The next time you order a meal at Chicken Republic, you might settle the bill with a single tap of your phone. A Lagos-based fintech startup just signed a deal that turns the country’s largest fast food chain into a proving ground for contactless payments.
The rollout starts in Lagos and will spread to locations across 25 states, placing tap-to-pay terminals inside hundreds of outlets where millions of Nigerians eat every week.
CashAfrica deploys tap-to-pay across 350 Chicken Republic outlets nationwide
CashAfrica, a Nigerian contactless payment infrastructure startup, has partnered with Food Concepts PLC to bring mobile tap-to-pay to Chicken Republic stores nationwide.
The initial phase covers 54 branches in Lagos, with 296 additional locations across 25 states scheduled to follow, TechCabal reported on October 13, 2026.
Chicken Republic is the largest quick-service restaurant (QSR) chain in West Africa, with more than 350 outlets across Nigeria and Ghana under the Food Concepts umbrella.
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CashAfrica’s technology uses Near Field Communication (NFC) to process payments when a customer taps their phone on a compatible terminal.
Banks and fintech companies connected to CashAfrica’s application programming interface (API) can enable their users to pay at participating outlets through existing apps.
The service supports both iOS and Android devices, and the full transaction completes in under two seconds, according to TechCabal.
The startup does not charge consumers a fee at the point of sale for using the service, TechCabal noted. Instead, merchants pay CashAfrica for each transaction routed through its infrastructure, positioning the company as a backend payments layer.
Chicken Republic recorded ₦60.9 billion ($45.7 million) in sales in 2023, TechCabal reported, making the chain’s outlet network a high-volume environment for testing the service at scale.
Why contactless payments have struggled to gain traction in Nigeria
Despite the explosion of digital payments over the past decade, contactless transactions remain uncommon across Nigeria’s food service market.
More than 50% of merchants still favor cash for its speed and reliability, a Daba Finance analysis noted. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) released formal guidelines for contactless payments in June 2023, capping individual transactions at ₦15,000 and daily totals at ₦50,000, but adoption has trailed the regulatory framework.
Nigeria’s digitally active population between ages 18 and 35 will most likely drive early contactless adoption, Damilola Salawu, a partner at law firm Olaniwun Ajayi LP, said at BusinessDay’s Future of Payment Conference 2025.
Android accounts for roughly 84% of mobile usage in Nigeria, according to StatCounter, but not all of those devices include NFC hardware, which limits the addressable market for tap-to-pay products at this stage of the rollout.
CashAfrica raised $500,000 in pre-seed funding in May 2026, Nairametrics reported. The startup previously ran a pilot with PalmPay across 1,000 point-of-sale terminals in 2025, according to Techpoint Africa.
CashAfrica is part of a growing wave of funded ventures coming out of Lagos, where fintech companies now account for a significant share of Africa’s startup investment.
CashAfrica bets fast food can normalize tap-to-pay behavior in Nigeria
CashAfrica’s strategy places its technology inside a high-traffic, everyday retail setting where habit formation can occur with each visit.
Malik Asamu, CEO of CashAfrica, stated that meeting consumers where they already spend is the key to driving mainstream adoption.
He projected that contactless payments could become widespread in Nigeria within eight months through the right distribution partnerships, Thecondia reported.
Ifeanyi Uzoka, senior business development manager at PalmPay, reinforced that view at the same industry conference.
“No single entity can, in isolation, offer contactless payment. For any payment, there needs to be a partnership; hence, it is at the centre of payment,” Uzoka told BusinessDay.
The startup enters a fiercely competitive payments market where Moniepoint, PalmPay, and Flutterwave already process transactions at massive scale.
Moniepoint alone serves over 6 million businesses and partnered with AfriGo in March 2025 to issue 5 million contactless payment cards.
CashAfrica is not competing directly with those companies on consumer banking or merchant acquiring, however. Instead, it positions itself as a specialized infrastructure provider focused narrowly on contactless transactions.
The rapid growth of platforms like Cowrywise suggests Nigerian consumers adopt new financial tools readily when the experience is fast and convenient.
Key details from the CashAfrica and Chicken Republic partnership
- The rollout starts at 54 Chicken Republic outlets in Lagos, with 296 more across 25 states to follow (TechCabal)
- CashAfrica’s NFC system completes each payment in under two seconds through existing banking and fintech apps (TechCabal)
- Chicken Republic’s parent company Food Concepts PLC recorded ₦60.9 billion ($45.7 million) in sales in 2023 (TechCabal)
- CBN guidelines cap contactless payments at ₦15,000 per transaction and ₦50,000 daily (CBN Guidelines for Contactless Payments, 2023)
- E-payment transactions processed through the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) surpassed ₦1 quadrillion in 2024 (TheCable)
- CashAfrica raised $500,000 in pre-seed funding in May 2026 (Nairametrics)
