Podcast · Episode 4
Building the Blackrock of Africa
Episode 4 of the LFG! podcast is here. This time we welcome Joe Kinvi, CEO of Borderless, as he explains the major funding opportunity in Africa.
Episode Description
What if the African diaspora could close a $400 billion funding gap, together?
Joe Kinvi, founder of Borderless, joins Ian to break down his mission to build the investment infrastructure for emerging markets, starting with the African diaspora. With an estimated $40 billion sitting idle in diaspora bank accounts, and a $400 billion funding gap to close on the continent, Joe believes the biggest opportunity in global investing is hiding in plain sight.
We get into how Borderless is digitising centuries-old communal savings traditions, why trust (not technology) is the real barrier to cross-border investment, and what it actually takes to build financial infrastructure across 54 countries and 42 currencies.
Joe also shares lessons from his time at TouchTech, Stripe, and Paystack, and why African founders need to raise on traction, not hype.
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This transcript was produced with transcription software and lightly edited for readability. It may contain errors and might not be a word-for-word record of the conversation. If anything looks off, the audio and video are the definitive version.
Hello everyone and welcome to LFG. I'm Ian Horne, and today we're talking with a man who's trying to build the BlackRock for Africa. We've got to get into that. Let's not mess around with a big intro, I started with an indulgent jingle, you've all heard it. So, Joe Kinvi, founder of Borderless, welcome to LFG. How are you doing?
Ian, thank you for having me. I love the intro, it's very dancey.
Well, the thing is, I feel the jingle part of the intro is really fun. I love it, I'm kind of way too into that kind of music. It's a bygone era, in a way. It's already like 20 years since that kind of music was popular, but I'm loving it.
20 years was 2005, doesn't feel like it.
No, I know, and that's how we know we're getting old, like Millennials, right? We're so close to being cringe.
Yes, very.
That scares me, to be honest, but it's happening. Anyway, I meant to keep the intro short so as not to be self-indulgent, and here I am having an absolute sidetrack, but it's all good. Joe, I've got so much I want to talk to you about today. Thanks for coming on the podcast. I think the first thing is Borderless, tell us more about it, because what you're building is really ambitious and fascinating. So tell us a bit more about what you're doing there.
At a very high level, we're building the investment infrastructure for emerging markets, starting with the African diaspora. When you look at the data, the biggest funder of these emerging markets, LatAm, Africa, Asia, is actually their diaspora. They're sending, I think it's nearly a trillion a year, except all of this money is for consumption. When you really think about it, development happens through investments. And I believe that the people who will help these regions, especially starting with Africa, are going to be its diaspora. The African diaspora are sending about 100 billion back home, beyond the remittance, the consumption remittance. They also have anything between 20 and 40 billion dollars sitting idle in bank accounts, not invested in the S&P, and we believe we can be the channel, the infrastructure, that enables them to invest this capital back home, where it can be deployed across infrastructure, startups, real estate, anything that requires investment. And where they can also get above-market-rate returns. For context, when you look at the risk-free return in Africa, it's about 15%, compared to what you'd get in Europe, I think Europe is like 2-3%, the US is around 4-5%. The piece that's missing is the infra. If you can build that infra, which we're actively working on, you can now help fund these regions and provide above-market returns for investors, and I think it's a win-win for everybody.
Yeah. And like you said, there's just money that's left on the sidelines, not going into markets. What are the biggest reasons for that? Is it cultural? Is it infrastructure? What are the challenges you're facing here?
It's trust, right? No trust. There's a famous saying, which is: people go abroad, save a lot of money, send it back home to have a house or something built, and their uncle or their relative essentially spends the money. We've heard so many of these stories, and a lot of the African diaspora specifically are in capital-preservation mode. They don't want to lose that money to that uncle, because if your uncle spends the money, you actually can't do anything to your uncle.
Specifically your uncle, yeah.
Yeah. So they're holding on to that money, except, when you keep that money in the bank, it's losing. It's losing to inflation. So you have to do something with it. But people would rather lose to inflation than send it back home where it's spent on nonsense, and that's their hard work being eroded away. What's missing is building that trust infrastructure, where when they deploy that capital, they know exactly where it's going, they know what's coming back, and if they're going to lose that money, they already know in advance. For example, we've done a lot of stuff in the startup space, and before somebody sends us a single penny, we let them know the risk, "You might lose this money, and if you're comfortable with that, then proceed." That risk warning doesn't exist when you're sending money to your uncle. Your uncle is actually going to over-promise and under-deliver, and we want to do the inverse.
And like you say, you're operating in a space where trust is everything. So Borderless is about pooling money with friends and family, but into, would you say it's high-risk assets? Would that be fair to say?
Yeah, right now that's what we're doing. When you look at my background, I come from a fintech-heavy background where we've interacted with a lot of startups, and we believe that if we can mobilise a small number of people into higher-risk assets, it'll actually get easier as you come down to the low-risk, mass-population end. So what we've done so far is startups, some real estate, but really and truly we want to go down, really down, to government bonds. Now, government bonds, treasury bills, things that are safe, except the diaspora don't trust their governments, right? I think one African country defaulted two years ago; except they actually do really well, but we don't trust our governments. Everybody's looking for that middle piece, and we want to be that middle piece. So high-risk now, but we want to come down. And with everything that's happening, technology is moving fast, now we can move money across borders frictionlessly. There's no excuse. The challenge is that many people don't understand this money movement, and hence we're here, on the fintech angle: how money moves from the West to the Global South and back. I've been very fortunate to have worked in that space, with the biggest fintech companies in the world and in Africa. So I think we have that unique advantage where we really understand how to move money in but also move money out. And we want to work with African governments, where they can finally raise money from their people outside, and these people can now fund their countries.
Yeah, this is really fascinating, and as you suggest, it's a massive opportunity.
Huge.
And I guess this trust thing, I'm going to go back to it one more time, because it's the most crucial thing. How do you build for trust? Because, as we discussed, these are generally high-risk assets at the moment, and perhaps that's the only way it can be built right now. But what can you do within Borderless to build that confidence that you're managing the investments as well as you can?
So the good news is, we're not managing investments.
Okay.
Right now we're building tools for groups to co-invest. People call them syndicates, angel groups, collectives. When you look at the fabric of African culture, we're very communal, right? And when you dig in a bit more, we've had communal ways to pool money that go back centuries. We have things you've heard of, like stokvels in South Africa, ajo, there's a name for it, where people essentially pool money together and either save it or invest it. We already have these systems in place. What we're doing is digitising these systems for investments. For example, when Joe goes to Borderless, Joe sets up his own collective, brings his people, and Joe, as the collective manager, comes with an opportunity. Before you even deploy that capital, you need to speak to the founders, make sure they're legit, do some cross-referencing, and you need a couple of people to actually come together and say, "Okay, we're going to do this." That's where trust is built. You don't just have one person making the decision, you have a couple of people, where you have the devil's advocate. Somebody's like, "I don't think we should do this," the other person's like, "I think we should do this." And we've done this at scale. We actually started with our own syndicate and built the infrastructure around it, because we believe the way forward is doing it together. The piece that's missing is the infrastructure. And I'm in WhatsApp groups that just confirm this has been happening way before Borderless. What we want to do is provide a technological infrastructure for people to do it at scale. And when you organise all these people in one place, that's where it gets exciting, because what else can you offer them? They already trust the platform, they've done stuff, they've sent money, they got the money back, and now you can enable them to do way, way more things. But the new thing is the infrastructure.
It's really fascinating, because it's not just a technology issue, it's very much a cultural thing. You're building for a different society and different norms. I don't know if you've got any really clear-cut examples just yet, but could you point out some examples of communities that have had a lot of success doing this, or particular investments that have done well?
Yeah, so there's a collective called Das Warehouse. It's a collective that invests in real estate. They invested in two properties in Nairobi, Kenya, last year. Essentially, you have about 33 people; they all invested between $5,000 and $10,000 and pooled the money together, and the syndicate managers went and executed the transaction. Every single thing along the line, Borderless has been in the mix, all the paperwork, sending the money, getting all the receipts. And when those properties got funded, they put them on the market. You can Google it, it's on Airbnb, where people can now rent these properties. All the rental income is pooled through Borderless and distributed to all the investors. It's a very neat model. It's not new, by the way, pooled investment in real estate is not new. We're just doing that cross-border, for people who really believe in the future of real estate in Africa.
Yeah, that's absolutely fascinating. Another thing I want to get into is that, obviously, you're operating across Africa, it's not just in one nation. And just like many other places, Africa has quite a fragmented regulatory landscape. So how do you work around that? If you're trying to create pooled investments across different jurisdictions, what challenges have you had to overcome?
I literally have a very long list.
I was going to say, this is going to be the dry part of the conversation, but I think we need to know, right? It's tough.
Yeah. So, for folks who don't know: Africa has 54 countries, 42 currencies, 54 different regulatory environments. It's very, very, very messy. Except, for people who've invested in Africa before, we tend to leverage Western compliance environments. For example, all the capital that we pool happens in the UK, and the UK just happens to have one of the most stringent compliance and regulatory environments. So we actually don't go on a country-by-country basis, we go from the UK, which allows you to essentially cover the entire continent. Now, depending on the asset you're investing in, you might have to follow local regulations, but most of the time we're out of the UK. When you look at people who've invested in startups before, the part that really breaks my heart is that a lot of these, I think it was like three, four billion that was invested in Africa this year, 99% of these companies are Delaware-incorporated. What that means is all this money that's been raised is sitting somewhere in Brex or Mercury. I think it's a means to an end that gives confidence to a lot of investors to actually invest in these companies. So while we talk about fragmentation, there are actually systems that enable more and more people to invest on the continent. And the approach we take is: while there are 54 countries, we're not rushing to invest in all 54. We're taking regions where it's actually easier, where there's regulatory clarity and you can invest across multiple asset classes, places like South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya. It's very clear what you need to do. But there are other parts where I couldn't even tell you, and we're not rushing to go invest there. When you take what we call in Africa "the big four", Egypt, South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria, about 80% of the capital that goes onto the continent goes into these regions, and there's a reason for that: regulatory clarity, an easy way to move money in and out, and good systems that enable investors to invest in these countries.
Yeah, it's really interesting how the situation varies from place to place. Another thing, which I think I saw you say in another interview, was that when it comes to American startups, they can raise money on hype, but African startups need to raise on traction. That's a really interesting take.
Yes. Well, it's actually from my personal experience, as somebody who's been in this space for a while. I believe these things need to be built, but when I tried to raise money in 2024, everybody was like, "Okay, well, what have you done?" And what I'd done at that stage wasn't enough. I had to go back and show traction, real traction, for investors to give me money. And I don't want other African founders, folks of African origin, to be delusional about what's happening in America. We just have to be real, because ultimately, as a founder, you have work to do, you need capital to do that work, and you need to know exactly what needs to be done to raise that capital. It's very easy for people to tell you, "Just move to San Francisco." I'm fine, I'm running a company, but the impact really matters to me, and I'm not just going to move to San Francisco to raise the money and then forget why I'm doing this. So yeah, we need to show traction. Every day when I wake up, I ask my team, "What are we going to get done?" Because when I go back to raise capital, people actually don't care about what I said I wanted to do, they want to see, "Okay, well, you raised X amount of money, what did you manage to do with it?" And I need to be able to show, "This is how much progress we've made with the capital we raised." That will allow us to raise the money and also move this company forward, because Borderless needs to exist. I really believe the traction will give investors the confidence to keep funding the work we're doing.
Yeah, that's again really interesting, and you've got experience of it from the other side of the fence, as an investor as well. Can you tell us a bit more about your background in investing and how that shapes your decisions at Borderless?
I blame Nubi Kay, who's my co-founder. He rolled me into this thing, in 2019, just after we joined Stripe through the acquisition of a company I used to work for in Dublin. I started spending more time with Nubi, because he was already working at Stripe, and he kept telling me, "Oh, we should invest in this early-stage company, they're great." And I'm like, "No." My background is accounting and finance, I'm qualified, and when I was looking at the numbers, it just didn't make sense. But when you invest in startups, there are no numbers at the early stage. So that's how I got into this. And I quickly realised that beyond the capital, we can actually create a ton of impact.
Yeah, I'm fascinated by that. And also the bank account situation, going all the way back to Ireland, is actually crazy, because I guess we can all come up with reasons why they'd be suspicious, as you say, there are certain things that might be flagged, but it is really disappointing when a financial system can't spot a legitimate bank account owner, and their nationality alone is enough to make them concerned. I do find that somewhat disappointing. Do you think that situation is improving at all? Or did you need to step in and build your own solutions there?
I'd like to believe it's improving, because the global systems are becoming more integrated. For example, for the longest time, PayPal did not operate in Africa. If you hold an African passport and try to open an account with PayPal, that's a no-no, PayPal will not allow you to use them. However, I think late last year, this year, there's a Nigerian company called Paga that is enabling PayPal to finally expand to Africa. The reason they were able to do that is because Paga has local context, they really understand how to underwrite Africans, they've done that for the past 10 years. So it's a very natural synergy. It's the same thing as when Stripe acquired Paystack five years ago. They're all coming together, because Paystack was literally this tribe of Africa, and they have local context. Paystack really understands that the way money moves in Nigeria is not the same way money moves in Ghana, in South Africa, in Kenya. So the global systems are finally integrating, which is making these bank account issues less relevant, but it's not moving fast. I'll give you this example: you're an investor in Kenya, you use mobile money, are you aware of mobile money, M-Pesa?
Yes, yes.
Yeah. And you want to send money to fund a startup, the global systems don't accept M-Pesa. You can't do that. And the majority of people in Kenya have M-Pesa. So what they're saying is, if you use a local payment method, you can't actually invest. It shouldn't be like that. The world, the financial system, should be integrated, so that regardless of where you are, you should be able to pay, get a bank account, have ways to pay anyone anywhere.
Yeah, absolutely. So let's go back to, you were talking about some successful companies you've been an investor in, some success stories that have come out of Africa. Have there been any companies you've invested in where you've learned some hard lessons? It may not even be something relating to Borderless, but just things where you've learned a few things about investing that you weren't aware of before you got involved.
So far, it proves to be true that most of the time, when companies fail, you can actually trace it back to the founders. Not all the time, we've had situations where the market just turned for the worse. I remember one of the companies we invested in, when the last crypto winter happened, they just had to go; they didn't have enough liquidity to keep the company running. And again, that's a function of the inability to access enough capital, if that company were still around today, they'd be doing crazy numbers, but they couldn't, because the market turned. But really and truly, what I've seen is that when companies don't work out, it's often the founder or the team. What we've learned over time is that you really underwrite the people behind the business. I spend a lot of time with founders, while I don't actively deploy capital these days, historically we've spent a lot of time with founders, just to really understand: when things get dark, will they still continue? So that's one of the lessons, you need to back people who are resilient, people who can build even when things are going smoothly, and people who communicate. The communication part is probably the easiest part, and I was nearly a victim of this communication thing myself. When we started Borderless back in '23, 2024 was rough, this was when I was trying to raise capital, and I just went quiet. I put my head down and tried to solve it. But somebody gave me the advice: "Joe, whether things are going smooth or not so smooth, make sure you let your investors know." These are the same investors who ended up funding my company again, because I was able to communicate with them regularly. So what I say to founders is: whether things are going smooth or not, just keep your investors up to date. But back to your question, you can always trace it back, maybe like 800 times out of 1,000, to the founders.
Yeah, you touched on something really fascinating there. People talk about this all the time, that when things are going bad, founders sometimes go quiet. So from your own experience, what was the response from investors? Because, as you suggest, you're expecting the worst, but I guess these people have backed you in the first place. So how did you navigate that conversation, and what feedback did you get?
It was actually, "Hey Joe, how can we help?"
Yeah, wow.
That's the surprise. Nearly all the people who give you money at this stage believe in you. Many don't actually care about the company, it's you they're giving money to, the founder, because they believe this idea you have can materialise into something. I have one investor whose name is Brad, and I love the fact that every investor update I send, he replies. That's it. You'd be surprised
Yeah, you don't expect that, you do not expect that.
He replies every single time. I raise money from mostly individuals, angels, folks I'm hanging out with, or people who are my advisors, and it's just like, "Hey Joe, how can I help you?" Just the fact that you've asked that question is more than enough for me, because now I can just offload on you. I like to believe that I'm lucky, but I'm lucky because I communicate with my investors, and in turn they support me. I have the best bunch of investors.
Yeah, you've brought so much positivity, which I love, but obviously I've got a slight journalistic angle. Red flags. Let's talk about the red flags for a founder, because, like you say, you're investing in the team, in the person. Which traits have you identified that routinely mean someone's not very investable?
Someone who is not very investable, commitment. Building a company should not be a side hustle. Myself, my collective, we don't want to be funding side hustles. I need to know that you're really committed to this. Before I took a penny from any investor, I actually quit my job. Because if I'm not committed, why should they commit their capital to my idea? I think commitment is one of the biggest red flags, I need to know that you're committed. And commitment isn't just saying, "I'm committed"; you have to show it. If you have enough capital, quit your job, build a product, hire a team, actually do the work. Because when people are giving you their hard-earned money to build your startup, that company should not have a backup plan, well, it helps, but the backup plan should not be another full-time job, so that when things get sour you can just go back to it. I've seen this. We've had situations where founders told us they'd left their job but really they hadn't, or they're doing this and then they have a consultancy job. I'm not blaming founders who need to do what they need to do to survive, but please don't raise capital, at least from our collective, if you're not willing to commit, because we're committing capital to you, and you need to commit 100% to this endeavour.
Makes a lot of sense. I can completely see that. And do you know what, to bring this to a close, though this isn't the last question, I want to bring things back onto Borderless and also your own experience. I've done this interview in a slightly odd format, where I didn't even begin by introducing you and your career background properly. And there's a reason for that: I feel like every podcast does that, and therefore anyone listening to you is going to hear that five or six times before they actually get to what's new. At the same time, if you're listening in, you've listened to about half an hour already, if that's wrong, just tell me in the comments, it'll be appreciated. But Joe, I'd love to know a bit more about your career background, because you've worked with TouchTech Payments, if I'm not mistaken, and then Stripe, which I assume is what people knew you for before you launched Borderless and several other projects. So what did those experiences teach you about risk, investment, and what you're building today?
So, one part, while I was at Stripe, I actually did a one-year secondment at Paystack, which is Stripe's subsidiary. Working at TouchTech really showed me ambition. The founders were very ambitious, and beyond that, they knew how to build a great product. Let me tell you how good our product was. In October 2017, I'd just joined the company, and I was working a little late, and the phone rang, and it's this guy called Christos from Revolut. I'm like, "Revolut? I've never heard of, what?" And they're like, "Well, we saw your product, which I think N26 was using, and we'd be keen to see how we could use it too." That's how good the product was at TouchTech. And we sold to Revolut, which became our biggest customer before we sold the company to Stripe, because the product was really good, good to the point where Revolut picked up the phone and called us. That was the first time I heard of Revolut. And Shekinah, one of the co-founders, and I went to London, to this tiny office in Canary Wharf, to sell this product to Revolut. So product really, really matters, it has to be so good that customers are calling you.
I was asking about your career background and how it's shaped your current mission, and maybe informed your strategy as well. And the bit you've not quite gotten around to is the Stripe part of the journey.
Yeah. So, to summarise: good product; size of ambition; and leverage technology as infrastructure. Everything I do today, I spend a lot of time on product, because when the product is good, you don't have to sell it too much, it will sell itself. Sense of ambition: I think I'll stop being CEO after we've processed 40 billion in a year, because I think we can do that. And 40 billion, in the context of the UK, the GDP of the UK is three trillion, is literally not noticeable. However, 40 billion in Africa is about four times the GDP of Togo. So when you look at the comparisons, 40 billion is a lot of money. And the reason I picked that number is because, if we can help mobilise 40 billion to Africa, we can close the funding gap in 10 years. The funding gap currently in Africa is 400 billion, and in just 10 years, we can close it. And then the last part is infrastructure. Many people, when I pitch Borderless, are like, "You're doing too much." But the sad part of the work we're doing is that the infrastructure just doesn't exist. So just like Paystack, when they wanted to build a payment company but ended up becoming infrastructure because they had to build the plumbing, that's what we're doing. And the beauty of building infrastructure is that when it's solid enough, you can build whatever you want on top of it. We want to make it very easy, so that the next thousand collectives don't have to think about "How do I solve paperwork, how do I move the money, how do I do the reporting?" They can just focus on what really matters, which is raising and deploying capital.
Yeah, and I think you've in a roundabout way answered this already, but I want to frame it slightly differently. Going back to that initial opening point about wanting to build the BlackRock for the African diaspora, what needs to happen, and what do you need to do, to achieve that goal?
So, there are a couple of things. The first is compliance. You can't sell our technology to people who don't have trust without compliance. We have a regulatory cover now, but we want to get our direct authorisation this year in the UK, and also across multiple jurisdictions, so that we can connect the dots. That's a non-negotiable, that's the first thing. The second thing is: how do we bring as many people into the fold as possible? And that doesn't mean they have to necessarily invest, just come see what's happening, log into the platform, don't deploy capital. The third one is education. You can't invest in something you don't understand. So, with us being infrastructure, how can we enable educational companies to come and plug into us, so they can train people at scale? One organisation we'll be working with is called the African Angel Academy. They train angels, and we're going to be working with them as our learning partner, to train angels at scale. And the beauty of angel investing, where we're operating now, is that you can take all the courses you want, but angel investing is actually about doing. So the way we're envisioning this partnership is: you learn with the AAA academy, and then you deploy that first, call it a thousand, five thousand, ten thousand, with Borderless. And it's a win-win. So compliance is a no-brainer, being able to know that this platform exists, and then you need to learn how to do it. The education piece I really care about, because without education, this work will not be done. We don't want to build courses, there are so many people who have courses, have structures in place; how do we partner with them? The first partnership is just coming on board, which is the African Angel Academy. We want to do this across multiple sectors, angel investing, real estate investing, bond investing, all these educators come onto one platform. And now we can close the funding gap.
Yeah, I think it's interesting that the angel investors are receiving support here. I don't know that's more common than I realise, but it's not something I've talked about many times, if at all. So what kind of support do angel investors typically need?
Well, they need to know what angel investing is. You'd be surprised. You and I, we're in London, we know what angel investment is. When you speak to the majority of people across Africa, they don't know what angel investment is.
So are they just assuming they leave some money and say, "Okay, there you go, have some fun with it", you know what I mean, "there's the money, and that's it"?
Yeah, except the challenge is that the number of people who have that money to be left on the side is very small. I think people don't realise how small Africa is in terms of GDP. The GDP of the entire of Africa is the same as the GDP of the UK, that's what you're working with. And that's also a reason why we're not pushing what we're doing to Africans in Africa; we're pushing it to Africans outside of Africa, because they have more disposable income, they have the opportunity to learn, they can even pay for the courses. So there's a lot that needs to be done. Not every African is just going to dash you 10K, it takes a bit of convincing. And for someone to dash you, they need to have the money to dash. Many of us are only making decent money for the first time; we send money back home to our parents, and whatever's left, we don't want to lose it, we want to protect it. So we're taking our audience into account as we're building this. Hence, we're not just pushing angel investment, we're pushing real estate investment, we're going to push things that are less risky, because you need to remember the African diaspora is in capital-preservation mode. That money is new, right? So you can't just be flogging angel investment to them now, because the risk is just so high.
And one last question before we finish. This is something I ask people about quite a lot, and it's not a technology point, it's more about community. You've got lots of experience building those, and obviously your platform is designed for communities. What is it about community that you think most fintech founders, and even banks perhaps, miss? What's the key to creating an effective community in this kind of market?
It's funny that you mention banks. When you think about how banks are funded, banks are funded by collecting your money, my money, and pooling that together. The thing is, they don't tell us about this. So banks are inherently communal, it's just not something they shout about, because when they start shouting about it, there's going to be a bank run. But the way our systems are built, they're fundamentally communal, and we're just making this very obvious. And the thing is, when you can organise people in one place, magic can happen. The analogy I always give is: in Africa, we have this broom that's like a bunch of sticks, right? When you take a single stick, you can break it, but you can't actually break the whole broom. That's the power of community. And that's why a lot of banks can't default, because when a bank defaults, the whole thing crumbles. So community is really powerful. I'm very lucky that I'm an introverted extrovert, although there'll be people watching this like, "Yeah, you're a liar." And community is what got me here.
Yeah, I'd classify myself the same, as well.
My community is everything I do. I don't want to do things alone. There's this famous African proverb that goes, "If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together." I really, really believe in that. Everything I do has been communal, because I know how important it is.
Amazing. Joe, so good talking to you about everything you're building, everything you've done. And the opportunity is massive, I think that's the most exciting thing here. Like you say, so much money that can be brought in to support African businesses, to support investors globally. And it just seems like one of those things where, if we look back on this in 20, 30, 40 years' time, hopefully it'll be a massive success story. Look, before I wrap this up, oh yeah, go ahead, you jump in.
I just wanted to add that, having been very lucky to be in the payments and fintech space, what's happening with stablecoins is finally getting its flowers. Stablecoins are probably one of those enablers for Africa, because we just have so many currencies, where you have correspondent banks doing this, doing that. Stablecoins are the part that I'm very excited about. We're actually building Borderless wallets for people, where you can hold stablecoin balances, put money there, deploy it, and all your returns come back. And I'm very, very excited about stablecoins for Africa, just watch. So many people across the continent are building in that space, and I'm excited to work with many of them. The good news about what we do is that we're infrastructure, and I intentionally try not to build the fintech, because you're just going to end up where everybody is. What I'm excited about is: how do we leverage the folks who are building the rails, so that we can work with them?
Yeah, and you're speaking with a fractional CMO for a stablecoin infrastructure company, so I agree with your point, and I will stop there, otherwise I'll begin shilling. So let's not do that on the podcast. Not me, anyway, you can, I can't.
No, I think it's the biggest thing. I was in Nairobi last week, and all these stablecoin providers, I'm looking at our numbers, I'm speaking to the VCs, and even with our integration, I just know it's going to be a game-changer. Because money movement has been a pain, and the reason Stripe hasn't even scratched the surface is because we have so much to solve. When Stripe acquired Bridge, so, I reached out to Bridge in February 2024, because I was talking to somebody at the Stellar Foundation and they said, "Oh, you should speak to Zach," and I reached out to Zach. That's how long I've been thinking about this. As we started building, I just knew that stablecoins were the solution to our problems, except it wasn't mainstream enough, and everywhere you went, you had to explain this thing to people. But now I'm so excited about stablecoins, because if you know what to do, the on-ramp and the off-ramp, I think it's the biggest opportunity, where money can now truly move frictionlessly, regardless of your passport, where you're located, or the language you speak. I really believe we haven't scratched the surface with stablecoins.
Yeah, I completely agree. I think the next few years are going to be transformational in that respect.
I can't wait.
Yeah, it's going to be big, isn't it? Joe, any other final points you'd like to make before I wrap this up?
No, I mean, if you're hesitant about Africa, do reach out to me, I'd love to talk to you about it. When I was in Nairobi last week, I met so many family offices, and I'm like, "Hmm, nobody's talking about this. What are you guys doing here?" I think the opportunity is huge. Africa, I don't want to say it's for the taking, but if you want to make money and create impact, it's the right place to be. And the reason I added the impact part is that I think investing in Africa is inherently impactful. Again, I opened this conversation with the risk-free rate being 15%. You need to know what you're doing, anything I said is obviously no investment advice, but I'm more than happy to speak to anybody about the opportunities of investing in Africa. I'd say it's the next frontier, I believe it. There's just so much to do there.
Yeah, got it. All right, one last question. Risk-free, what does risk-free really mean? Because nothing's risk-free.
Nothing is risk-free, right? So the way I'm putting it: if you look at the T-bills in, it's not really risk-free, if you look at the treasury bills in Nigeria, they're paying anything between 18 and 20%. But what that requires is that you convert your money to naira, and that's a risk. Kenyan money market funds are paying 13, 14%. Some countries are higher; I think in South Africa, the bonds are like between nine and 11%. The good thing is that a lot of these countries' currencies are becoming stable, not all of them. The Kenyan shilling has been very stable since late '24; it went through some up and down. The Zambian kwacha is strengthening, the Ghanaian cedi is strengthening, the naira has actually strengthened a lot this year. So while I don't have capital to deploy, I want to encourage more people to, even if it's just a small portion of your money, go test these African markets, because currencies are strengthening. If you deploy capital, when you get your money back, you're actually going to get more back. And again, not investment advice, and there's no thorough research around this, purely because I've spent time in these countries, I see what's happening on the ground, I'm talking to people, and the opportunity is huge. And if you're not too sure, just take a trip. Let me close with one thing: my landlord, I took him to Tanzania last year, and he's currently in Tanzania, he's moving there, I'm not kidding you. The opportunity, there are so many opportunities on the continent. My landlord is Dutch: six-foot-three, blue eyes, white Dutch guy. The thing is, many people don't want to go and see what's happening. Even if you don't want to invest a single penny, take a trip. Come with me, I'll take you myself
Ha!
, if you buy my flight. But I'll take you, just for you to go observe, and if nothing comes out of the trip, you've had a great holiday.
Yeah, I think you'll have some takers for that. Joe, what's the best way to contact you?
I'm on LinkedIn, Joe Kinvi. I'm quite active on LinkedIn; please do not block me, I write a lot. For me, writing is my way of thinking. I write on beehiiv, Joe Kinvi, beehiiv. My handles are the same. I'm online, I sell online, my customers are online, and I'm a child of the internet, so that's exactly where you'll find me.
Amazing. Thank you, Joe. It's been so much fun talking with you. I loved hearing about Borderless.
Yeah, I loved this.
It's been fun. And I'm really excited to see what you build and where it goes from here. So maybe we catch up again a year or two down the line. But look, this has been really fun. Everyone listening in, thank you so much for tuning in. This is Let Fintech Grow, and you're about to hear the jingle.
Thank you.