If you ask a Nigerian importer how they found their freight forwarder, their clearing agent, or the platform they trust with cross-border payments, the answer is rarely an advertisement. It is almost always another importer. A name passed between people who already share margins, suppliers, and the occasional bad week.

That informal network has shaped Clea’s growth since the company started moving payments for African importers. The Clea Partner Program, the company’s new referral programme, is a direct response to it.

The Partner Program pays existing Clea users in US dollars when they bring other importers onto the platform. The structure is recurring rather than one-time. When a referred importer completes verification and makes their first successful payment, the referrer receives a one-time activation reward in their Clea wallet. From there, the referrer continues to earn a percentage on every qualifying USD payment that importer sends through Clea, capped at $160 per referred user.

The earnings are credited inside Clea and used the same way any other USD balance on the platform is used: to fund supplier payments, settle shipping agents, pay auction platforms, or cover the next leg of an active trade. For an importer running steady volume through a network of peers, the result is a parallel stream of dollar income that grows alongside the business itself.

Clea built the programme this way for a specific reason. A flat one-time bonus rewards the introduction and stops there. Recommending Clea is not a single moment. It happens repeatedly, in the small exchanges that define how this trade operates: a peer asking how a recent payment cleared without delays, a new entrant asking for honest advice, a shipping agent comparing options. A recurring referral program follows that pattern. It pays the importer for the trust they extend, not just for the moment of introduction.

Clea was built to give African importers the kind of payment infrastructure their work has long deserved. Most of the platform’s growth has come from importers telling other importers about it, and the Partner Program is the company’s way of paying for that. It is a recognition, on the books, of the people who have carried Clea’s name from one trade to the next.

The Clea referral program will roll out to all verified users, with eligible importers notified in the Clea app.