Hi Fintech friends 👋,
Here are the highlights of what happened in African Fintech this week;
Three African Fintechs secured funding.
African VC faced liquidation over a misused Mastercard Foundation grant.
M-pesa and Paypal partnered to localize global payments.
CEO and CTO of African Fintech exited while customers struggled to retrieve funds.
Kenya’s $400 million ARR fintech was alleged to have racial disparity in employee equity.
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💸Fundraise and Exits
💰 Venture Funds
🚀 Partnerships & Product Launches
Nigeria’s Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS)launched a real-time portal to track all VAT-eligible electronic transactions and mandated integration from banks, card schemes, fintechs, and payment service providers.
Luno allowed its users in South Africa to invest in tokenised stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETFs), making global equities like Apple and Alphabet accessible for as little as R20 ($1.13).
Visa launched the first data centre in South Africa.
👔 Leadership Lineup
Lydia CEO and CTO exited while customers struggled to retrieve funds.
📰 News of the Week
54 Collective faced liquidation over misused Mastercard Foundation grant.
The group, originally registered as Africa Founders Ventures, got $42 Million of the grant and allegedly rerouted $4.59M to its for-profit cousin Founders Factory Africa. Then it spent nearly $700,000 on a name change, without permission. Once Mastercard started asking questions, the books suddenly flooded with 2,000+ “adjusting journal entries”, with no audited financial statement.
The 54 Collective liquidation was provisionally ordered by a South African High Court.
👀 Eye Openers
Eight years ago, someone suggested that an M-Pesa and PayPal partnership needed to happen, and now it’s finally live. M-PesaintegratedPayPal into its super app in Kenya.
📑 Read of the week
How Mitchell Elegbe Built Nigeria's First Fintech Unicorn 🦄.(thisisbig)
📖 Other News, Reads, and Media
M-KOPA lawsuit alleged racial disparity in employee equity, firm says claim is baseless.
🎥 VIDEO INTERVIEWS/DISCUSSIONS
Interview with Ola Oyetayo, co-founder and CEO of Verto, a UK FCA-licensed platform powering billions in B2B cross-border payments across Africa. He shared how he built the company, how to navigate compliance across multiple markets, and Verto’s stablecoin strategy.
🦉 Tweet of the Week
Sending ksh105 via MPESA is charged ksh7(6.7% of transaction value)
Withdrawing same ksh105 from MPESA is charged ksh29 (27.6% oftransaction value)
Total transaction cost for ksh105 via MPESA is ksh36 (34.3% of the transaction value)
This isn't just expensive, it's PUNITIVE. https://t.co/6Tt94HDGwm— Africanus (@AfroEconomicus) July 21, 2025
🎯 Fintech Opportunities
This Week In Fintech is hiring; Apply for a Global Operations Manager role and Account Executive role.
Made in Tanzania 🇹🇿 with 💚
