Global fintech firm NALA has secured a credit facility of up to $50 million from AI-driven private credit provider Liquidity to expand its international payment rails. Structured through Mars Growth Capital, a joint venture between Liquidity and Japan’s MUFG Bank, the financing begins with an initial $25 million tranche designed to scale digital asset payment channels. The capital injection will allow NALA to pre-fund high-volume corporate accounts and accelerate liquidity settlement across emerging market corridors.
Why is NALA Scaling Its Stablecoin Payments Infrastructure?
The debt facility is structured specifically around NALA’s payment architecture and transaction volume, offering an alternative to equity financing that prevents additional shareholder dilution. This approach allows the Tanzanian-founded firm to preserve its cash reserves; NALA still retains over 50 percent of the $40 million equity capital raised during its Series A funding round in July 2024. This convergence of traditional credit and digital assets is a primary focus area for Blockrora’s Blockchain News & Analysis desk, tracking how institutional capital moves onto the chain.
By utilising debt to manage capital-intensive pre-funding requirements, NALA can support larger transactional volumes for its enterprise API platform, Rafiki. Currently connecting 249 banks and 26 mobile money networks across 16 countries, Rafiki enables global firms to process corporate collections and payouts. Stablecoin-denominated settlements address capital inefficiencies in high-volume, single-direction corridors where firms must hold substantial local currency reserves.
In the corporate digital asset sector, NALA competes alongside entities such as BVNK, which recently secured $50 million to expand its payment rails, and developer platform Bridge, acquired by Stripe for $1.1 billion. The competitive shift highlights the growing viability of stablecoins as an enterprise settlement standard rather than speculative instruments.
Debt vs. Equity: A Strategic Funding Shift for Fintech
Navigating the Cross-Border Payments Blockchain Landscape
This transaction represents a significant milestone in the emerging PayFi ecosystem, where decentralised finance models are integrated into daily commercial operations. According to the World Bank, traditional cross-border remittances to emerging markets carry average transaction costs of 8% to 10%, often delayed by multi-day settlement windows. This deal highlights how legacy banking institutions are acknowledging digital asset liquidity pools as a compliant mechanism to bypass traditional correspondent banking networks.
Managing Capital Efficiency in Emerging Markets
With several major enterprise contracts scheduled to go live later in 2026, the credit facility provides the immediate treasury depth required to onboard high-volume institutional clients. The integration of stablecoins into real-time retail and corporate settlement is shifting from experimental implementation to a standard operational architecture. Over the long term, scaling this infrastructure is expected to lower transactional friction, offering corporate entities rapid settlement times in underserved liquidity corridors.
