When we told our board we planned to open offices in Lagos and Singapore simultaneously, the reaction was mixed. Sequencing markets is conventional wisdom. You go deep in one, learn, then expand. We disagreed — and here's why it was the right call.
Two markets, one strategic bet
Nigeria and Singapore look nothing alike. One is a high-growth emerging market with a young, mobile-first population and a payments infrastructure still being built. The other is a sophisticated financial hub with world-class regulatory frameworks and a gateway to ASEAN. The common thread: both are experiencing disproportionate payment volume growth relative to the global average.
Why simultaneous rather than sequential
The conventional argument for sequencing markets is resource efficiency. You focus your attention, learn cheaply, and apply learnings to the next market. The counterargument — which we found compelling — is that payment infrastructure is winner-takes-most. The first global processor to establish local relationships with Nigerian banks and APAC acquirers gains a compounding advantage. A 6-month head start in local network relationships translates into years of approval rate and settlement speed advantages that are very hard to close.
The learning we hadn't anticipated: Having both offices open simultaneously created unexpected cross-pollination. Our Lagos team's experience with mobile money interoperability is directly informing our APAC strategy for markets like Vietnam and Indonesia. You can't plan for that kind of knowledge transfer — it emerges from the simultaneity.
What we got wrong
Regulatory timelines. We underestimated the time to obtain local payment institution licences in both markets. Nigeria's CBN approval process took four months longer than projected. Singapore's MAS process was faster but required significantly more compliance documentation than we'd prepared. If we were doing this again, we'd start the regulatory process six months earlier than we did and hire local compliance counsel from day one rather than month two.
Six months in: the verdict
Both offices are now fully operational. The Lagos team has onboarded 140 merchants and processed their first cross-border remittance corridors to the UK and Netherlands. Singapore is live with 200+ merchants across Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand. We're on track for our 12-month targets in both regions. The simultaneous launch created short-term management complexity that we'd absolutely accept again for the strategic head start it gave us.
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