Just days after announcing the launch of its personal banking app, Moniepoint Inc. has disclosed that it has received approval from the Competition Authority of Kenya (CAK) to complete the acquisition of Kopo Kopo.
A statement by the CAK states that the approval was granted after checks revealed that it would not negatively impact competition in the digital credit space or raise public interest concerns.
“We have a publicly stated interest in Kenya as part of our mission to provide financial happiness for people across Africa. We are delighted to have taken the first step by securing regulatory approval for our plans to provide financial happiness to Kenyans and look forward to progressing the transaction,” Tosin Eniolorunda, Group CEO, Moniepoint Inc., said.
In Kenya, Kopo Kopo offers payment and credit services for businesses and was founded in 2011 by Ben Lyon and Dylan Higgins. Initially launched in the United States, the Kopo Kopo team moved to Kenya after seeing how competitive the American payments market was.
In Kenya, they collaborated with Safaricom to open up Lipa Na M-Pesa to SMEs, splitting the transaction fees between them. By 2012, they were issuing working capital loans backed by Afb. Since then, they’ve received investments from the Khosla Impact Fund, Accion Venture Lab, and Bamboo Finance.
After leading Payday’s seed round, there were reports suggesting Moniepoint was in talks to acquire Payday. However, the company quickly moved to quash these rumours, insisting that its investment was strategic. But by June, it announced the appointment of Ross Strike as Head of M&A and Investor Relations, signifying its intention to pursue mergers in its next phase.
With the acquisition of Kopo Kopo, Moniepoint will make its first real expansion two years after it first disclosed plans to expand across West and North Africa.
