Namaskar,
Victoria from Techpoint here,
Here’s what I’ve got for you today:
- Vodacom boosts Safaricom ownership to 55%
- Why informal retailers are turning to Afiari
- Moniepoint launches Moniebook for Nigeria’s SMEs
Vodacom boosts Safaricom ownership to 55%
Remember this? South Africa’s Vodacom eyes bigger slice of Kenya’s Safaricom
Well, Kenya is making one of its biggest telecom moves in years. The government is offloading a 15% stake in Safaricom to South Africa’s Vodacom in a deal worth about €1.36 billion ($1.6 billion), while Vodacom will buy another 5% from Vodafone. When the dust settles, Vodacom’s ownership jumps to 55%, giving it effective control of Kenya’s most valuable company and Africa’s most influential mobile money operator.
For Kenya, this isn’t just a telecom reshuffle; it’s a much-needed cash injection. President William Ruto’s administration is grappling with high public debt, limited fiscal room, and debt repayments gulping nearly 40% of revenue. The sale is part of a broader push to raise money by trimming state assets and channelling proceeds into Kenya’s new National Infrastructure Fund and Sovereign Wealth Fund, meant to finance roads, energy projects, irrigation systems, and airport upgrades without piling on more debt.
For Vodacom, the logic is simple: buying deeper into Safaricom means owning a bigger slice of M-Pesa, one of the most successful fintech platforms in the world with more than 100 million daily transactions. Safaricom is also expanding aggressively in Ethiopia, a high-growth market. With this strategic bump, Vodacom strengthens its African footprint while Vodafone, its parent, keeps consolidation tightly within the group.
Investors immediately felt the impact. Safaricom’s share price jumped over 4% on the announcement, while Vodacom slipped slightly. Analysts say Vodacom is paying a clear control premium, but one that makes strategic sense given Safaricom’s dominance, its strong revenue growth, and its central role in Kenya’s digital economy. The government will retain a 20% stake, enough to keep influence over major strategic decisions.
The deal still needs approvals from Kenyan, South African, and Ethiopian regulators, plus Kenya’s parliament. If all goes to plan, the acquisition should close in early 2026, a shift that could reset the balance of power in African telecoms and deepen regional competition, especially as M-Pesa and Safaricom continue expanding beyond Kenya.
Why informal retailers are turning to Afiari
If you’ve ever wondered who really keeps Nigeria’s FMCG sector moving, it’s not the big supermarkets, it’s the wholesalers, distributors, and sprawling market traders who control almost 90% of consumer goods nationwide. Yet for all their influence, most of these players still run on guesswork: no real sales records, no inventory visibility, no reconciliation, and absolutely no insight once goods leave the factory floor. That blind spot is exactly what Afiari wants to fix.
Afiari, founded by Chigozie Njoku and George Ebisike, calls itself a “digital documentation platform for retail trade,” but it’s really a full-on operating system for the informal economy. “We provide the software to physical informal-type businesses that sell FMCG products, helping them automate everything from sales to inventory even connecting them to payment apps through a POS terminal,” Njoku tells Techpoint Africa.
The startup didn’t start as an infrastructure play. Back in 2022, it was simply a digital open market inspired by trying to help Njoku’s mum sell yams online. But once they built the first version, a painful truth became obvious: these retailers didn’t just want to sell online, they desperately needed structure. They wanted to know where stock disappeared to, which goods expired, who owed money, and how much profit they actually made.
Digging deeper, the founders found an even bigger problem upstream. FMCG manufacturers completely lose visibility the moment a distributor picks up goods. No documentation, no tracking, no intelligence. So in 2024, Afiari pivoted from marketplace to a full retail operations and intelligence ecosystem, built entirely for the informal trade chain that keeps the country running.
Today, Afiari acts like a compound product, handling supplier creation, purchase orders, inventory management, stock tracking, pricing, expenses, warehouse transfers, product analytics, and even sending merchants auto-generated WhatsApp reports at closing time. Learn more about what Afiari does and how it works in Delight’s latest for Techpoint Africa.
Moniepoint launches Moniebook for Nigeria’s SMEs
Barely two months after closing its Series C round, Moniepoint is already rolling out another big move on Nigeria’s business scene. The company has launched Moniebook, an all-in-one inventory-management and POS system that gives merchants a real-time view of their sales, customers, payments, and stock. In simple terms, Moniepoint wants to put every small business owner “inside” their shop, even when they’re miles away.
Per Moniepoint MFB’s Managing Director, Babatunde Olofin, the goal is clear: turn Moniebook into a reliable growth partner and the single dashboard entrepreneurs trust for running their daily operations. It’s part of Moniepoint’s wider push to evolve from a fintech to a full business-enablement platform.
The move fits into the company’s broader expansion playbook. Over the last two years, Moniepoint has gone from agency banking giant to a full-scale retail bank with 10 million personal and business customers, moving over $250 billion annually. And it’s not stopping there; the company recently launched a remittance service in the UK, signalling ambitions that stretch well beyond Nigeria’s borders.
What Moniepoint is doing mirrors a pattern seen elsewhere in the ecosystem, especially with PiggyVest. The savings-focused fintech has also been quietly expanding its infrastructure and recently introduced PiggyVest Business, a product designed to help small businesses manage savings and investments. Given that many PiggyVest users are entrepreneurs, it’s a smart bet on deepening customer loyalty.
Both companies are making one thing clear: competing in Africa’s fintech market now takes more than payments or savings. The real battle is in offering end-to-end tools that help entrepreneurs run, grow, and scale their businesses. And with Moniebook, Moniepoint is planting its flag firmly in that future.
In case you missed it
- Afrobeat listeners grew by 22% globally – Spotify Wrapped 2025
What I’m watching and reading
- Get Your Sex Life Back! What Everyone Gets Wrong About Sex, Libido & Erectile Dysfunction – Dr Khera
- The Brains of Altruistic and Psychopathic People (W/ Abigail Marsh) | How to Be a Better Human | TED
- The Unofficial Payments and Fintech Guide to Detty December™️
Opportunities
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- Moniepoint is hiring for over 100 roles. Apply here.
- IHS Towers is hiring a Health, Safety & Environment (HSE) Analyst. Apply here.
- Western Union is looking for a Business Development Associate, Junior, North and Anglophone West Africa based in Lagos, Nigeria. Apply here.
- MTN is hiring a Specialist, Commercial Planning and Analytics, Commercial, at Victoria Island, South West Region, Nigeria. Apply here.
- FairMoney is hiring a Golang Backend Engineer. Apply here.
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- Standard Bank Group logo is hiring a Team Lead, Northwest 1 & 2. Apply here.
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Have a fun weekend!
Victoria Fakiya for Techpoint Africa
