TeamApt Limited, a subsidiary of Moniepoint Inc., is expanding its position in Africa’s digital payments market after entering a strategic collaboration with Mastercard that will give the Nigerian payments infrastructure company direct access to Mastercard’s global payments network.
The arrangement will see TeamApt operate on Mastercard’s network as a non-bank acquirer, strengthening its capacity to provide payment acceptance, transaction processing and acquiring services to licensed businesses and financial institutions.
The deal marks a significant step in TeamApt’s expansion from a predominantly domestic payments infrastructure role into a broader network-enabled acquiring business, potentially giving more African merchants access to international card payments.
Under the collaboration, TeamApt will integrate its switching infrastructure with Mastercard’s global network to support high-volume transactions across online, in-store and mobile channels. The company will also be able to onboard credible and licensed entities seeking to offer Mastercard payment acceptance.
The strategic significance of the partnership lies in the combination of Mastercard’s international network and TeamApt’s local payments infrastructure.
For merchants, the expanded infrastructure is expected to make it easier to accept Mastercard cards across multiple channels, while consumers will gain wider access to secure card payments locally and internationally.
The partnership comes as payment acceptance becomes increasingly important to Africa’s small-business economy, particularly in Nigeria, where Mastercard estimates there are more than 40 million micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs).
Mastercard’s 2026 SME Confidence Index also found that small businesses increasingly view digital solutions as important to their ability to scale, highlighting the commercial opportunity for payment providers that can extend reliable digital acceptance to businesses outside traditional banking channels.
‘Expanding digital payment acceptance is one of the fastest ways to support small businesses across Africa to compete, grow, and reach more customers,’ said Folasade Femi-Lawal, country manager, West Africa at Mastercard.
She said the partnership would provide MSMEs and informal-sector businesses in Nigeria with infrastructure to process transactions securely across multiple channels, while helping bring more businesses into the digital economy and opening opportunities around growth, access to credit and cross-border trade.
For TeamApt, the Mastercard relationship strengthens its role as a payments infrastructure provider serving banks, fintechs and other financial institutions.
Dennis Ajalie, chief executive officer of TeamApt, said the collaboration was part of the company’s effort to remove barriers in the payments ecosystem.
‘For years, TeamApt has focused on building infrastructure that helps financial institutions and businesses grow with confidence. By working closely with Mastercard, we are extending those capabilities, enabling businesses to accept payments more seamlessly and giving users the freedom to transact securely both locally and internationally,’ Ajalie said.
The arrangement also creates a stronger international dimension for TeamApt’s infrastructure. Mastercard cards supported through the platform will be usable across millions of merchant locations worldwide, allowing businesses connected to the system to serve both domestic customers and international visitors.
Beyond card acceptance, the partnership could deepen competition in Africa’s acquiring market, where banks, fintechs and payment processors are increasingly competing to provide merchants with a single infrastructure for accepting payments across physical and digital channels.
TeamApt’s status as a Central Bank of Nigeria-licensed switching and processing company gives it an established position within Nigeria’s payments ecosystem. Over the past decade, it has built infrastructure supporting transaction processing across multiple payment channels for financial institutions and businesses.
The Mastercard collaboration therefore adds global network connectivity to an infrastructure base that already has significant domestic reach.
That reach is further supported by the wider Moniepoint ecosystem, which operates across all 774 local government areas in Nigeria through its financial services and agent network.
The combination could give the group a broader platform for pushing digital payment adoption among Nigeria’s fragmented small-business and informal sectors, where cash remains an important part of everyday commerce.
For Mastercard, the partnership provides another route into Africa’s rapidly expanding merchant economy by leveraging an established local payments infrastructure rather than relying solely on traditional banking channels.
For TeamApt, meanwhile, direct operation on Mastercard’s global network could expand the addressable market for its acquiring and processing infrastructure beyond local transactions.
The immediate opportunity is merchant payment acceptance, but the longer-term significance could be greater: connecting more African businesses to global payment rails could support cross-border commerce, improve transaction visibility and create a larger digital footprint for businesses seeking access to formal financial services.
As African commerce becomes increasingly digital, the ability to connect local merchants to global payment networks is emerging as a key battleground for payment companies. The Mastercard-TeamApt collaboration places both companies deeper in that race, with Nigeria’s millions of small businesses representing one of the largest immediate markets for expansion.