Fintech Finesse: How a Founder in Nairobi Bridged the African Currency Gap 

Meet Elizabeth Rossiello, CEO and founder of the global b2b fintech, AZA Finance. Founded in Nairobi in 2013, the company’s mission is to power African trade and accelerate the growth of businesses across the continent. The last decade has seen AZA Finance serve more than 1.5 million customers, making them the most experienced fintech for businesses operating in frontier markets and currencies. 

In 2021, Rossiello was in the inaugural class of Bloomberg’s New Economy Catalysts, and AZA’s progress under her purview has led her to be named as one of the Standout 45 in the Women in FinTech Powerlist by Innovate Finance every year since 2022. Under her leadership, AZA was recently named a Top 50 Inspiring Workplace in the Middle East and Africa, and was shortlisted for FinTech Future’s PayTech Awards for the Best Use of Tech in the Business Payments category. In 2021, AZA Finance was also named as one of the global top 10 Most Innovative Companies by Fast Company. 

Journey and global footprint 

In 2009, Rossiello was working in Nairobi, Kenya, as a ratings analyst for financial institutions. Frustrated by the low ratings and mistrust Western institutions had in African currencies, she set out to understand why they chronically underserved African economies in this way. The answer, at the time, was currency connections. When abroad, it was impossible to send money back to Kenya as Kenyan shillings. Millions of people, including AZA’s founding team, traveled across Africa for work, but could not top-up or send payments to their home networks when out of the country. It was possible to use a country’s currency for everything while physically there, but as soon as you left its borders, access evaporated. The reason for this lack of access was that many financial institutions didn’t offer African currency pairs. The only currency pair was with a G20 currency, like the US dollar, meaning that every African-to-African currency transaction was slower and more expensive. The financial infrastructure to connect currencies and markets directly was starting to be explored by fintechs like AZA Finance, but also by digital currency enthusiasts – and it would be key to realizing Africa’s predicted trillion-dollar growth.  

AZA Finance was born with the aim to bridge the currency and financial services gap for African businesses, using fintech as the solution for better and cheaper FX, payments, and treasury.  Even to this day, major financial institutions in London, New York and Frankfurt, among others, still offer very high prices for African currencies because they don’t have much data about the market. AZA does, which is why they can be competitive in their pricing, speed, and access. 

Today, AZA’s offices in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Spain, Uganda and the United Kingdom (UK) allow the company to be active across Africa, Europe, and North America (with payments coverage throughout Latin America, the Caribbean, and Asia).  

Now, African businesses (as well as multinational companies operating in Africa, or other enterprises and NGOs expanding in Africa) can operate in more markets more efficiently. By providing the tech layer that syncs all of the financial players – banks, mobile money, payments services providers, money transmitter organizations, cash networks, fintechs – AZA has found a way to provide licensed, secure, stable and reliable business payments, FX, and treasury. When a customer comes to AZA, they can reach the continent.   

Additionally, AZA Finance is fully regulated and licensed by the Bank of Uganda, the Central Bank of Nigeria, The South African Reserve Bank, Bank of Spain, and the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority. It is also certified by world-class security standards including PCI-DSS, ISO27001 and SOCII.