WapiPay Enters Canada with FINTRAC MSB Licence

In Short

• WapiPay has entered Canada after receiving a Money Services Business, MSB, licence from FINTRAC.
• The approval lets it offer foreign exchange, money transfer, and payment services via a new Canadian subsidiary.
• The licence also covers virtual currency and digital asset transactions under Canadian rules.

What Happened

Kenyan cross-border fintech WapiPay is expanding into North America with a new regulatory approval in Canada. WapiPay says it has secured a Money Services Business licence from the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada, FINTRAC.

An MSB licence is a permit to run regulated money movement services. It typically covers activities like currency exchange, remittances, and certain payment processing services, with strict compliance obligations.

With the licence, WapiPay can offer foreign exchange, money transfer, and payment services in Canada through a newly established subsidiary. The approval also provides regulatory clearance to handle virtual currency and digital asset transactions, meaning the firm can offer services tied to crypto under Canadian reporting and anti-money laundering requirements.

WapiPay’s CEO Edward Ndichu described the move as a major milestone and said the company plans to combine traditional fiat payments, meaning regular bank money like CAD and USD, with digital assets.

The company says this gives it its first regulated operational hub in North America. It also extends a payments network that already includes Africa, Asia, the UK, and the Caribbean.

Why It Matters

For African fintechs, cross-border payments often depend on correspondent banking, which is when banks use middlemen to move money across countries. That can be slow, costly, and hard to scale.

A Canadian MSB licence can make it easier for WapiPay to serve diaspora users and businesses that pay suppliers or staff across borders. It can also improve trust with partners, because regulators require compliance checks, transaction monitoring, and reporting.

The added permission for virtual currency and digital asset transactions matters too. More payment providers are exploring stablecoins, which are crypto tokens designed to track a currency like the US dollar, to reduce transfer costs and settlement time.

If WapiPay executes well, Canada could become a launchpad for deeper North America corridors into Africa, especially for B2B payouts, remittances, and multi-currency settlement.