Mastercard and enza Join Forces to Supercharge Fintech Innovation in Africa

The fintech boom in Africa just received a major infrastructure boost. Mastercard has partnered with enza, a fast-rising payment solutions company, to unlock direct access to Mastercard’s global payments network for fintech companies across the continent.

The goal? Strip away the complexity of building payments infrastructure from scratch and let African startups plug Mastercard directly into their platforms securely, quickly, and at scale.

The partnership comes at a pivotal moment. According to the European Investment Bank, the number of fintech companies in Africa has nearly tripled since 2020. Many of these players are building beyond traditional banking, focusing instead on embedded financial services that integrate payments, lending, and financial access into digital-first experiences.

This Mastercard–enza collaboration does exactly that: it turns payments into a building block, not a bottleneck.

What It Means for Fintech Builders

Startups using the enza platform can now embed Mastercard functionality directly into their digital products. That includes issuing prepaid or postpaid Mastercard cards (physical or virtual), configuring consumer or merchant accounts, and enabling Mastercard acceptance in-store, online, and in-app  all without reinventing the payments stack.

For fintech founders, this means faster time to market, lower development overhead, and the ability to focus on innovation and customer experience rather than infrastructure maintenance.

“Through our work with enza, fintech innovators in Africa will be able to deploy embedded payment capabilities more efficiently — helping accelerate financial inclusion and the region’s digital transformation,” said Mete Guney, Executive VP of Market Development, EEMEA, Mastercard.

It’s a vision that aligns with Mastercard’s long-standing focus on financial access, especially in underbanked and underserved regions. But critically, it also reflects the company’s pivot toward enabling platform-driven innovation, not just facilitating transactions.

enza’s Infrastructure Advantage

Founded in 2023 and headquartered in Abu Dhabi, enza is already carving out a serious footprint across Africa with regional operations in Egypt, South Africa and Nigeria. Its platform architecture is built for flexibility — letting fintechs scale, adapt to market nuances, and integrate new services without friction.

As part of the agreement, enza will handle Mastercard integration, maintain security protocols, and ensure uptime reliability, three historically expensive pain points for startups looking to build financial products.

“Our collaboration with Mastercard leverages our existing relationship to more effectively serve the fintech community,” said Andrew Key, Executive Director at enza. “Together, we provide innovators with a platform capability that means they don’t need to build this aspect of their proposition and can go to market faster and more securely.”

This isn’t just a backend improvement it’s a strategic enabler. By offloading the most complex parts of the payments journey, fintech startups gain the freedom to build differentiated, locally relevant products that reach underserved consumers and small businesses.

Africa’s Fintech Engine Just Got a Tune-Up

This collaboration gives African fintechs a rare competitive advantage: global-grade payment infrastructure with regional agility. In a landscape where regulatory hurdles, infrastructure gaps, and capital constraints often stall promising ventures, enza and Mastercard are clearing a faster lane to market.

It’s a move that doesn’t just help startups. It strengthens the entire fintech ecosystem boosting competition, raising the bar on product quality, and pushing the continent further toward digital financial inclusion.