Go back and fetch it — the capital African trade is owed.
Sankofa is an Akan word: draw on what you already have to move forward. We built a company on that idea — using the trading history a business already generates to unlock the working capital it has earned.
It started with a rejection that made no sense
A profitable importer in Accra — years of steady mobile-money flow, reliable suppliers, real buyers — walks into a bank and is turned away. Not because the business is bad, but because it cannot produce audited accounts or fixed-asset collateral. Multiply that by a continent and you get the African Development Bank’s estimate: an $81 billion annual trade-finance gap, roughly half of SME requests rejected.
We were on the wrong side of that desk too many times. The information banks demand is not the information that predicts repayment. The data that does predict it — the cash flow already running through a trader’s phone — sits unused. Sankofa Trade exists to put that data to work: underwrite the truth, price it transparently, and settle it across borders instantly.
One market of 1.3 billion people — if trade can actually settle
The African Continental Free Trade Area turned 54 economies into a single market on paper. In practice, a trade only completes when the money moves — and for decades the money moved slowly and expensively, routed through foreign currency and correspondent banks.
We start in Ghana because Accra sits at the crossroads of West African trade, with deep mobile-money penetration and a forward-leaning regulator. From this anchor we extend corridor by corridor — Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire — settling in local currency over PAPSS, so the free-trade area finally works the way it was designed to.
- Accra
- Head office
- 2024
- Founded
- 54
- AfCFTA markets ahead
Four principles we don’t bend on
Transparency is the product
We publish our fee ranges as real numbers and ship every risk decision with its reasons. If we cannot explain it, we do not do it.
Underwrite the truth, not the paperwork
A trader’s real cash flow tells us more than an audited statement they were never going to have. We finance reality.
Correct money, every time
Every cedi and naira is accounted to the minor unit, reconciled daily, and auditable forever. Trust is built on ledgers that balance.
African trade, African rails
We settle in local currency over PAPSS because intra-African trade should not have to route through a foreign currency to complete.
Builders who have been on both sides of the desk
Credit officers, payments engineers and compliance leaders who watched good businesses get turned away — and decided to fix it.
Ama Boateng
Co-founder & Head of Credit
Fifteen years in SME and trade credit across West Africa. Builds the explainable models that decide who gets funded.
Kwesi Mensah
Co-founder & Head of Settlement
Former payments engineer; obsessed with money that moves correctly, reconciles daily, and never gets lost.
Nana Adjei
Chief Executive Officer
Spent a decade financing importers and exporters and watched good businesses turned away for lack of paperwork.
Zainab Ibrahim
Head of Compliance
Ran AML/CFT at a regional bank. Keeps the trust layer beneath a regulated product uncompromising.
Yaw Osei
Head of Product & Design
Designs for a market trader on a phone and a treasury analyst on a desktop — both trusting it instantly.
Fatou Diallo
Corridor Growth Lead
Building trader trust on the ground, corridor by corridor, from Accra outward across the AfCFTA.
The road so far, and just ahead
- 2024
Founded in Accra
Sankofa Trade is incorporated with a single goal: close the trade-finance gap for creditworthy SMEs.
- 2025
Underwriting engine & partner-bank model
Explainable alternative-data underwriting is built; origination begins with Bank of Ghana–licensed partners.
- 2026
PAPSS settlement live
Local-currency cross-border settlement goes live in the Ghana anchor market.
- Next
Nigeria & Côte d’Ivoire corridors
The Ghana↔Nigeria and Ghana↔Côte d’Ivoire corridors open with local partners.
Help build the working-capital layer for African trade
We are hiring across credit, engineering, compliance, design and growth — in Accra and across the region.