Smartcomply Group Expands to the UK
Smartcomply, the African compliance and cybersecurity company, trusted by more than 100 financial institutions across the continent, today announced its entry into the United Kingdom. The company has registered to operate in the UK and brings with it Adhere, its flagship AI-powered AML, KYC, and fraud detection platform, purpose-built for the complexity of African payment […]
Smartcomply, the African compliance and cybersecurity company, trusted by more than 100 financial institutions across the continent, today announced its entry into the United Kingdom. The company has registered to operate in the UK and brings with it Adhere, its flagship AI-powered AML, KYC, and fraud detection platform, purpose-built for the complexity of African payment corridors.
UK financial institutions, particularly Electronic Money Institutions, remittance firms, neobanks, and cross-border payment fintechs, have spent the past decade navigating rising compliance costs and regulatory scrutiny when serving African corridors. The result has been steady de-risking of African flows, with correspondent banking relationships into Sub-Saharan Africa falling by more than 25% over the past decade, according to World Bank and SWIFT data. UK outbound remittances to Sub-Saharan Africa now exceed £4 billion annually, against a UK total of more than £9 billion, but the average remittance cost to the region remains 8.5%, more than double the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of 3%.
Smartcomply’s expansion into the UK directly addresses this gap. Adhere provides UK financial institutions with the corridor intelligence, real-time transaction monitoring, automated KYC and KYB orchestration, sanctions and PEP screening, and audit-ready reporting they need to operate confidently across African markets. The platform was engineered from the ground up for African regulatory realities, with Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, South Africa, and Uganda as the initial focus corridors.
“African payment corridors should be a growth opportunity for the global financial system, not a liability. Adhere exists to make that growth possible without compromising on compliance. Smartcomply’s UK presence means that for the first time, UK fintechs and banks have direct access to an AML platform that understands African data the way it should be understood: from the inside out.”
— Gbemisola Osunrinde, Chief Executive Officer, Smartcomply
Adhere already monitors more than $1 billion in transactions monthly for its customer base across the African continent. Customers report a 70% reduction in manual compliance workload and a 40% decrease in false positive fraud alerts. Earlier this year, Smartcomply was named a verified member of the Mastercard Engage Partner Program, joining an exclusive ecosystem of vetted technology providers delivering market-ready compliance and fraud detection solutions globally.
In Nigeria, Adhere is aligned by design with the Central Bank of Nigeria’s Baseline Standards for Automated AML Solutions, published in March 2026. The platform’s regulatory intelligence layer is built to update continuously as standards evolve across FATF, GDPR, NDPA, and other frameworks relevant to its UK and African customers.
“We built Adhere because we lived the problem. Compliance technology designed in New York or London cannot read Nigerian Bank Verification Numbers, cannot understand mobile money flows in Kenya, and cannot make sense of West African mule networks. The companies that get to participate in African growth are the ones with infrastructure built for African reality. We are bringing that infrastructure to London.”
Anita Ajalla, Chief Technology Officer, Smartcomply
With the UK entry, Smartcomply now operates across three regions: Nigeria, Kenya, and the United Kingdom. The company is in active conversations with UK Electronic Money Institutions, remittance firms, and banking partners serving African corridors. Discovery calls are open through adhere.smartcomply.com from today.