Nigerian fintech company Moniepoint has officially finalized the acquisition of a 78% stake in Sumac Microfinance Bank in Kenya. In June 2025, the Competition Authority of Kenya (CAK) approved the proposed transaction, although final approval from the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) was still required at the time.
However, the deal has officially been finalised on Thursday, 26 of March, 2026 as executives gathered for a reception in Nairobi’s Westlands area. Now, Moniepoint has just bypassed the Kenyan apex bank's long standing delay on new bank operating licenses.
The acquisition positions Moniepoint to better compete with established players such as Safaricom and Equity Group. It grants Moniepoint a deposit-taking licence, a critical component for advancing its strategy focused on credit and lending growth.
Notably, Moniepoint has been trying to secure a foothold in Kenya for years. In fact, the fintech made an attempt to enter East Africa’s largest economy through a payments company called Kopo Kopo, but the attempt stalled. The Moniepoint-Sumac acquisition will deploy a high-velocity lending model to Kenya’s small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
Moniepoint is one of Africa’s fintech unicorns, and the company has been rapidly expanding its footprint across Africa through strategic acquisitions. Its entry into Kenya follows its acquisition of Orda, a cloud-based restaurant management platform, earlier this week.
Building on the merger of Orda with its Moniebook—which strengthened its payments and merchant services ecosystem—Moniepoint’s recent acquisition of a 78% stake in a 20-year-old institution signals the company’s shift from pure-play payments to licensed banking and market consolidation.
These moves show how Moniepoint is using its unicorn status to do more than just expand credit and digital financial services across Africa. The company is also aiming to create a cross-border ecosystem that covers the entire merchant value chain that goes beyond just earning from transaction fees.
Moniepoint handled over $294 billion worth of transactions in 2025, which shows that the company is already a major player in Nigeria’s complex and varied retail market that's full of small merchants, diverse customers, and varied payment habits.
The company is likely betting that the lessons and expertise it gained navigating this sector can be applied successfully in Kenya. In other words, Moniepoint is leveraging its track record to expand into a new market.
Acquiring Sumac—a licensed and regulated tier-three lender with physical branches in Kenya—gives Moniepoint instant access to a legal, operational, and physical infrastructure that'll help the company to accelerate its growth in the country.
Kenya is a market that is moving toward mobile and online credit solutions. Moniepoint just need to combine Sumac’s traditional banking setup with its digital expertise to grow and scale faster in the country.
