Remittances across Africa are becoming a gateway to everyday finance: digital wallets, cross-border payments, cards, credit, and neobank services. Across Africa, money moves with people. Workers cross borders for opportunity, build careers in regional hubs, and send wages, school fees, and support back home. But what if that first remittance is not just the end of a transaction, but the beginning of a financial relationship? In this episode of The Issuer Academy podcast, host Merusha Naidu sits down with Juan Seco, Group Chief Growth Officer and Managing Director for East Africa at Mukuru, and Nuno Sitima, COO at Paymentology, to discuss how remittances are evolving into a gateway for everyday finance across Africa.

Remittances across Africa are becoming a gateway to everyday finance: digital wallets, cross-border payments, cards, credit, and neobank services.

Across Africa, money moves with people. Workers cross borders for opportunity, build careers in regional hubs, and send wages, school fees, and support back home. But what if that first remittance is not just the end of a transaction, but the beginning of a financial relationship?

In this episode of The Issuer Academy podcast, host Merusha Naidu sits down with Juan Seco, Group Chief Growth Officer and Managing Director for East Africa at Mukuru, and Nuno Sitima, COO at Paymentology, to discuss how remittances are evolving into a gateway for everyday finance across Africa.

What You’ll Learn:

What a remittance-led neobank actually looks like
How to serve transnational customers
What “built for Africa” really requires
Why both sender and recipient are customers
The role of cash in a digital-first future
Where the next five years of African payments are heading

Juan Seco is the Group Chief Growth Officer and Managing Director for East Africa at Mukuru, one of Africa's largest remittance-led fintechs, serving the emerging African consumer across 15+ markets. He joined Mukuru in 2023 to lead its evolution beyond remittances into a full-spectrum digital financial services platform. Before Mukuru, Juan spent eight years at Jumia Group, where he was a founding member of JumiaPay, later serving as SVP of Consumer Financial Services and ultimately as CEO of Jumia Kenya.

Nuno Sitima is the Chief Operating Officer at Paymentology, the global issuer-processor powering next-generation card programs in more than 60 countries. Appointed COO in early 2024, he leads operational excellence, client delivery, and the scaling of Paymentology's cloud-native platform for fintechs, banks, and challenger brands worldwide. Nuno brings over two decades of experience across payments, mobile, and fintech, including as CEO of MeaWallet, where he drove digital payments and tokenisation innovation, and senior leadership roles at Opera Software and OPay, where he helped shape mobile-first financial services in emerging markets, particularly across Africa.

Episode Resources:

Juan Seco on LinkedIn
Nuno Sitima on LinkedIn
Mukuru Website
Merusha Naidu on LinkedIn
Paymentology Website

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe so you don’t miss an episode, and don’t forget to rate and review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify - we appreciate all feedback from our listeners!

Got a question for the Paymentology team, or a topic you’d love to hear covered on one of our episodes? Submit your ideas here! https://forms.gle/XcFzaFWr2AXtNrNr7

The Issuer Academy: Innovate. Scale. Impact Podcast is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so

Previous guests include: Christian Rau of Mastercard, Michael Galvin of Toqio, Ignacio Gironella Merino of MeaWallet, Pauline Molloyi of OM Bank, Arpit Gupta of UnDosTres, Carl Raven of Visa, Dr. Allan Villegas of Liabify, Rohit Subramanian of TymeBank, Godfrey Sullivan of Visa CEMEA, and Stefan Colins of Venly Finance.

Check out our three most downloaded episodes: