KCB Group, Kenya’s biggest bank by assets, announced plans to acquire a minority stake in Pesapal Limited, one of East Africa’s digital payment processors. The size of the stake isn’t public yet, and the deal still needs regulatory approval, but this move looks like KCB wants to own more of the rails that move money, rather than just being a lender. If the deal happens this year, it will be KCB’s second acquisition.
Pesapal isn’t a small fish: Since 2009, it has powered card, mobile money, and online payments for thousands of hotels, schools, airlines, retailers, and SMEs across Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania, acting as the invisible wiring behind everyday transactions.
Not KCB’s first fintech shopping trip. In March, KCB spent $15.4 million to acquire 75% of Riverbank Solutions, a Kenyan digital payments company building revenue collection systems for banks, government agencies, and retailers.Â
Before then, KCB’s acquisitions were mostly in banking; in 2019, it acquired 100% shareholding in the National Bank of Kenya (NBK), a stake which it recently sold to Access Bank. In 2021, it acquired Banque Populaire du Rwanda Plc, a commercial bank, and a few other examples, with Savings & Loan Kenya in 1972, and DR Congo’s Trust Merchant Bank (TMB) in 2022.Â
The real story: Payments are where the growth is, and as lending margins tighten, banks are realising that whoever owns the payment rails has access to merchants, transaction flows, and real-time behavioural insight. This is what KCB is buying into. The bank is shifting from being one that customers use occasionally to a platform they interact with constantly.
