Kora COO Stephen Oluwatobi on Scaling Fintech Ops

In Short

• Kora COO Stephen Oluwatobi says operations, not hype, drives sustainable fintech expansion.
• His focus is building systems that help teams execute while navigating different country rules.
• Kora is expanding its payment API products across more than six African markets.

What Happened: Kora COO Focuses on Operations and Regulatory Complexity

Kora COO Stephen Oluwatobi is centering the company’s next growth phase on building an “operating system” for expansion across Africa.

Kora is a Nigerian fintech founded in 2017. It sells payment APIs, which are tools developers use to connect a business to payments, like plugging a device into a standard socket. These APIs support services such as card issuance, settlement, payment links, and identity checks.

Oluwatobi stepped into the COO role in November 2023 and fully assumed it by March 2024. In the Techpoint interview, he frames the job as continuous learning, and says he studied other COOs globally before taking on the role.

The operational challenge is partly regulatory. Each market has its own licensing requirements, compliance expectations, and reporting rules. For fintechs processing payments, these requirements can shape product design, onboarding flows, and even how money moves between banks.

Kora’s footprint spans more than six African countries, including Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, and South Africa, with further expansion underway.

Why It Matters: Payments Infrastructure Needs Repeatable Execution

Cross-border and multi-market fintech growth often breaks when teams rely on informal processes. As companies add new countries, they face more partners, more compliance work, and more edge cases in payment processing.

For Kora, building internal structures can make product rollouts more predictable. It can also reduce downtime, improve dispute handling, and help the company meet local regulator expectations.

For founders and operators, the takeaway is simple. In African fintech, scaling is less about entering new markets quickly, and more about building processes that let you keep shipping while staying compliant.