Happy New Year. 🎉
As we start a brand-new year at NALA, we're reflecting on the past 12 months, measuring our strides and holding ourselves accountable to our mission: to economically empower Africans worldwide. Let's rewind and relive some of the highlights of 2023.
Here's our CEO and founder, Benjamin, with a short wrap-up of 2023. 🍿
Get it Done - a year of action
This year was all about action – the theme was simple: 'Get it Done.' At the start of the year, the leadership challenged the entire NALA team to "set deadlines and smash them". As Benjamin always says, "If you aren't shipping, you're standing still."
So, how did we do?
This year, we increased our monthly users by 5x whilst tripling both annual send volume and transactions. But we couldn't have done this alone.
Levelling up with licenses
As a result of our close collaboration with governments and financial regulators, we levelled up with four critical new licenses across both our receiver markets and new sender markets. These new licenses pave the way for more affordable and reliable international payments for our users around the globe.
New markets: expanding our horizons
Speaking of new markets, this year, we launched across West Africa, introducing payments to Nigeria, Côte D'Ivoire, Senegal, and Cameroon—a big leap toward connecting the global diaspora.
It isn't all about reaching more people. We want to add value for current customers.
Test. Ship. Repeat
With our shiny new licenses in hand, we released a number of new features over the past 12 months, including bank transfers for EU users, rate sharing from the app, rate comparisons on our website, Rewards Wallet & referrals for our US users, and an improved onboarding experience for US customers.
We also beta-tested the ability to instantly send money to another NALA user via a NALA tag with users in Finland.
But guess what? We're not done.
Building new payment rails
We've been cooking up something special for businesses expanding to Africa. While Africa is home to 54 different countries, what we've been working on will make it feel like a single one. More updates are coming in the new year!
New partnerships
None of this would be possible without our partners and global banks. We're continually adding new partners to our network, working with over 200 banks and telcos across our nine receiver markets.
Fueling the future of African tech
In 2023, we invested in the future of African tech, injecting $6m into the African ecosystem. Earlier this year, we hosted our first Demo Day live event in our Kenyan office, and announced substantial investments in Kenya and Tanzania.
These investments will fuel job creation, strengthen financial infrastructure through technological innovation, and underscore our commitment to supporting economic opportunities in Africa.
The #NALAFamily ❤️
As we grow, staying connected with our community becomes even more crucial. We must understand your pain points and frustrations in order to build the payment platform you deserve. The only way to do that is to speak to our users, and this year was no different, with our team crisscrossing the globe and meeting our community in the UK, US, Europe, and Africa.
We can't wait to do it all again next year!
NALA in the wild
Did you spot us on your travels this year? We have been turning heads across the UK and Tanzania. Thanks to everyone who took a pic! Who knows where we will pop up next? 👀
The NALA Team: 17 countries, 1 mission
Our team has grown from 70 to over 100 this year, representing 21 different nationalities, stationed in 17 countries, and working across multiple different time zones.
We have offices in Nairobi and London, with a third opening soon in West Africa; our global reach is expanding.
Would you like to join the NALA team and help us make 2024 our most impactful year ever? We'd love to hear from you.
Check out all our open roles and learn more about life at NALA here.
Payments in Africa are 1% built, and we're just getting started.
See you in 2024.
