By Hyline Ocharo-Kisii
Agridex International and Tradeflow Capital Management have partnered in a bid to access to trade finance and digital payments for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) across Africa, starting with Kenya.
The collaboration centers on Loam, Agridex’s proprietary digital payments and treasury optimization platform, which Tradeflow will adopt as its core infrastructure for deploying structured trade finance capital.
The partnership targets agricultural and commodity value chains, sectors that remain critical to Africa’s economy but chronically underserved by traditional financial systems.
African SMEs, widely regarded as the backbone of the continent’s economic growth, continue to face high costs and delays in cross-border transactions.
Conventional payment channels often charge more than 3 percent per transaction and take several working days to settle, limiting liquidity for businesses operating in fast-paced commodity markets.
Agridex says Loam is designed to address these challenges by enabling near-instant settlement at transaction costs below 0.2 percent.
The platform also offers near real-time visibility of funds, reducing currency friction and improving transparency in cross-border trade.
“Loam was built to solve real payment and settlement challenges in emerging markets,” said Henry Duckworth, Founder and CEO of Agridex.
“Tradeflow’s adoption of Loam as a core conduit for capital deployment demonstrates how modern payment rails can unlock scale, efficiency, and resilience in African trade finance.”
Tradeflow Capital Management brings significant experience to the alliance, having facilitated more than US$5 billion in SME trade transactions since its inception.
The firm specializes in asset-backed, data-driven financing and real-time supply chain risk mitigation, capabilities expected to complement Loam’s digital infrastructure and support more disciplined, scalable capital deployment.
The initial phase of the partnership will focus on structured financing for commodity trades in selected African markets, with Kenya serving as a key launch hub.
Agriculture, one of the continent’s most strategic sectors, is expected to benefit significantly from improved access to faster and more affordable trade finance.
The initiative also aligns with broader efforts to modernize Africa’s financial infrastructure.
Imara Group, which has invested over US$400 million across the continent in the past two decades, has supported institutional-grade payment and capital market platforms such as Loam to expand financial inclusion and strengthen economic resilience.
As demand grows for efficient, low-cost cross-border payment solutions, partnerships that combine capital, technology, and regional expertise are increasingly seen as vital to closing Africa’s trade finance gap.
Industry observers say the Agridex–Tradeflow alliance could provide a model for how fintech innovation and institutional capital can jointly drive the next phase of Africa’s economic growth.