Lupiya, a Zambian fintech and neobank, has appointed Network International, the enabler of digital commerce across Africa and the Middle East, as their digital payments technology partner to launch a new debit card that is e-commerce enabled, together with 3D Secure and tokenization.
This move will help diversify Lupiya’s value proposition to include not only simplified lending, but also digital payments to its existing and growing new customer base.
“Network’s partnership with Lupiya, our newest fintech customer in Zambia, underscores our ability to enable digital financial service providers in all consumer segments and verticals. It further solidifies our ambition to expand our client portfolio, encompassing diverse financial institutions across the region,” comments Dr Reda Helal, Managing Director & Co-Head of Processing – Africa, Network International.
Zambia has taken great strides in narrowing its gap in financial inclusion. According to the latest data, levels of inclusion have improved from 59.3% in 2015 to 69.4% in 2020. In its Second National Financial Inclusion Strategy, the Zambian government has also set a target to achieve 85% financial inclusion by 2028.
But a third of the population remains excluded. There’s also a prevailing gender finance gap, with women struggling to access financial products and services from regulated providers.
Offering microloans to underserved populations, Lupiya has played a pioneering role in bridging this gap. Lupiya leverages an online platform that simplifies the loan application process, while alternative data and machine learning models further assess creditworthiness for individuals and businesses that traditional financial institutions often overlook.
This has had a particularly big impact on empowering women and supporting climate-smart agricultural practices in a country where nearly 80% of farmers are women.
To help Lupiya tap into more local opportunities for digital payments growth, Network will deliver a comprehensive suite of card payment processing solutions. These will cover the entire lifecycle of a card payment, from issuance to settlement and even dispute resolution, with a focus on both digital and physical payment channels.
“At Lupiya, we are driven by the mission to revolutionise financial inclusion across Africa. Our partnership with Network International represents a significant leap forward in providing secure, accessible, and innovative digital financial solutions. By launching an e-commerce enabled debit card with 3D Secure and tokenization, we are empowering individuals and businesses to participate in the digital economy more effectively,” says Muchu Kaingu, CEO of Lupiya Pay, the company behind the neobank.
Lupiya, a female-led Zambian microfinance startup received microfinance licences in Zambia in 2016 and in Tanzania in 2024. In 2023, the neobank secured $8.25 million in Series A seed funding for expansion. In 2020, Lupiya raised $1 million from South Africa’s Enygma Ventures to enable Lupiya to continue to scale and roll out its services in Zambia and in 2021, Lupiya was part of the fifty African tech startups which were awarded equity-free funding from Google for Startups $3 million Black Founders Fund Africa.
Lupiya is expanding to help provide secure, accessible, and innovative digital financial solutions and such partnerships will help it empower individuals and businesses to participate in the digital economy more effectively. Lupiya knows that agility is crucial in the fast-paced fintech landscape where speed-to-market is a key competitive advantage. By outsourcing payments to a Payments as a Service (PaaS) provider, fintechs can significantly reduce the time required to launch new payment products and services.
Another challenge for fintechs is navigating the complex regulatory environment for payments. PaaS providers have the expertise to ensure compliance with relevant laws and standards, allowing fintechs to focus on their core business.
According to companies like McKinsey, the uptake of PaaS is being fuelled by Africa’s growing cloud adoption, which it has likened to the continent’s rapid growth in smartphone ownership. According to the analysts, the rate of adoption of cloud in Africa is fast reaching parity with that of North America and China.
“Whether it’s a decades-old traditional bank, a nimble fintech like Lupiya, a retailer, or an MNO, delivering world-class digital payments, it starts with choosing the right PaaS partner. Network is proud to play a strategic role in the economic growth and financial inclusion in Africa,” says Nazo Mhango, Network International Country Manager for Zambia.
Lupiya co-founders Muchu and Evelyn Kaingu had a failed trading business because hey couldn’t get access to formal financial capital. So with just $500, they decided to build a bank for small to medium-sized enterprises. They launched Lupiya as a website for loan applications for is brick-and-mortar loans business but Covid-19 hit and they had to completely shut down, pivoting Lupiya to be an online entity only. The uptake of individual and SME loans so them stick to the fully online business model and it has since paid off.
Lupiya is now positioning itself as a pan-African neobank, looking to expand into a number of other countries, predominantly in the southern African region. Apart from Zambia, Lupiya has expanded to Tanzania and is looking to expand to Malawi by the end of this year.