CashAfrica, a Nigerian contactless payment infrastructure provider, has partnered with Food Concepts, the quick-service restaurant company that owns Chicken Republic, PieXpress, and The Chop Box, to bring mobile tap-to-pay to Chicken Republic outlets across Nigeria.
The partnership will let customers pay for their meals by tapping their smartphones on supported payment terminals. According to CashAfrica, the rollout will be phased, starting in Lagos before expanding to Abuja and other locations.
Chicken Republic has more than 350 outlets across Nigeria and recorded ₦60.9 billion ($45.7 million) in sales in 2023. The scale of its operations gives CashAfrica a potential route to increase the adoption of tap-to-pay payments in Nigeria.
“This is a strategic partnership to take Mobile Tap-to-Pay mainstream, while delivering the best-in-class payment experience,” Malik Asamu, CashAfrica’s chief executive officer, said in a statement. “Previously, Nigerian users and merchants could collect transfers, cards, QR code, and cash options. This strategic partnership delivers a whole new layer of payment possibilities, created the Pan-African way.”
The deal follows CashAfrica’s partnership with ChamsSwitch, a licenced switching and electronic payment processing company, in May to address regulatory compliance and transaction-routing requirements that had slowed the adoption of its contactless payment infrastructure. It also builds on an earlier integration with PalmPay, which began rolling out contactless payment functionality on its point-of-sale (POS) terminals in February 2025, starting with a 1,000-device pilot.
Founded in 2024 by Asamu and Bello Opeyemi, CashAfrica provides payment infrastructure that allows banks and fintechs to integrate contactless transactions into their existing services. Its CashTap technology uses near-field communication (NFC), a short-range wireless technology that allows compatible devices to exchange information when brought close together.
CashAfrica’s mobile tap-to-pay product allows customers to initiate payments with their phones through participating banking and fintech apps. A customer opens a supported app, selects the tap-to-pay option, authenticates the transaction where required, and taps the phone against a compatible POS terminal. Depending on the device, payment authentication can involve features such as Face ID or fingerprint recognition, according to CashAfrica.
Under the partnership with Food Concepts, users interact with PalmPay’s POS terminals for the payment, while CashAfrica supplies the technology that enables the contactless transaction. ChamsSwitch, meanwhile, supports the settlement side of the transaction. Asamu told TechCabal in an interview that the company acts as a regulatory and infrastructure partner, helping facilitate funds movement between the fintechs and operators involved in the payment.
“ChamsSwitch is a regulatory partner that allows us to do a lot of cross settlements,” he said. “If Chicken Republic is collecting tap-to-pay, a lot of that money needs to be moving in the background, such as T+1 settlements and end-of-day settlements. ChamsSwitch is heavily involved in that.”
CashAfrica said it will introduce the service gradually before making mobile tap-to-pay available across all 350-plus Chicken Republic outlets. The company also plans to work with more banks and fintechs to expand the number of customers who can use the feature through their existing apps.
“Customer experience has always been at the heart of Chicken Republic, and we continuously look for ways to make every meal faster, easier and more convenient,” Solomon Ojelade, head of finance at Chicken Republic, said in the statement. “Our partnership with CashAfrica brings that commitment into the payment experience, giving our customers access to a fast and seamless Mobile Tap to Pay option across our outlets.”
At Chicken Republic, customers will not pay a separate fee to use mobile tap-to-pay, Asamu told TechCabal. Instead, the merchant pays CashAfrica for transactions processed through its infrastructure. The company said it charges a percentage of each transaction, typically between 0.1% and 1.5%, depending on the arrangement.
CashAfrica is looking to capitalise on Nigeria’s growing use of electronic payments. In 2024, electronic transactions processed through the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System’s instant payment system surpassed ₦1 quadrillion ($803 billion). The company intends to turn that growth into the adoption of a newer payment method.
Asamu said the company has signed other partnerships with businesses where customers regularly make in-person payments, including quick-service restaurants and supermarkets, and will announce them in the coming months.
“The change in the average Nigerian customer consumption pattern in financial technology has allowed us to see wind in the sails of contactless payments,” he said. “We make the bet and continue to bet on contactless payments.”
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