👨🏿‍🚀TechCabal Daily – Climbing the Ladder to microfinance

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Happy pre-TGIF.

In 2025, Africa’s tech ecosystem hit several inflexion points: clean energy briefly overtook fintech in funding, and a record 67% surge in M&A activity. Looking ahead, TechCabal Insights has published five predictions for 2026, from the rise of the super-conglomerates to the possible emergence of Nigeria’s first AI data centres. Read the full predictions here.

We are also conducting a short survey to help us understand how theecosystem performed in 2025. If you run a startup or a small tech-enabled business, are knowledgeable about African tech, or actively provide critical services in the ecosystem, we would appreciate your help answering a few questions. Please fill out this form.

Let’s dive into today’s dispatch.

• Paystack acquires microfinance bank
• Airtel Money Kenya introduces overdrafts
• Shoprite is layering BNPL services
• World Wide Web 3
• Events

payments

Nigerian fintech Paystack acquires microfinance bank

Image source: Paystack

After a decade of processing payments for thousands of Nigerian businesses, Paystack has a clear view of what merchants want next: access to capital, better treasury management, and a safe place to hold their funds.

To meet those needs, the fintech has acquired Ladder Microfinance Bank (MFB), a Nigerian microfinance bank, adding the new entity to its group. The new entity, Paystack Microfinance Bank (MFB), will operate independently from the payments business, though both companies will collaborate on products within regulatory limits.

The licence gives Paystack a powerful advantage. With access to one of Africa’s largest online payment datasets, Paystack MFB can underwrite loans based on a merchant’s historical payment flows rather than account balances. It can also design savings and treasury products tailored to how businesses actually earn and spend money.

More strategically, the move allows Paystack to move beyond payment processing. By housing funds within its own banking entity, the company gains greater control over the money flowing through its network, an edge over its payment competitors.

Paystack MFB also plans to offer banking-as-a-service products, enabling other platforms to embed banking features into their offerings. If successful, the move could do for digital banking what Paystack did for online payments a decade ago.

But the market is crowded. Nigeria already has no shortage of business banks and neobanks, all competing alongside legacy banks. To win deposits, Paystack MFB will lean on yield incentives and instant settlement for merchants that collect payments via Paystack.

Just two weeks into the new year, Nigeria’s fintech sector has already recorded two acquisitions, following Flutterwave’s purchase of Mono last week. It’s an early signal that 2026 may be another busy year for dealmaking.

Your 2026 demands disciplined financial operations

Fincra powers the payments infrastructure businesses rely on to collect, pay, and settle across local and major African currencies with confidence. Get started.

companies

Airtel Money plans to bring overdrafts to customers

An Airtel Money shop. Image source: Google

Running out of money mid-payment? Airtel Money Kenya has now got you. The mobile money arm of Airtel, the telecom giant, is preparing to unlock more loan offerings for customers. Airtel Money plans to launch overdraft services, which will allow customers to borrow money and complete a transaction when their balance hits zero. Airtel Kenya will automatically recover the deficit from customer accounts when they top up their wallets.

Airtel Money is pushing deeper into loans and credit, offering overdrafts to consumers, and challenging Safaricom, which owns M-PESA, the mobile money service operating Fuliza since 2019.

What Airtel plans to do differently: By launching a direct competitor, Airtel Money is racing M-PESA’s Fuliza to the bottom, undercutting them with low(er) fees. Although Airtel Money hasn’t published its interest rate yet, Fuliza currently charges a one-time access fee of 1% and daily maintenance fees that differ depending on the loan amount. Any meaningful undercut of prices here could make Airtel Money cheaper and likely more preferable over Safaricom’s Fuliza, from a customer’s viewpoint.

Chipping at the giant: Safaricom still controls about 89% of the mobile money market, and Airtel recently crossed into the double-digit threshold and hit over 10% in December 2025. To reach even half the market, Airtel would need to grow nearly fivefold. It seems like a lot, but looking at Airtel Money’s steady growth might convince you. Bringing fees lower for a service formerly monopolised by Safaricom is Airtel Money’s chance at chipping (further) away at the mobile money giant’s market share.

companies

Shoprite wants customers to buy consumer goods today and pay later

Image Source: Wikipedia.

Shoprite Group has partnered with PayJustNow, a subsidiary of Weaver Fintech, to allow customers to buy groceries and everyday essentials on loan and pay back later. Customers can use this buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) service across Shoprite’s biggest brands, including Shoprite, Checkers, Sixty60 and Computicket.

Here’s how it would work: Customers pay a portion upfront, walk away with their goods, and settle the balance in interest-free instalments over a short period. PayJustNow handles the credit decision using its own risk models, while Shoprite keeps the shopping flow intact.

BNPL is everywhere now: Shoprite joins a growing list of retailers using BNPL in South Africa, including Takealot, which also partners with PayJustNow, Superbalist, and Foschini Group stores.

Zoom out: On January 8, the South African Reserve Bank (SARB), the country’s central bank, announced plans to open up the National Payments System (NPS) to entities without banking licences in 2026. This would allow companies like Shoprite to connect directly to the national payment rails through its Money Market Account, its banking service division, rather than piggyback on licenced banks. This recent regulatory change in South Africa’s financial sector will make it easier for retailers like Shoprite to embed financial services directly into checkout.

CRYPTO TRACKER

The World Wide Web3

Source:

Coin Name	Current Value	Day	Month
Bitcoin	$96,220	+ 1.03%	+ 12.40%
Ether	$3,301	– 1.12%	+ 13.40%
BNB	$935	– 0.85%	+ 9.74%
XRP	$201	– 3.13%	+ 12.68%

* Data as of 05.42 AM WAT, January 15, 2026.

Events

• Africa Tech Summit Nairobi is returning for its eighth edition in February 2026, and this time, payments infrastructure is getting top billing. Fincra, a pan-African fintech company, has been announced as the headline supporter of the event, which will hold on February 11–12, 2026, at the Sarit Expo Centre, Nairobi, Kenya. The summit will bring together over 2,000 delegates across fintech, AI, climate tech, and startups to discuss how Africa builds interoperable payment rails for cross-border trade and digital commerce. Early bird tickets are selling fast; get yours now. If you don’t hurry, ticket rates increase on January 16, 2026, at 3:01 AM EAT. Get your early bird tickets.

• US latest visa freeze puts African founders’ global mobility at risk
• Stronger capital, bigger loans: Africa’s banking outlook for 2026
My Life In Tech: How Malik Afegbua is using AI to rescue Nigeria’s fading oral histories

Written by: Muktar Oladunmade and Opeyemi Kareem.

Edited by: Emmanuel Nwosu & Ganiu Oloruntade

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