Raenest, a Nigerian cross-border payments fintech, wants users to do more than receive money from abroad, its co-founder and chief executive officer, Richard Oyome, said at Moonshot 2026 in Lagos on Thursday.
Oyome traced the company’s strategy to the evolution of Africa’s fintech market, which moved from expanding access to digital banking and lending to helping people receive payments from international clients as remote work grew during the COVID-19 pandemic. As more Africans began working for foreign companies and serving customers abroad, he said, the need for financial services that connect them to global markets grew.
At Raenest Exchange 2026 on October 21, the company announced new products and features, including Raenest Vaults, a savings product offering annual yields of up to 16% on naira balances and 7% on dollar and stablecoin balances. It also expanded its USDT and USDC payment capabilities, improved its invoicing and payment links, and introduced new card options. The announcements extend the company’s services beyond cross-border payments.
“We were focused on receiving, but then again, receiving is just the beginning, not the end,” Oyome said at Moonshot. “The end is after receiving. When we started raenest, we focused on receiving not the end. Now, we’ve solved spending, now we’re focusing on the problem of earning.”
Founded in 2022, Raenest helps individuals, freelancers, creators, and businesses receive, send, store, and spend money across borders. The company says it has more than 1.5 million customers and has processed about $3 billion since inception.
Oyome said Raenest was built to help people overcome barriers to participating in the global economy by providing accounts in their own names that connect them to international markets. The company initially focused on helping users receive international payments. Its newer products are intended to address how users store their money and earn returns on it.
“Without the ability to earn or connect to global banking industries across the world, there is no opportunity to earn,” he said.
Oyome also said that the environment for companies operating in the crypto industry was also changing, with governments across Africa becoming more open to discussions about digital assets.
In July, Nigeria signed a Virtual Assets Coordination prder that established a framework to coordinate oversight among financial, revenue, and capital markets agencies. The order also provided for a regulatory sandbox in which eligible virtual-asset businesses can test products under supervision. Ghana has also introduced its Virtual Asset Service Providers Act, 2025, which provides for the licensing and supervision of businesses operating in the sector.
“Today, the governments across Africa are adopting. I think governments are happy to have conversations about crypto. It’s a success because we are coming from a very different time” Oyome said. “It’s a good time for people playing in the stablecoin space.”
The growing use of stablecoins presents an opportunity for Raenest to improve its payment operations. Oyome said stablecoins help Raenest settle payments faster.
“What we’ve seen as the biggest value is speed,” Oyome said. He explained that stablecoins allow the company to collect and settle funds faster, improving its cash flow and giving it quicker access to money that would otherwise take days to arrive.
As Raenest combines traditional currencies with stablecoins, Oyome said the company wants to shield customers from the technical complexity behind moving money across different networks.
“It can feel complicated. We don’t want it to be complicated. We have a blend of fiat and stablecoins,” he said.
He expects financial services to evolve towards a model in which users can move money without having to understand the underlying payment infrastructure or distinguish between different stablecoins.