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- CBK approves Nedbank-NCBA deal
- Nigerian fintech Allawee folds into Paystack
- Yele Bademosi transitions to chairman at Onboard
- Namibia launches DigiNam
- World Wide Web 3
- Opportunities
M&A
South Africa’s Nedbank gets CBK’s approval to acquire 66% of Kenyan lender NCBA
Remember the proposed acquisition of Kenyan digital-first bank NCBA by South African tier-1 lender Nedbank that has hogged headlines since the start of the year?
We’ve got a big development in that saga. On Monday, the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) said it had approved Nedbank’s acquisition of up to 66% of NCBA on August 28, clearing a major regulatory hurdle for the South African lender. The approval follows months of regulatory reviews and a shareholder offer that saw NCBA investors accept Nedbank’s proposal in exchange for cash and Nedbank shares.
State of play: The deal isn’t fully closed yet, but once completed, Nedbank will take control of NCBA, giving the South African lender a major foothold in East Africa. Nedbank will become NCBA’s majority owner, while the remaining 34% will stay in public hands. The Kenyan digital-first bank will also retain its brand, local management, and Nairobi headquarters.
Explain like I’m new here: In January, Nedbank announced that it wanted to acquire about two-thirds of NCBA through a tender offer, asking existing NCBA shareholders to offer up their shares for sale. Under the proposed deal, shareholders would receive 20% cash and 80% newly issued Nedbank shares. The offer opened in May and closed on July 10, with NCBA shareholders offering 1.32 billion shares, equivalent to 79.9% of NCBA.
However, shareholders offered more shares than Nedbank’s 66% target, so the bank had to scale back the allocation to 1.09 billion shares, leaving some shareholders unable to sell their shares to Nedbank.
Why does Nedbank want NCBA? NCBA gives Nedbank an established presence across East Africa. It has banking subsidiaries in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda, plus a joint venture in Côte d’Ivoire. NCBA reported KES 12.4 billion ($95.7 million) in profit after tax in H1 2026, while its total assets reached KES 739 billion ($5.7 billion).
Nedbank also sees the acquisition as a way to get closer to other East African and nearby markets it is eyeing, including the Democratic Republic of Congo and Ethiopia.
Is this the end of the road? Not yet. CBK’s approval clears a major hurdle, but the deal still has a few other regulatory, banking, and market conduct conditions to meet before it can be completed. Nedbank previously said it expects the deal to finalise by the fourth quarter of 2026.
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Fintech
Nigerian fintech Allawee folds into Paystack after 2025 acquisition
Customers of Nigerian card-issuing fintech Allawee have until November 30 to move their money, replace their cards, and tell anyone who pays them that their account details are changing, the startup wrote in an email. Allawee has since been folded into Paystack’s operations.
What happened? Paystack, the Stripe-backed payments company, acquired Allawee in a 2025 deal that was not publicly announced. Allawee will close its personal and business account services on December 1, 2026; its cards will stop working, and payments sent to its virtual account numbers issued on its platform will fail. Customers will need to withdraw their balances, update their bank details with senders, and replace saved card details on subscriptions before the deadline.
Businesses are being directed to Paystack MFB, its parent company’s microfinance bank, while individuals are being directed to Zap, Paystack’s consumer transfer app. Balances, account numbers, transaction history, and verification records will not move across automatically, so customers opening new accounts will start again.
Explain like I’m new here: Allawee launched in 2022 as a credit-card lender; it later pivoted to credit-risk software before settling on card infrastructure, enabling other fintechs to issue and manage cards.
By May 2025, it was providing services to Nigerian fintechs such as PiggyVest, Nomba, and Carbon, letting them launch cards in weeks instead of months. That infrastructure is likely more valuable to Paystack than Allawee’s consumer accounts. Once Paystack had its own microfinance bank, Allawee’s Providus Bank-backed accounts were competing with products Paystack could offer itself. Acquiring Allawee lets Paystack take the useful infrastructure while moving customers onto the banking products it now controls.
Zoom out: Allawee is the second fintech brand Paystack has folded into its operations this year, after absorbing Nigerian business-banking startup Brass in June. Nigeria’s fintech market seems to be moving from “build everything” to “buy the missing pieces.” For customers, that can mean better-connected products, but also the inconvenience of being moved between companies, setups, and platforms whenever these changes happen.
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Fintech
Yele Bademosi transitions to Chairman at Nigerian fintech Onboard Global
Yele Bademosi is transitioning from chief executive officer to the chairman’s seat at Onboard Global, the Nigerian stablecoin-based fintech startup that launched in 2022.
Onboard lets users spend stablecoins like everyday money, using cards and stablecoin-to-fiat payment accounts. The fintech spun out of Nestcoin, a Web3 banking platform Bademosi co-founded in 2021.
Between the lines: On Monday, Bademosi announced that he was stepping down as Onboard’s chief executive officer and taking up a new role as chairman. Paul Oladimeji, who has worked on Onboard’s products and infrastructure, will take over the day-to-day running of the company. The leadership transition and Oladimeji’s background point to a handover from founder-led direction to product-led execution.
State of play: Bademosi co-founded Onboard when stablecoins and cryptocurrency wallets were still the centre of the company’s pitch. The business is now trying to build something broader: financial infrastructure that connects local currencies, dollars, and stablecoins for individuals and businesses.
Zoom out: Onboard is entering a more demanding phase of its growth. Moving from a consumer wallet into payments, business accounts, and financial infrastructure means competing for customers while navigating the licencing and compliance requirements that come with moving real money across borders. Bademosi’s move gives the company a chance to put a new operator at the helm as it makes that transition.
Moonshot 2026 is coming! Join us at the National Theatre, Lagos on October 28 & 29 for two days of tech and innovation. Grab your early bird tickets now and get 15% off.
Digital Infrastructure
Namibia launches DigiNam to let citizens prove their identity and sign documents online
Having to enter your name, submit an ID, and fill out the same forms every time you access a government service is a real pain. It gets worse when you make the trip to an office only to realise you left one crucial document at home.
It’s one of the reasons blockchain bros have been clamouring for decentralised identity (DID), which allows you to prove who you are once and use that identity across different services without carrying files or memorising your ID number.
Well, it’s not quite DID, but Namibia wants to make some of that hassle disappear.
What happened? On Monday, Namibia launched DigiNam, a national digital trust system that will let people prove their identity and sign online. The system is built around the country’s National Public Key Infrastructure (NPKI), the technology and rules that help verify digital identities and electronic signatures. Namibia’s Ministry of Home Affairs, Immigration, Safety, and Security; the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (ICT); and the Communications Regulatory Authority of Namibia (CRAN), the country’s telecoms regulator, are behind the rollout.
Explain like I’m new here: Think of DigiNam as a verified identity for the Internet. Once electronic IDs are issued through the system, they can carry digital credentials that let a government agency verify that you are really you when you use an online service. The system can confirm that an electronic signature belongs to the person who signed a document and that the document has not been changed afterwards.
Why did Namibia bother? Today, accessing many services can mean proving who you are over and over again. Namibia wants authorised government agencies to securely cross-check information, so citizens do not have to keep submitting the same documents or visiting offices in person.
However, moving more services online also creates a trust problem. In H1 2025, 65% of Namibians reported being targeted online, by email, phone call, or text messaging fraud, according to TransUnion Africa, a risk management agency. Between April and June 2026, the country also recorded over 500,000 cyber vulnerabilities.
What happens next? CRAN will oversee the trust system as the “Root Certification Authority,” setting standards and approving organisations that can issue trusted digital credentials. The Ministry of Home Affairs will be the first to roll out those credentials. Namibia plans to eventually connect more government services and extend the system to sectors such as financial services and telecoms.
CRYPTO TRACKER
The World Wide Web3
Source:
Coin Name
Current Value
Day
Month
+ 1.05%
+ 24.30%
+ 1.62%
+ 31.73%
+ 30.00%
+ 37.46%
+ 1.48%
+ 42.25%
* Data as of 06.20 AM WAT, September 1, 2026.
Events
- Africa’s investment ecosystem does not suffer from a shortage of capital alone, but also from a shortage of shared knowledge. The most valuable lessons on structuring catalytic transactions, de-risking investments, and mobilising private capital often remain locked inside institutions and individual deal teams. This convening is designed to change that. On September 10, an exclusive group of impact-focused investors will gather in Lagos, Nigeria, to expand the playbook of the instruments that unlock capital, mitigate risk, and scale enterprise. Register here to attend.
- The Global Entrepreneurship Congress Africa (GEC+Africa) 2026 will bring together over 2,000 entrepreneurs, investors, policymakers, corporates, and ecosystem leaders from across Africa and beyond for two days of collaboration, innovation, and meaningful engagement. Register here for the two-day event—happening September 16–17 in Cape Town, South Africa.
- Follow the Money: Nigeria wants crypto firms to lock up 80% of customer assets offline
- Ask An Investor: What 10 years and $100M taught TLcom about scaling in Africa
- I went to China to see a different AI future. It looked familiar
- Tim Cook’s Apple legacy by the numbers
Written by: Yemi Kareem and Zia Yusuf
Edited by: Emmanuel Nwosu & Ganiu Oloruntade
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