XARA: Banking without a new app

Most fintech apps in Nigeria follow the same script.

Build a shiny interface, pack in features, then fight to convince people to download one more app they’ll barely open. Xara walked away from that playbook.

Sulaiman Adewale, Xara’s founder, built a financial tool that runs inside WhatsApp. No extra app. No onboarding stress.

You open the platform you already use every day and handle your transactions from there. With 95% of most Nigerian social media users already active on WhatsApp, this offers an explicit opportunity to leverage.

What stands out is how smoothly Xara fits into everyday conversation. You can send a voice note in pidgin, drop a photo of an account number, or type: “Send ₦10,000 to Seun for breakfast.” And the system seamlessly understands.

The AI was trained on Nigerian expressions, so it responds to the way people actually speak. And that’s really important.

Many banking apps still overwhelm users with interfaces that feel stiff or confusing. Xara removes that friction completely.

It also works on simple phones with unstable internet connections. You don’t need a fancy device or steady data. You don’t need to switch between apps or search for account numbers. Everything happens on directly on WhatsApp.

And the way people easily adopted it shows it works. Within two weeks of launch, Xara pulled in 10,000 users and processed over ₦135 million in transactions. These aren’t just people downloading for the sake of it—It works, and they’re using it.

Xara is worth paying attention to for more than convenience. It’s proof that African tech doesn’t have to copy Western products to succeed. Sometimes the answer is meeting people where they already are, using the tools they already trust. Adewale saw that and built around it.

There’s still work ahead—building trust, scaling, and regulation. But if Xara grows, it signals something bigger. Financial inclusion doesn’t always hinge on building complex products.

Sometimes the breakthrough is as simple as moving banking to the space people open every morning.

In a market that has shut out millions with complexity, Xara’s strength is its simplicity. And that’s why it stands out for me and several other Nigerians.