Nairobi — Agridex International has partnered with Tradeflow Capital Management to roll out a digital payments and structured trade finance platform targeting small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Kenya and across Africa.
The deal positions Agridex's Loam platform as the core payments infrastructure for deploying institutional capital into agricultural and commodity value chains, in a move aimed at lowering cross-border transaction costs and speeding up settlement times.
At the center of the partnership is Loam, Agridex's digital payments and treasury optimization system, which the firms say delivers near-instant settlement at transaction costs below 0.2 percent.
This compares to traditional cross-border payments that can exceed 3 percent and take several working days to process.
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The companies say the model is designed to address persistent financing gaps facing SMEs, particularly in agriculture and commodity trading, where access to structured trade finance remains limited.
Tradeflow Capital Management, which has facilitated more than $5 billion in SME trade transactions since inception, will use Loam as the primary conduit for structured trade finance capital across selected African markets.
The initial focus will be on commodity trades and structured financing deployments in priority markets, with an emphasis on faster settlement, lower transaction costs and improved payment certainty.
"Loam was built to solve real payment and settlement challenges in emerging markets. Tradeflow's adoption of Loam as a core conduit for capital deployment demonstrates how modern payment rails can unlock scale, efficiency, and resilience in African trade finance," Henry Duckworth, Founder and CEO of Agridex, said.
The collaboration comes amid growing demand for alternative trade finance solutions as SMEs continue to face high borrowing costs, currency volatility and delays linked to traditional banking systems.
By combining digital payment rails with asset-backed, data-driven financing models, the two firms are seeking to expand access to working capital for businesses operating within Africa's agricultural and commodity sectors.
