Get competing financing offers from multiple banks for your next cross-border trade.
One application. A network of partner banks. The best rate wins. Sankofa Trade scores your trade-finance request and puts it in front of banks who compete to fund it — banks fund from their own balance sheets and settle on their own rails. Sankofa is the marketplace, never the lender.
Multiple banks · One application · The best rate wins
A continent trading against itself
- $81B
- Africa’s annual trade-finance gapAfrican Development Bank
- 54
- AfCFTA member states trading as one marketAfrican Union
- 1.3B
- People inside the AfCFTA free-trade areaAfCFTA Secretariat
- ~50%
- Of SME trade-finance requests in Africa are rejectedAfDB / WTO
Creditworthy, and still turned away
Intra-African trade is throttled not by demand but by finance. The traders moving goods across borders are exactly the ones the old system can't see.
No collateral, no facility
Banks want fixed assets and audited accounts. A trader running six figures through mobile money every month has neither — and gets declined.
The dollar detour
A Ghana–Nigeria payment routes through US-dollar correspondent banking: a fee at each hop and an FX spread that erases a thin margin.
Paperwork built to exclude
Letters of credit and days of documentation price out the SME trader entirely — the segment that needs the capital most.
Apply → get scored → banks compete → settle → repay
One phone, no branch visit — and banks competing for your business instead of a single take-it-or-leave-it offer. The whole cycle designed around how trade actually moves in West Africa.
- 01
Apply from your phone
Onboard with your national ID, connect your mobile-money history with consent, and upload a trade document — an invoice or purchase order.
- 02
Get scored
Sankofa scores the cash flow your business already generates — not collateral you don’t have. Every score comes with its reasons, in plain language.
- 03
Banks compete for your trade
Your scored request goes to a network of partner banks who bid to fund it. Watch the offers arrive — the lowest rate wins — or fast-fund instantly against a bank’s standing facility.
- 04
Settled on the bank’s rails
The winning bank funds the trade and settles it on its own licensed rails. Sankofa routes the instruction and never holds your money.
- 05
Repay as you trade
Repayment is matched to your trade cycle and collected via mobile money — paid to the funding bank. Repay early with no penalty; your access grows with your history.
Built from the home of the AfCFTA Secretariat
- Anchored in Ghana under Bank of Ghana regulation.
- Corridor expansion sequenced by real trade-volume density — Nigeria and Côte d’Ivoire next.
- PAPSS-native settlement, not bolted on as an afterthought.
Pre-scored AfCFTA deal flow, funded on your terms
- Pre-scored, explainable deal flow — no origination stack to build.
- Bid deal-by-deal, or auto-fund via a standing facility on your own rules.
- You fund and settle directly; Sankofa never holds your funds.
Built on trust, not hype
Bank of Ghana
Partner-bank model
Facilities originated with Bank of Ghana–licensed institutions while direct licensing is pursued.
KYC / AML
FATF-aligned
Risk-based identity verification and transaction monitoring on every trader and counterparty.
PAPSS
Instant settlement
Pan-African Payment & Settlement System — local-currency, near-instant cross-border settlement.
Act 843
Data Protection
Registered under Ghana’s Data Protection Act, 2012; data stays in-region and encrypted.
Whether you move goods or move capital, start here
Traders: turn your trade history into competing offers from banks. Banks: access pre-scored AfCFTA deal flow and fund on your own terms.
Banks fund and settle directly · Sankofa never holds your funds · No penalty for early repayment