Paystack absorbs Allawee to power its microfinance bank and Zap app, while Shoprite snaps up Vida e Caffè and R&A Cellular to expand its retail and fintech footprint.👋 Welcome to the new readers who’ve joined us since last week. You’re joining 176,000+ other subscribers who love fintech.
Hello fintech friends,
Happy new month! September started with a bang.
Looks Like They Don’t Want Your Payments. They want the whole pipeline.
Welcome to the new era of commerce in Africa where just processing transactions isn't enough anymore. The real flex is owning the entire checkout rail, from the underlying digital ledger straight down to the physical shop counter.
Look closely at what went down over the past week. Paystack and Shoprite ran the exact same playbook from opposite ends of the economy.
It starts at the street level, where cash is king. South Africa’s informal township economy moves a staggering $46 billion to $61 billion every year, mostly across spaza shop counters. Shoprite already rules formal retail, pulling in over $85 million this year in financial service commissions alone. But to capture that high frequency daily cash that never sees the inside of a supermarket, they bought a controlling 51% stake in R&A Cellular. Why? Because R&A supplies the handheld POS hardware that township merchants use every single minute for airtime, electricity, and bill payments. Instead of trying to convince merchants to adopt a new terminal, Shoprite just bought the distribution network already sitting on the counter.
Now, trace that money up the stack to where digital payments live. While Shoprite was grabbing physical hardware, Paystack acquired Allawee to solve the exact same control problem in software. Building a standalone card-issuing startup in Africa is brutally expensive, high customer acquisition costs, thin margins, and constant sponsor bank downtime. By swallowing Allawee’s card issuing and ledger engine, Paystack plugged that infrastructure directly into Paystack Microfinance Bank and its consumer Zap app. Just like Shoprite cut out hardware middlemen, Paystack eliminated software middleware. Now they generate the card, manage the ledger, hold the deposit, and process the swipe…all under their own roof.
Connect those two moves, and the strategy becomes impossible to miss. Both realized that relying on third party rails is a trap.
They don't want to process the game; they want to run the board. — Jovin
Please find another week of fintech news below:
The Rundown
🏦 M&A
Paystack acquired corporate card provider Allawee to strengthen its business financial infrastructure offerings.
🚀 Product Launches
Looping Binary launched its LBPay digital payment ecosystem to simplify transactions across Cameroon.
Kopo Kopo launched its enhanced K2 Connect V2 payment APIs for business software integrations.
Grey introduced direct Chinese yuan payouts to streamline cross-border trade transactions with China.
Latin American fintech Meru launched operations in Africa, expanding service to 15 countries.
Tether launched TranslatePsy-AfriSLM, an offline opensource AI translation tool supporting 19 African languages.
💸 Fundraises
African tech startups collectively raised $2.10 billion in funding during the first eight months.
Village Capital invested in multiple early-stage Nigerian startups to support local innovation and growth.
Nigerian fintech company Nomba raised $3 million to expand its payment and banking services.
Arigo Capital launched a $150 million pan African fund to invest in high-potential regional enterprises.
🗂️ Other News
AXIAN Group and AfDB partnered to expand digital finance access for 34,000 African women entrepreneurs.
Banco BCS partnered with Mastercard to enhance digital payment capabilities and card offerings in Angola.
Sun King entered Kenya's smartphone financing market to directly compete against dominant player M-Kopa.
Capitec listed its $2.12 billion business division shares on the A2X stock exchange.
Kenyan authorities arrested FlexPay's founder over allegations involving theft and financial fraud.
Daba Finance partnered with Coronation to expand global investor access to Nigeria's capital market.
Kotani Pay and DCSPay partnered to facilitate cross-border stablecoin payouts across Africa.
Wapi Pay partnered with JN Money Services to expand remittance corridors into Jamaica.
VASPA requested a 90 day extension from the CBN for crypto regulatory sandbox applications.
Canva partnered with EBANX and Capitec Pay to unlock cardless recurring subscription payments in South Africa.
Quote of the Week
TWIF FAQs
While South African giants battle over township POS counters, which major North African market saw fintech driven merchant terminal deployments explode in 2025—driving a staggering 60% surge in transaction volumes as platforms aggressively push to digitize informal street-level retail?
(Find the answer at the signoff below!)
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Before we wrap this up…
Did you guess which major North African market saw fintech driven merchant terminal deployments explode in 2025, driving a staggering 60% surge in transaction volumes as platforms aggressively push to digitize informal street-level retail?
The answer is Egypt. Powered by aggressive POS rollouts from titans like Fawry and Paymob, alongside the Central Bank of Egypt’s digital push, Egypt has rapidly transformed its merchant landscape into one of the continent's most explosive physical and digital payment battlegrounds.
That’s all for today, friends. See you next Monday.
Asante.
