Canza Finance

Canza Finance is a Web3 company that combines decentralized finance, crypto-assets and traditional financial infrastructure to deliver financial services to individuals and businesses in Africa and other emerging markets. It describes itself as an open finance portal and a settlement layer for stablecoin liquidity and real-world assets (RWA), offering a marketplace through which businesses and individuals can access investment assets, alongside liquidity provision and over-the-counter trading.

The product suite includes Baki, a live exchange for African currencies that lets users deposit stablecoins and mint overcollateralized synthetic assets (zTokens) pegged to African currencies such as the naira (zNGN), West African CFA (zCFA) and South African rand (zZAR); CAPP (Canza Autonomous Payment Protocol), a multi-agent framework for cross-border commerce deployed on Aptos; CXDS, an in-development protocol for creating credit default swaps on exchange deposits as an alternative to traditional insurance; and $CAN, a planned native utility token intended to incentivize ecosystem participation. Earlier coverage described the company as a Web3 neobank focused on cross-border payments for African businesses, working with on- and off-ramp partners and local FX agents to settle international trade — for example collecting naira in Nigeria, converting to stablecoins and paying a supplier in fiat abroad.

The company states it has implemented security processes and tooling across its applications, operates a compliance-oriented environment, and integrates with third-party blockchain tools.

Founding story

Co-founders Pascal Ntsama and Oyedeji Oluwoye, both former AT&T employees, identified gaps in African cross-border payments and forex liquidity, where traditional banking processes and high fees excluded much of the population. In 2020 they joined the Tachyon-backed Filecoin Launchpad Accelerator run with Protocol Labs, which provided mentorship and resources and led to an initial $2.1 million funding round. Oluwoye subsequently relocated from Australia to Nigeria to build the product from within the local market.

Business model

Canza operates a suite of on-chain financial products — an FX/synthetic-asset exchange (Baki), a cross-border payment protocol (CAPP), a credit default swap protocol (CXDS) and an RWA marketplace — supported by a network of local money market players, FX agents and on/off-ramp partners in African markets, with a planned native utility token ($CAN) to incentivize ecosystem participation.

Coverage describes cross-border settlement and currency-swap services delivered at a reported transaction cost of about 1%, positioned against the higher fees of traditional forex and remittance channels.

Traction

Baki is listed as live and CAPP as on chain, with CXDS in development and the $CAN token yet to launch. As of the January 2024 strategic round the company reported roughly $5.5-5.57 million in total funding and cited Nigeria, Cameroon, Senegal and the United States as its biggest markets, with most trades in the Africa-Asia and Africa-Middle East corridors and registered institutional interest. Its published roadmap targets over $1B in annual TVL and over $25M AUM by Q4 2025.

Latest developments

The company has joined CoinMarketCap's CMC Labs accelerator and partnered with Klickl on payment infrastructure and account management for emerging-market users. Its roadmap runs through 2025 with milestones including an RWA marketplace security audit, fiat-to-zToken rails and forwards and futures contracts on Baki, CXDS testnet and mainnet launches, expanded zAsset coverage (zEUR, zGold, zBTC), Mauritius and Nigeria virtual asset licenses, an OTC CRM platform on JaraNetwork, and ambassador, grant and hackathon programs.