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ThriveAgric Emerges 2022 Global Winner of Visa Everywhere Initiative
Thrive Agric, a fintech providing smallholder farmers access to finance, insights and distribution was crowned 2022 winner of the Visa Everywhere Initiative (VEI) – a global open innovation program and competition for start-ups and fintech companies. Thrive Agric is also the winner of the Visa Direct award for its role in shaping the future of money movement in Nigeria.
Taking place in Qatar alongside the FIFA World Cup 2022™, the global finale was preceded by a year-long competition that saw more than 4,000 entrepreneurs across the world entering innovative ideas to solve the payment challenges of tomorrow.
In addition to the overall winner, the following prizes were awarded:
- 2nd place: Zeti, a fintech enabling pay per use financing of sustainable transport.
- 3rd place and Audience Favourite: Huli, a platform that connects patients, doctors, and other healthcare services.
“This year, more than 4,000 fintechs participated in the global Visa Everywhere Initiative, including a record 1,130 applications from Central Europe, Middle East and Africa,” said Andrew Torre, Regional President for CEMEA, Visa.
“A new fintech generation is transforming the way consumers and businesses make payments, making it easier for more people to access and move money when they need it. We congratulate Ayo and all the winners in this year’s competition, and we look forward to continue partnering with fintechs to solve the payments challenges of tomorrow”.
Ruben Salazar, Senior Vice President and global head of Visa Direct, said: “As we strive to create more ways for people, SMBs, and larger businesses to participate in the global economy, the VEI competition provides a unique insight on how fintech are helping shape the future of money movement and expanding access to underserved markets and regions. Today’s Visa Direct Award winner will have access to modern tools and teams that help enable global money movement to billions of endpoints worldwide¹.”
The event brought together Visa and industry thought leaders and a previous Visa Everywhere Initiative winner to celebrate the innovative fintechs and their solutions. Wade Arnold, founder and CEO of Moov Financial and 2021 Visa Everywhere Initiative North America and Global winner returned as a judge, with special guest Visa’s Dr. Saeeda Jaffar hosting a fireside chat with football legend Marcel Desailly.
Ayo Arikawe, Co-Founder of ThriveAgric and now winner of both the global and the CEMEA competitions, delivered his pitch on how his sfintech is enabling strategic partnerships with financial institutions and agriculture value chain players to provide smallholders with financial services, agriculture inputs, extension, market linkage, e-commerce, and payment services.
“As a central part of the Nigerian economy, agriculture is the livelihood and main source of income for many of our people. The hard work we’ve put into ThriveAgric will ensure that technology is leveraged to empower farmers across the country. To not only win the CEMEA regional VEI competition but also pitch at the final here in Qatar gives me great confidence in our ability to scale our solutions and continue to enrich farmers’ lives,” said Ayo Arikawe.
About the finalists of the Visa Everywhere Initiative
Ayo Arikawe of Thrive Agric (Central Europe, Middle East and Africa) – Providing small holder farmers access to finance, insight and distribution.
Ayo co-founded Thrive Agric a platform that connects farmers to finance, best practices and market. Since launching in June 2017 they have worked with over 250,000 farmers across 23 states in Nigeria.
Thrive also opens up its platform to financial service providers, insurers, lenders which allows them to access data from the farmers and share value among each other.
Thrive’s farmers grow 7% of the maize consumed in Nigeria. Ayo is an Alumni of Ycombinator and Google Launchpad. He was Top 10 in Jack Ma African Netpreneur Prize and a YTech 100 recipient by the Future Awards Africa.
Mriganka Pattnaik of Mriganka Pattnaik of Merkle Science (Asia Pacific) – Merkle Science is the next generation predictive Web3 risk & intelligence platform
Merkle Science is the next generation Web3 risk mitigation, compliance and forensics platform.
They work with crypto and DeFi businesses, blockchain bridges, NFT players, retailers, financial institutions, insurers and government agencies around the globe.
Their focus on multi-chain and liquidity pool analysis, real-time transaction monitoring and predictive and machine learning-driven analytics provides our clients with best-in-class solutions and enables Web3’s safe and healthy growth.
Dan Saunders of Zeti (Europe) – Fintech enabling pay per use financing of sustainable transport
Zeti helps organisations adopt zero emission vehicles (ZEVs) by making it as simple, easy and transparent as paying for a utility. Powered by real-time data, Zeti’s software improves the financial viability of ZEVs for organisations, generates attractive returns for financiers, and helps manufacturers to sell their vehicles.
Christine De Wendel of Sunday (North America) – The fastest digital payment for restaurants and the industry’s future
Christine de Wendel is co-founder and CEO NOAM of Sunday. Prior to this, she was Chief Operating Officer of ManoMano, one of France’s fastest growing tech companies and Europe’s leading online platform for home improvement.
Before joining ManoMano, Christine spent seven years at Zalando, Europe’s largest online fashion retailer, where she built up Zalando’s French business. Christine is passionate about the European tech industry and has become an expert in scaling start-ups. Christine holds a BSc in International Affairs from Georgetown University, an MSc in International Relations from the London School of Economics and an MBA from INSEAD.
Alejandro Vega of Huli (Latin America) – Platform that connects patients, doctors and other healthcare services
Alejandro Vega is the CEO of Huli, a Latin American digital healthcare startup. Before founding Huli, Alejandro worked in investment banking where he worked on several cross-border M&A deals.
He also worked in General Electric, where he graduated from the Operations Management Leadership Program. Alejandro is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, where he obtained an MBA from the Wharton School.
He is a Fellow of the Lauder Institute Global MBA program and an alumnus of the Portuguese international program. He graduated Summa Cum Laude as an Industrial Engineer from Louisiana State University.
Xora Finance has announced it will no longer consider job applicants from Nigeria.
Xora Finance is a digital bank founded by Joren Lundgren, in February 2026 and allows users to deposit and earn interest on their XRP cryptocurrency.
Lundgren, founder, in an announcement on X (formerly Twitter), cited an ongoing pattern of misconduct, such as dishonesty and theft, from previous Nigerian hires as the reason for the decision.
This sudden blanket ban came just days after the company’s official career page was aggressively recruiting remote workers for marketing and content roles.
The announcement generated heavy backlash online, with many people upset that a blanket rule punishes honest job seekers.
Some lawyers have said that victims of Ponzi schemes have legal remedies, although recovering lost funds and prosecuting perpetrators remain major challenges.
A Ponzi scheme is an investment fraud that pays existing investors with funds collected from new participants rather than from actual profits.
Operators lure victims by promising high returns with little to no risk.
The scheme inevitably collapses when the flow of new investors slows down.
Some lawyers who spoke to News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) separate interviews with on Sunday, said that victims could pursue civil actions to recover their money.
Mr Chibuikem Opara, a lawyer at Justification Chambers, Ikeja,said many Nigerians continued to fall victim to Ponzi schemes in spite of repeated warnings.
Opara said it was wrong to attribute participation in Ponzi schemes to a lack of investment opportunities, noting that promoters often exploit investors’ greed through promises of unrealistic returns.
“What you cannot take away is the fact that many Nigerians have fallen and continue to fall victim to these schemes every time,” he said.
According to him, victims may individually or collectively institute civil actions against the beneficiary company for breach of contract or refund arising from failure of consideration.
Opara said victims could also unite to seek an order from the Federal High Court to wind up the beneficiary company.
He, however, noted that such efforts might yield little benefit if perpetrators had already siphoned the funds and left behind an empty shell.
The lawyer said available remedies largely depended on the actions of relevant authorities, adding that recipient accounts could be frozen to facilitate fund recovery and support winding-up proceedings.
Opara said regulators and law enforcement agencies often became aware of Ponzi schemes only after substantial losses had occurred.
According to him, victims frequently failed to report suspicious schemes early enough to enable timely intervention.
He added that funds are sometimes moved outside the country before authorities become aware of the fraud.
Opara also cited inadequate information and the deceptive nature of the schemes as major obstacles to investigation and prosecution.
“Most times, everything about the schemes is made to appear elusive, just like the profits promised to victims,” he said.
Also speaking, Mr Vincent Aminu of A.F. Aminu and Co. advised that victims of investment scams should report such cases to appropriate law enforcement agencies on time.
Aminu said victims could petition the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) or file reports with the police.
He said that after investigation, prosecutors could bring charges against suspects under relevant fraud-related laws, including provisions of the Criminal Code and the Advance Fee Fraud and Other Fraud Related Offences Act.
Beyond criminal prosecution, Aminu said .victims could pursue civil actions to recover their money
According to him, such actions may be based on breach of contract, unjust enrichment, or fraudulent misrepresentation, depending on the circumstances.
He added that victims could petition the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which could investigate illegal operators, shut down unauthorised platforms, and freeze assets.
He identified the anonymity of online fraudsters as one of the biggest challenges confronting investigators.
According to him, many operators concealed their identities through fake digital profiles and technologies that made tracking them difficult.
Aminu also noted that victims who delayed taking legal action risked losing opportunities for redress.
He added that prolonged court proceedings often delayed justice for victims.
“Many fraud-related cases take years before the court reaches a verdict, thereby delaying justice for victims,” he said.
Also, Mr Chris Ayiyi of Ayiyi Chambers, Apapa, described Ponzi schemes as a gamble that benefited early participants at the expense of later investors.
Ayiyi said some early entrants received returns on their investments, thereby encouraging others to join the schemes.
He said the schemes eventually collapsed, leaving late investors to bear the losses
The lawyer called for a complete ban on Ponzi schemes or sustained public enlightenment campaigns against them.
He urged the National Assembly to enact laws that would strengthen regulation and provide greater protection for investors.
According to him, stronger legal safeguards are necessary in a country operating a capital-based economy.
PalmPay Group (“PalmPay”), a multinational fintech company providing digital financial services across high-growth emerging markets, is pleased to appoint Samuel Oluyemi as Chief Operating Officer (“COO”) of its Nigeria practice, effective immediately.
The appointment comes at a pivotal moment for PalmPay as it looks to reach more underserved communities and continuously strengthen the reliability and security of its services. It also comes as Nigeria’s broader financial services sector continues to modernize, bring millions more Nigerians into the formal financial system, and strengthen the cybersecurity and fraud-prevention standards that underpin public confidence in digital payments.
As COO of PalmPay Nigeria, Mr. Oluyemi will oversee PalmPay’s Nigerian operations — where the company provides a full suite of digital financial services to individuals and businesses — and communicate with regulators to ensure the company’s growth happens harmoniously with the country’s financial, digital, and social inclusion goals.
Mr. Oluyemi brings more than two decades of experience at the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (“NIBSS”). During his tenure as the Business Development Lead, he championed the development of key national payment services — including the Digital Validation of Nigerian International Passport (e-Passport Validation), Electronic Dividend Mandate Management System (“e-DMMS”), and the Electronic Pensions Contribution Collection System (“EPCCOS”) — and played a pivotal role in introducing and driving early adoption of NIBSS Instant Payment (“NIP”), Nigeria’s first online, real-time, inter-bank transfer system in 2011 and its subsequent extension to the Other Financial Institutions (“OFI”) segment of the Nigeria Payments System.
He holds an MSc in Monetary Economics from the University of Ibadan with extensive local and international professional training.
“Samuel joins PalmPay at an important stage in our journey to strengthen the foundations that will support our long-term goal of driving financial inclusion,” said Chika Nwosu, Managing Director of PalmPay Nigeria. “His extensive experience makes him well positioned to help us scale sustainably while maintaining the operational discipline, governance and customer-first culture that define PalmPay.”
“PalmPay has established itself as one of the most impactful fintech companies in emerging markets by making financial services more accessible and affordable for millions of people,” said Mr. Oluyemi.
“I am excited to join the company and look forward to working alongside an exceptional team to strengthen operational excellence and support PalmPay’s vision of building a leading digital financial services platform. Together, we will continue delivering secure, reliable, and customer-focused financial solutions while contributing to the continued evolution of Nigeria’s digital financial ecosystem.”
As Nigeria’s digital financial services sector continues to mature, this appointment reflects a broader commitment guiding PalmPay across all markets it serves: building financial services that are secure, reliable, and effective enough to earn a permanent place in people’s everyday lives.
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