UK-based engineer launches Topa to help diasporans make direct payments to schools, businesses, councils in Zimbabwe

“Send the reason, not just the money”: UK-based Zimbabwean founder Lee Masuka has launched Topa, a platform that removes the need to send money every time — and instead pays whatever it was for, from the property developer and the school to the electricity, the council or the hardware shop at home, directly from a UK bank account, in pounds. Launched at the UK–Zimbabwe Business Expo & Property Show in Birmingham, Topa and the ClicknShare network behind it connect diaspora money to the property developer, the council, the school and the hardware shop it was meant for — and give Zimbabwean businesses a direct line to the people abroad who already pay their bills. The Topa stand at the UK–Zimbabwe Business Expo & Property Show, Birmingham, 3 October 2026 — Caroline van den Bergh, Lee Masuka, Dr Trust Diya and Munya of the ClicknPay team.

Credit: ClicknShare BIRMINGHAM — Picture a Thursday morning in Leeds. Before work, a Zimbabwean nurse opens an app on her phone and, from her ordinary UK bank account and in pounds, pays this month’s instalment on a stand in Ruwa straight to the developer; settles her mother’s City of Harare rates with the account number attached; pays her nephew’s Form 2 fees to the school with his name on the receipt; buys ten bags of cement from a hardware in Harare for the builder to collect; tops up her father’s Econet line; and sends a ZESA token that lands on the family meter before she has put her phone down. No relative had to be trusted with an envelope.

Every pound became exactly what it was sent for, and she has the receipts to prove it. That is the proposition Topa, and the UK payments network it runs on, ClicknShare — brought to the UK–Zimbabwe Business Expo & Property Show in Birmingham on 3 October, an event built around “Discover Investment Opportunities in Zimbabwe” and “Turning Remittances into Investment”. “Those two themes describe our problem exactly,” said founder Lee Masuka, a Cambridge-based Zimbabwean engineer.

“People in the diaspora want to invest at home. It is transparency, delays, and the fact that there has been no platform that connects them directly to the developer, the supplier, the school or the council. We built the bridge.” The last mile, on foot Zimbabwe received a record US$2.45 billion in diaspora re…