The new partnership involving Jamaican-owned JN Money Services and fintech company, WapiPay, headquartered in Kenya, is being positioned as more than a commercial arrangement, with officials pointing to its potential to strengthen links between Jamaica and Africa.
The partnership comes at a significant point, especially in Kenya-Jamaica relations, following the opening of Kenya’s first resident High Commission in Kingston in July. Kenya’s Foreign Ministry has described the new mission as a platform for expanding political dialogue, economic cooperation, trade, investment and people-to-people relations between the two countries. It has also identified Jamaica as an important gateway to the wider Caribbean Community (CARICOM) market.
Against that backdrop, Mwenda Karisa, Kenya’s High Commissioner to Jamaica, said the partnership fits into the mission’s broader bilateral strategy of creating practical opportunities for cooperation between Kenya and Jamaica.
“It is the kind of partnership that we envision when we started the mission here; partnerships not just in fintech but in many other areas of collaboration that will strengthen the bilateral relations between Jamaica and Kenya and we’re looking forward to being part of this interesting journey,” she affirmed. Ambassador Karisa was delivering remarks at a joint press event to launch the JN Money and WapiPay partnership at the JN Group Corporate Offices in New Kingston recently.
WapiPay has a network of over 100 countries. For the co-founders of the fintech company, the partnership offers an opportunity to tap into Jamaica as a gateway for “connecting the global south with the global west,” having already established payment corridors in Europe in the north and Asia in the east.
Co-founder, Paul Ndichu, said WapiPay’s capacity gives the partnership relevance beyond traditional remittance flows and could allow the payment network to even support Africans interested in seeking opportunities in different markets.
“Seventy per cent of Africans are below the age of 22. That’s a huge number and they’re very interested in different parts of the world. Let’s just imagine what the next five years could look like, at least for young Africans in terms of businesses, in terms of opportunities, what can they do, what can they set up. We’re joining the dots into those opportunities,” he related.
Commenting on the cost and speed of cross-border payments, Edward Ndichu, co-founder, said that the company’s mission is to have transactions completed in under 30 seconds at zero cost to the customer to drive growth for both Jamaica and Africa.
Explaining that WapiPay handles transactions that can be particularly complex because they involve multiple currencies and jurisdictions, he added that “We pride ourselves in not only being able to secure those transactions but significantly reduce the cost of those transactions. The only thing the customer should be considering is the foreign exchange.”
Under the partnership, approved by the Bank of Jamaica (BOJ), JN Money will serve exclusively as the local payout conduit for WapiPay, using its established remittance infrastructure to deliver funds to recipients in Jamaica. This means WapiPay customers will be able to send money to Jamaica, through its application, for cash collection at any of JN Money’s more than 90 locations across the country or have funds deposited directly into recipients’ local bank accounts.
Horace Hines, general manager, JN Money Services, said the company welcomes the partnership as it will help to expand JN Money’s payment ecosystem, explaining that it could broaden the ways payments are made between Jamaica and international markets, while also creating opportunities to increase the volume of transactions already flowing through the company’s existing payment networks.
“If we look at the market in Jamaica, valued at US$3 billion and with just about nine to 10 million transactions per year, it is obvious that WapiPay will be able to generate some transactions through their network for us to deliver here in Jamaica,” he pointed out. “It will also open new markets for us. The fact that WapiPay is opening in other markets like Canada, naturally it will also allow Jamaicans in those markets to send funds home,” he added.
Acknowledging the high cost of sending money home as one of the challenges faced by Jamaicans in Africa, he said the partnership is expected to provide people across the continent with a more efficient and cost-effective channel for staying connected.
The companies are aiming to complete the full rollout of the partnership by December 2026.
