Nigeria’s Kora has been cleared of money laundering and card fraud allegations made against them by the Keyan Asset Recovery Agency in July.
According to its website, the Kenyan agency known as ARA is responsible for locating, freezing, seizing, confiscating, and recovering the profits of crime in the nation of East Africa. The agency filed two separate lawsuits in July 2022, and on July 14th, a Kenyan High Court ordered that Kora’s account and those of Kandon Technologies Limited, another Nigerian fintech company, be frozen.
In October, Kora announced that it had interacted with Kenyan authorities, walking them through its procedures and records. As a result, on October 19, 2022, ARA agreed to dismiss the allegations in a court document submitted on its behalf by state attorney Stephen Githinji. This Thursday, the organization submitted a new document that exonerated Kora of any misconduct in the ARA application.
Read a portion of the document. “Please note that investigations are now finalized. I would like to confirm that allegations of money laundering and card fraud against [Kora] were not established. Please treat this communication as final.”
Chief Operating Officer of Kora, Gideon Orovwiroro, claimed that the business has consistently maintained its innocence in the situation.
Read also: Kenya Clears Kandon Technologies Of Money Laundering Allegations
Why has Kora not Received CBK licenses?
However, obtaining licenses for financial services in Kenya seems to be a difficult task. Despite having met the CBK’s deposit requirements, Kora has yet to receive a license, and other fintech companies are in a similar situation. Two of Africa’s seven unicorns, Flutterwave and Chipper Cash, were recently barred from processing payments in the nation because they lacked the necessary licenses.
In a positive development, Paystack, a different Nigerian payment startup, was able to obtain the CBK’s elusive payment service provider license in November. This development is anticipated to make the application process easier for others or, at the very least, give them more confidence to do so in the future.
Additionally, Orovwiroro states that the allegation interestingly has no bearing on Kora’s operations. Despite the back-and-forth, he claims that the business recognizes the opportunity that Kenya presents for achieving its goal of making it simple for both global businesses to accept payments in Africa and for African businesses to accept payments from around the world.
“We are launching multi-currency bank account products for African businesses. This will empower merchants to have bank accounts in GBP, EUR, USD, and other in-demand currencies,” he explained.
Kenya Asset Recovery Agency (ARA) Drops Money Laundering Charges Against Nigerian Companies
What’s Next For Kora In Kenya?
In 2021, Kora branched out into Kenya, an East African country. In just two African nations—Nigeria and Kenya—the business processed over $1.5 billion in transaction volume during the same year.
Dickson Nsofor and Bryan Uyanwune founded Kora in 2018, intending to assist Africans living abroad to send money back to their home countries. Instead, the business changed course to create a strong payment infrastructure that now enables both domestic and foreign companies to handle payments into and out of Africa. In an earlier interview, Orovwiroro said, “We started with remittances, but we figured out that if we can simplify payment within Africa as well, it will produce wealth for the region.
“Kora acknowledges potential Kenya presents as we pursue our mission to make it easy for global businesses to accept payments in Africa, and for African businesses to accept global payments. We are delighted to get back to building the most robust payment product on the African continent,” Orovwiroro explains.
Kora has stated that it will work with the appropriate authorities to get the necessary licenses and operational permits in Kenya. This will revive the confidence of customers.