Yellow Card Expands to Canada After $40 Million Stablecoin Round

Yellow Card, the fintech founded in Nigeria in 2019, has expanded into Canada, its latest market, as it deepens a strategic shift from consumer crypto trading toward business-to-business stablecoin payments.

The Canadian operation runs through a wholly owned subsidiary, Alkepay Inc., which the company said is registered with the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada and the Bank of Canada. The move gives Yellow Card a regulated foothold in North America while it continues to serve customers across more than 50 emerging markets.

Backing behind the pivot

The expansion follows a $40 million funding round announced in August 2026 and led by SC Ventures, the innovation arm of Standard Chartered, with participation from Sony Innovation Fund, Polychain Capital and Blockchain Capital. The company said total equity raised to date exceeds $120 million.

Management says the future of the business lies in moving value across borders for companies, not in speculative retail trading.

In a departure from its original model, Yellow Card closed its retail trading app on January 1, 2026, to concentrate on infrastructure that lets businesses send and receive money using stablecoins pegged to major currencies, settling into local currencies through partners including Visa, Mastercard, Western Union, Thunes and MoneyGram.

Why stablecoins matter

Stablecoin payments have grown rapidly as a lower-cost alternative for cross-border remittances and trade settlement, particularly in markets where correspondent banking is expensive or slow. Global stablecoin transaction volumes exceeded $33 trillion in 2025, according to industry estimates, and African fintechs have moved to capture a share of that flow.

Canada's large immigrant and diaspora population, including a significant Nigerian and wider African community, makes it a natural corridor for remittance-linked services. For Yellow Card, the bet is that regulated, compliant stablecoin rails can win business from banks and money transfer operators that dominate the corridor today.

Risks and scrutiny

Stablecoin businesses face evolving regulation in both their home and host markets, and Canadian registration brings heightened compliance obligations. The company's pivot away from retail also narrows its revenue base to enterprise customers, making execution and partner relationships critical.

Still, the expansion marks a notable moment for a Nigerian-founded company scaling into a developed market, a path that few African fintechs have travelled.