies not only in technology but also in perspective.
Kredete represents a form of reverse innovation: solving credit and remittance challenges for African markets and then exporting those solutions to global diaspora communities.
This is reminiscent of how drone delivery pioneer Zipline began in Rwanda before expanding to the U.S., proving that ideas forged in Africa can transform global systems.
Equally important, Kredete reframes financial identity itself. Instead of basing creditworthiness solely on debt repayment, it rewards immigrants for their economic responsibility to family and community.
This shift is not just about access to loans. It is about dignity. It is about ensuring that African immigrants are seen not as invisible workers sending money into a void, but as financially capable actors who deserve access to the full range of financial opportunities in their new locations.
This is more than a funding milestone. It is a bet on a new financial narrative for the African diaspora. It is a statement that remittances should not end at the Western Union counter or a mobile wallet, but should count toward building lasting financial futures.
However, whether this vision becomes adopted depends more on technology and capital. It will be on regulation, execution, and whether immigrants embrace a system that asks them to see remittances not just as family support but as building blocks of their credit story.
This may transform remittances from silent acts of sacrifice into recognised proof of financial stability. If it stumbles, it will serve as another cautionary tale in the crowded world of fintech.
Either way, the question will not go away: shouldn’t the billions of immigrants send home finally count for something more?