A fintech business born out of a garage in Durban among three friends has kicked off to new heights as their company, Swiffy, secured an official partnership with Premier League football club Hull City.
Swiffy, a payments platform said on Thursday it has become the first payments infrastructure business from South Africa, to secure an official partnership with the club.
The agreement places Swiffy among a select group of South African-born businesses to partner with a club competing in the Premier League and gives the fintech business a globally recognised platform as it continues to strengthen its position in South Africa and expand its payments infrastructure across key African markets.
Other local businesses that have partnered with teams in the popular football competition in England include the likes of Old School, Hollywoodbets and SA Tourism.
Founded in South Africa and headquartered in Durban, Swiffy provides digital payment services to businesses operating across African markets.
“We’re incredibly proud that a business built here in South Africa is stepping onto the Premier League stage with Hull City," Swiffy co-founders Jadie Naicker, Christian Di Zio and Neil Schwartzman said.
Humble beginnings
Swiffy was founded in 2019 by the three who were colleagues and friends with a shared vision to do things differently in the South African payments space.
It is also a milestone with personal significance for the co-founders.
The business began in Naicker’s garage, where the three founders were the entire company, handling everything from coding and product development to sales, operations, management and "everything in between".
As the payments landscape evolved, Swiffy continued to adapt and develop its technology around changing customer and merchant needs.
In between long hours of building the business, they would even take breaks to play soccer in the garage,they told The National. It's a small detail that reflects the friendship, brotherhood and entrepreneurial spirit behind Swiffy from the very beginning,
From three founders doing everything themselves, Swiffy has grown to a team of well over 20 people, with its headquarters in Umhlanga and satellite offices in Cape Town and the North West Province, supporting merchants across multiple African markets.
Swiffy also grew exponentially without outside investment, and while the business has evolved significantly, that same brotherhood, resilience and shared purpose remains at its core, they said.
Its end-to-end payments stack enables merchants to manage deposits, payouts and settlement around the clock, helping businesses move money faster and more efficiently across the continent.
Football has been part of all three founders’ lives from a young age, making the opportunity to see a business they built in Durban become an official partner of a Premier League club both surreal and deeply meaningful.
"It is a major milestone for Swiffy, but it also says something bigger about the calibre of technology and fintech businesses being built on the African continent. There is also something very personal about this partnership for the three of us.
"We all grew up with football as part of our lives and have followed the game for many years.
"You grow up watching English football and seeing the history, scale and global influence of these clubs without necessarily imagining that one day a business you built in Durban (that originated with three friends starting a business out of a garage) would become an official partner of one of them. In that sense, it really is a dream come true and still feels slightly surreal,” they said.
The partnership comes as Hull City returned to the Premier League for the 2026/27 season and brings together two organisations entering an important period of growth.
“Hull City’s return to the Premier League represents ambition, resilience and a determination to compete at the highest level," the trio said
"Those qualities strongly resonate with the journey we have been on in building Swiffy and expanding our payments infrastructure across Africa. We are excited to be part of Hull City’s next chapter and look forward to building a partnership that extends well beyond the pitch," the trio said.
What the partnership entails
The trio of co-founders said the the opportunity to partner with Hull City came about through a mutual shared connection, where the partnership was presented to Swiffy as a potential fit.
"From the first conversations, there was a strong sense of alignment between Swiffy and Hull City, particularly around ambition, performance, trust and building for long-term growth. It was not a traditional tender process or a case of Swiffy responding to a call for a payments provider, but rather an opportunity that developed organically through the relationship and the clear synergy between the two brands," the co-founders said.
As an official partner of Hull City, Swiffy said it will work with the Club throughout the 2026/27 season, with the partnership spanning digital and traditional media, and in-stadium activity and placing the South African fintech brand in front of one of sport’s most extensive international audiences.
Swiffy said that the partnership is about more than visibility just in the UK. The company said that it provides an opportunity to take an African fintech brand onto a global stage while building greater awareness and credibility amongst customers, partners and businesses in South Africa and across the continent.
“We’re really pleased to welcome Swiffy to the Hull City family,” said Joe Clutterbrook, Chief Operating Officer at Hull City.
"Swiffy is a business with a clear understanding of the African market and a strong focus on making digital payments work better for its customers. There’s a natural alignment between their ambition to connect businesses and customers across the continent and our own ambition to connect Hull City with supporters around the world,” Clutterbrook added.
Football’s ability to connect audiences across borders is an important part of the partnership for Swiffy, the company stated.
English football has a passionate and highly engaged following throughout Africa, giving the business a globally recognised platform through which it can grow its profile while remaining focused on the markets most important to its expansion strategy.
By the end of 2027, the business said it aims to have further strengthened its position in South Africa, establish a growing presence across key African markets and build the brand recognition and visibility needed to support its longer-term international ambitions.
Swiffy’s infrastructure has been developed specifically for online businesses operating in complex and high-volume payment environments, including foreign exchange, iGaming and sports betting operators.
Its technology brings deposits, payouts and settlement into one integrated payments stack, giving merchants the infrastructure needed to transact efficiently across African markets.
ashley.lechman@nationalmg.co.za