In Africa’s booming fintech landscape, where startups battle for the same pool of mobile-savvy consumers with cheaper transfers, instant loans, and flashy cards, one strategic layer remains curiously underbuilt: loyalty infrastructure.
While telcos and retailers run seasonal promotions, and banks occasionally hand out refrigerators to a lucky few, there’s little in the way of scalable, behavioural rewards systems — the kind that drive repeat usage, lifetime value, and real brand loyalty.
RewardHub, a Lagos-based startup led by loyalty veteran Omotayo Babatunde, is trying to change that.
“Loyalty shouldn’t be a marketing campaign. It should be core infrastructure,” Babatunde tells Innovation Village. “The winners in African fintech will be those who not only acquire customers — but know how to keep them.”
A Loyalty Layer Built Like Infrastructure
RewardHub is building what it calls a loyalty-as-a-service platform — an API-first stack that plugs into banks, fintechs, telcos, and even real estate platforms. The idea is simple but underutilized: turn every financial behavior — saving, bill payment, card spend, lending, even account referrals — into reward points that users can redeem across borders.
That redemption engine includes:
- 800+ global airlines
- 500,000+ hotels
- 150,000 car rental agencies
- Airtime, electricity tokens, and retail vouchers
- And a growing catalogue of lifestyle experiences, such as private golf, spa days, and Formula 1 events for high net-worth users.
The company says it’s currently at advanced stage with a tier one bank and two mid-sized Nigerian banks. Full names were withheld due to NDAs.
“We’re not just building another points engine,” Babatunde says. “We’re building a loyalty currency that can plug into any ecosystem, across sectors, across borders.”
From Global Consulting to Homegrown Code
Babatunde is no stranger to the loyalty space. He previously led African operations for Infinia, a Dubai-based loyalty consultancy that serviced tier-one banks like Access Bank, KCB, Ecobank, and AFRASIA. When Infinia was acquired by Singapore-based Giift, Babatunde stayed on — but says the focus shifted away from Africa.
“They didn’t plan to invest in the continent. We knew then we had to build our own stack — locally relevant, globally scalable.”
RewardHub was born shortly after, co-founded with a former colleague and currently building an ecosystem that spans banks, fintechs, travel and e-commerce platforms.
Beyond Cards: Enterprise-Wide Loyalty
Unlike traditional rewards programs that focus only on debit or credit card spend, RewardHub’s platform connects directly to a financial institution’s core systems. This means it can reward a wide range of activities:
- Maintaining savings balances
- Paying utility bills via mobile apps
- Completing loan repayments on time
- Referring new users; new customer acquisition.
- Funding a fixed deposit or mortgage transaction
The flexibility is critical in Africa, where card penetration remains below 25% in many markets, but mobile wallets and bank transfers are surging.
“We’re enabling loyalty on the real behaviors that matter,” says Babatunde. “Not just swiping a card — but building financial discipline, digital engagement, and long-term value.”
Loyalty Remittance: RewardHub’s Next Bets
RewardHub’s next wave of innovation is bold. The startup is actively building:
- POS Redemption Integration
Users will soon be able to redeem points directly at checkout counters. “Imagine paying for groceries at Shoprite or airtime at a petrol station with your RewardHub points,” Babatunde explains. - Loyalty-Powered Remittances
African diaspora will soon be able to send reward points instead of cash to family members, who can redeem them locally for real
Product Differentiation: Transferable Points and Global Brands Alliances
A standout product on the roadmap is RewardHub Point Transfer — a feature allowing users to convert RewardHub points to frequent flyer miles or hotel loyalty programs, enabling real-time booking through partner platforms.
“If value can move instantly, why can’t loyalty?” Babatunde asks. “We’re treating points like digital assets — interoperable, borderless, and instantly redeemable.”
This positions RewardHub more as an infrastructure provider than a consumer-facing app. Most of its integrations will be white-labelled inside mobile banking, fintech apps, or co-branded debit cards.
The Loyalty Gap in African Fintech
Loyalty in Africa is largely broken. Promotions are often seen as PR gimmicks. Banks run raffles that reward a fraction of users. Telcos hand out free data bundles, but there’s no lasting engagement loop.
“If a bank runs a campaign where 10 winners get a fridge out of 10 million customers — that’s not loyalty. That’s a lottery,” Babatunde says bluntly.
Instead, RewardHub is betting that behavioural loyalty — not luck-based promotions — will define the next generation of winners in African fintech. It’s a vision shared by a growing number of banking executives and product leads who now view customer retention as their biggest cost center.
Why it matters
Africa’s fintech boom produced winners in payments (Flutterwave, Interswitch), credit (Carbon, FairMoney) and, more recently, cross-border wallets (Chipper Cash). The next defensible moat could be stickiness — keeping users once the promos end.
“If ten neobanks offer the same transfer fee, the one that gives you a free flight to Nairobi wins,” says a former bank executive who now advises regional fintechs (he is not affiliated with RewardHub).
Whether RewardHub can scale beyond Nigeria — and do it before incumbents wake up — remains the open question. But if loyalty really is the invisible plumbing beneath customer retention, Africa’s fintech stack may finally be getting its missing pipe.
Final Word
Africa’s digital finance revolution has built payment rails, credit scoring engines, and cross-border wallets. But as competition intensifies, user retention — not just acquisition — will become the new battleground.
RewardHub believes loyalty is the moat.
If the startup succeeds, it won’t just be a loyalty platform — it could become Africa’s answer to Avios, Nectar, or Payback. But this time, built natively, with APIs — and for the continent that skipped plastic cards and jumped straight into mobile-first finance.
“We’re not chasing transactions,” Babatunde concludes. “We’re building trust. And trust is the real currency.”
