👨🏿‍🚀TechCabal Daily – Paystack cuts the Allawee

In partnership with Lire en Français اقرأ هذا باللغة العربية Happy new month. Quick heads-up: If TC Daily still lands in your spam folder, move it to your Primary inbox so you don’t miss future editions. Let’s dive in. Become smarter about tech and commerce in Francophone Africa, and the policies shaping them. Read previous editions here first and subscribe below. Subscribe 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 Image Source: Tenor 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. Every business owner needs to watch this. The business questions you Google, answered by experts. Watch for free. Fintech Nigerian fintech Allawee folds into Paystack after 2025 acquisition Image Source: Tenor 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. A survey for Nigeria’s health logistics buyers. If you’re a Health Logistics Buyer in Nigeria, participate in our report by filling out the survey by 4 September. It takes less than 10 minutes. Fintech Yele Bademosi transitions to Chairman at Nigerian fintech Onboard Global Yele Bademosi, chief executive officer and co-founder of Nestcoin, now chairman at portfolio company Onboard Global. Image Source: Alter 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