For banks & funders

Pre-scored AfCFTA trade-finance deal flow — funded on your terms.

Access explainable, risk-scored SME trade-finance requests across live AfCFTA corridors without building origination or underwriting infrastructure. Bid deal-by-deal or auto-fund through a standing facility. You fund from your own balance sheet and settle on your own rails — Sankofa never holds your funds.

Become a funding partnerHow the marketplace works

Pre-scored deal flow · Your rails · Sankofa never holds your funds

Pre-scored
Explainable risk on every request
Bid or auto
Deal-by-deal or standing facility
Your rails
You fund & settle directly
API
Underwriting engine, standalone
How you participate

Deal flow you can underwrite, funded your way

No origination stack to build, no black box to trust — explainable, pre-scored requests you fund on your own terms, deal-by-deal or through a standing facility.

Pre-scored, explainable deal flow

Every request arrives scored 0–1000 with a risk tier and the contributing factors that produced it — cash-flow stability, coverage, seasonality and repayment behaviour. You underwrite the “why”, not a black box, without building an origination stack.

Bid, or deploy a standing facility

Compete for individual trades at the rate you choose — the lowest rate wins — or commit a standing facility with your own rules (min score, sector and corridor allow-lists, ticket caps, offered rate) and let it auto-fund matching trades near-instantly.

You fund and settle directly

You fund each trade from your own balance sheet and settle on your own licensed rails. Sankofa generates and routes the settlement instruction and tracks its confirmation — it never holds your funds, not even in transit.

Or use the underwriting engine on its own

Prefer to keep origination in-house? Call Sankofa’s risk-scoring engine directly through a metered API for your own off-marketplace decisions — the same explainable model, billed per use.

The settlement-agency structure

You move the money. Sankofa never touches it.

This is the load-bearing part of how Sankofa works, and we state it plainly. Sankofa Trade does not hold your funds, does not extend credit, and is not a party to the money movement. When you win a trade, Sankofa generates a settlement INSTRUCTION and routes it to your own settlement rail; your institution executes it and confirms. There is no Sankofa account in the flow, no pooled client money, no custody — by design, and enforced in the platform's own architecture, not just promised in a contract.
  • Sankofa is a limited agent: it generates and routes instructions, never holds funds.
  • You execute settlement on your own licensed rails; the trader repays you directly.
  • No Sankofa custody account exists in the money path — structurally, not as a promise.
Deploy on your terms

Compete deal-by-deal, or set rules and walk away

Bid selectively on the trades you want at the rate you choose, or commit a standing facility that auto-funds matching trades within your rules — min score, sector and corridor allow-lists, ticket caps and offered rate. A live utilisation view shows committed vs deployed vs available, with alerts as a facility approaches exhaustion.
  • Selective bidding, or hands-off standing-facility auto-funding.
  • Your own risk rules: score, sector, corridor, ticket, rate.
  • Live utilisation and exhaustion alerts.
Impact & opportunity

Returns and development, in the same asset

Financing intra-African trade is both a short-duration, self-liquidating asset class and a direct contribution to the AfCFTA's growth.

~50%
Of African SME trade-finance requests are rejected todayAfDB / WTO
$81B
Addressable annual trade-finance gapAfrican Development Bank
15–120d
Short, self-liquidating tenors
Daily
Reconciliation against settlement rails
Partnership flow

From first conversation to deployed capital

A clear, staged path — diligence-friendly and designed around how institutional capital is actually committed.

  1. 01

    Introductory briefing

    A working session on corridor economics, the scoring model, and how the marketplace and standing facilities work.

  2. 02

    Onboard as a partner bank

    We set up your marketplace profile and, if you wish, a standing facility carrying your risk appetite and rules.

  3. 03

    Bid or auto-fund

    Start bidding on live trades, or let your standing facility auto-fund matches within your rules.

  4. 04

    Fund, settle & reconcile

    You fund and settle each won trade on your own rails; Sankofa routes the instruction and tracks confirmation.

You are the licensed lender of record for the trades you fund. Sankofa runs an AML/KYC programme on the trader side and acts only as the technology and settlement- orchestration layer — it does not originate credit and does not hold funds.

Governance

The controls behind the portfolio

  • 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.

Questions

Partner FAQ

What capital partners most often ask before a first briefing.

Diversified pools of short-tenor (15–120 day), risk-scored SME trade receivables across live AfCFTA corridors — not a single-name exposure. Every asset carries an explainable risk score and full documentary trail.

Let's talk

Fund pre-scored African trade, on your own terms

Become a funding partner and start bidding on live, scored trades — or set a standing facility and let it deploy within your rules.

Become a funding partnerRead the compliance posture