Nigerian Tekedia-backed tech startup, Touch and Pay Technologies (TAP), the new-age IT service company behind the popular Cowry card, has rolled out a new feature called “dollar top-ups” for transport support in Nigeria.
The feature enables Nigerians to receive small-dollar remittances from the diaspora for transportation, enabling them to receive up to $20, which can be used for public transport payments, covering bus and train fares.
The tech startup has partnered with New York-based remittance company Lipaworld, a marketplace for digital vouchers that allows folks in the diaspora to send value to their loved ones back home in Africa, to facilitate these transactions. Touch and Pay technologies CEO Olamide Afolabi in a chat with Condia (formerly BenDada), highlighted the initiative’s focus on transportation support.
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“We’re simply providing a way for people abroad to support loved ones back home, specifically for transport”, he said.
He further explained that with a $20 transfer from someone abroad, which is approximately N30,000 according to the current dollar/Naira exchange rate, it could be loaded into the recipient’s Cowry wallet, covering transport expenses for a month.
Amid Nigeria’s current rising inflation, which has seen the price of fuel surge as well as increase in food prices, creating financial strain for many Nigerians, this has pushed many to seek more affordable transportation options.
TAP’s newly launched “dollar top-ups” feature is timely, which can help alleviate the exorbitant price of transportation for Nigerians. Notably, this feature, marks a strategic expansion for TAP, moving into cross-border payments while leveraging its robust technology infrastructure and loyal customer base.
However, the company’s CEO Afolabi, clarified that TAP is not engaging in remittance services but rather in a targeted solution for transport needs. “We’re not handling remittances directly- we don’t have the license. We just want people to send money home and pay for the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) and the train”.
The dollar top-up service is only the beginning. TAP plans to launch a global card that will allow users to receive funds from abroad for broader spending needs within Nigeria, potentially enhancing Cowry Card’s influence as a top fintech player in Africa.
Founded in 2019 by Olamide Afolabi and Michael Oluwole, TAP was the first payment company in Nigeria to provide payment infrastructure for contactless payment cards to be used on buses and ferries and now trains. The company is helping to advance financial inclusion among Nigeria’s mostly unbanked population with its processing of micro-transactions ranging from 10 cents to $10.
Its flagship product which simplifies transport payments, Cowry Card, has continued to surge in usage, with over five million users and N20 billion in transaction volume processed in 2024, solidifying TAP’s profitability and shifting its focus from fundraising to new revenue sources. The tech startup created the Cowry card to solve the problem of 64 million adults in Nigeria who don’t have access to banks, which limits their ability to withdraw cash for use on public transportation.
With plans of expanding into the rest of the African continent, the company’s services have ventured into all systems that can benefit from cashless infrastructure, such as transport, utility payments, and grocery shopping, among others. TAP is changing the African narrative by processing micro-transactions for revenue assurance.