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Hello fintech friends,
Before we get into the business of money this week, we need to pause.
Our heartfelt condolences go to the families, friends, and colleagues of Andrew Milne, Kuunda’s co-founder and co-CEO, and Eva Ngigi-Sarwari, Equity Group’s payments and international banking director. Both helped shape Africa’s financial services industry, building businesses and infrastructure that move money across the continent. Their passing is a profound loss. May their legacies live on.
Now, onto this week’s business.
Every marriage has its vows. In corporate Kenya, those vows are written in share registers, signed in transaction documents, and occasionally tested in court.
In June 2026, South Africa’s Vodacom completed a multibillion-dollar deal that pushed its ownership of Safaricom the M-Pesa’s parent company to 55%. It acquired the Kenyan government’s 15% stake for approximately $1.58 billion and picked up another 5% through Vodafone. It looked like a deal made in corporate finance heaven.
Then September arrived, and the High Court called the wedding into question.
On September 15, the court nullified the government’s sale, raising concerns about transparency, public participation, and whether the transaction had effectively transferred control of Safaricom without sufficient scrutiny. Vodacom says it will retain its 55% while the Court of Appeal considers the substantive appeal. The deal has not been unwound. Neither has the legal fight been settled.
Safaricom is not just another telco.
As M-Pesa’s parent, it sits behind one of Kenya’s most critical financial platforms — moving money between families, powering merchant payments, and supporting millions of agents and businesses. Who controls Safaricom is not simply a question of share ownership. It is a question of who influences a significant part of Kenya’s economic plumbing.
For Vodacom, it is a major bet on East Africa’s most influential digital business. For the Kenyan government, a substantial source of revenue. For investors everywhere, it raises a harder question: how secure is a completed transaction when its underlying approvals are challenged in court?
The broader lesson for fintech is this: digital infrastructure is strategic national infrastructure. Foreign investment can bring capital and scale. But when ownership changes affect infrastructure millions depend on, the process matters as much as the price.
For now, Vodacom retains its 55%, Safaricom keeps operating, and the courts will decide what comes next.
The shares have changed hands. The vows have been exchanged. But the marriage is not yet legally settled.
See you in court.
— Jovin
Please find another week of fintech news below:
The Rundown
🏦 M&A
Shoprite and Investec held talks on a fintech tie-up. Africa’s biggest retailer and one of its top banks may be about to build something together.
Pepkor’s fintech deal drew fire from investors who argued the company had no right to close it without a shareholder vote and they have a point.
🚀 Product Launches
Nomba opened a new corridor between DRC and Zambia. A $1.6 billion trade route that was still moving money on cash and hope.
Happy Pay flipped the ad model. South African merchants now only pay for advertising when a sale actually lands.
Mastercard and Moovn locked in a five year East Africa digital payments deal.
LemFi went global with its biggest product push yet, backed by a new brand built on four words: Ambition Has No Passport.
EBANX and OPay cracked open direct debit for global subscriptions in Nigeria.
EdFaPay and GoPravo built SDPay in Sudan, one of Africa’s most underserved financial markets.
dLocal and Western Union deepened their tie-up to cover more remittance payouts across Africa.
Finna launched Shore, a crypto exchange liquidity platform.
💸 Fundraises
MNT-Halan rang the bell on Egypt’s stock exchange after investors scrambled 43x over for a piece . Africa’s most anticipated fintech IPO of the year is live.
OPay filed for a $336 million NYSE listing that would double its 2021 valuation to $4 billion and 80% of shares already have buyers lined up.
🗂️ Other News
Egypt set a $5 billion VC target, putting real government money behind Cairo’s fintech ambitions.
MNT-Halan pledged $10 million in AI spending by 2027. The ink on the IPO barely dried.
PalmPay UK burned through $21.3 million last year. A window into what African fintech’s international expansion actually costs.
Kenya’s diaspora remittances from Africa surpassed the UK and Saudi Arabia for the first time.
Ethiopia’s central bank joined PAPSS. 120 million people just got connected to the continental payments network.
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Quote of the Week
TWIF FAQs
In 2019, a major African bank collapsed after years of financial distress, triggering one of the continent’s largest banking failures. Which Nigerian bank was taken over by the Central Bank of Nigeria in August 2019, after regulators revoked its operating licence over insolvency concerns, and was later restructured into a bridge bank?
(Find the answer at the signoff below!)
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Before we wrap this up…
Did you guess which bank the regulators shut down?
The answer is Skye Bank Nigeria. In September 2018, the Central Bank of Nigeria revoked the bank’s operating licence after years of financial difficulties and its failure to meet regulatory requirements. The regulator transferred its assets and liabilities to a newly established bridge bank, Polaris Bank, to protect depositors and maintain stability in the banking system.
The intervention followed an earlier bailout in 2016, when the regulator injected capital to keep the bank afloat. Despite that support, Skye Bank failed to meet the conditions required for continued operation.
So when regulators step in to rescue a failing bank, remember that sometimes the institution survives only by giving way to a new one.
That’s all for today, friends. See you next Monday.
Asante.
