Smartcomply Brings Africa-First AML Expertise to the UK Fintech Market

Nigerian compliance and cybersecurity startup Smartcomply is expanding into the United Kingdom, offering its Adhere platform specifically designed to address unique challenges in monitoring payments across African corridors.

Addressing a Critical Gap in Financial Crime Monitoring

Adhere utilizes AI-powered transaction analysis, identity verification, and fraud detection tailored for African financial systems. According to Smartcomply CEO Gbemisola Osunrinde, existing compliance solutions often generate false positives when applied to African payment patterns—forcing institutions into manual reviews or even exiting the market.

“Many (financial institutions) have resorted to de-risking or simply pulling out of the African corridor entirely,” she explained. “Adhere addresses this by integrating directly with local identity infrastructure and analyzing transaction behavior in context.”

Key Features of Adhere:

  • Local Identity Integrations: Verifies customers through systems like Nigeria’s BVN and National ID databases, as well as regional partnerships across East and Francophone Africa.
  • Behavioral Analysis: Identifies legitimate high-volume transactions from suspicious activity using machine learning models trained on African payment patterns.
  • Automated Reporting: Generates audit-ready compliance reports mapped to local regulatory frameworks.
  • Flexible Pricing: Allows institutions to select specific modules based on their needs, with both subscription and API-based pricing options.

Designed for Growth Corridors

The expansion targets Electronic Money Institutions (EMIs), remittance firms, neobanks, and payment fintechs operating across key African routes—particularly Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, South Africa, and Rwanda. This aligns with growing regulatory scrutiny of anti-money laundering controls in these markets.

Building Infrastructure for Inclusive Finance

Smartcomply maintains direct integrations with local identity infrastructure across Africa to support user verification and generate risk scores. Anita Ajalla, CTO of Smartcomply, emphasized the importance of building solutions that understand African financial realities from the ground up:

“Compliance technology designed in New York or London cannot read Nigerian Bank Verification Numbers… The companies that get to participate in African growth are the ones with infrastructure built for African reality.”

With over 100 businesses already using Adhere to monitor more than $1 billion in monthly transaction volume, Smartcomply aims to bring its expertise to a broader market while supporting inclusive financial innovation.