Moniepoint, a Nigerian fintech has received approval from the Competition Authority of Kenya to acquire Kopo Kopo. Kopo Kopo is a Kenya-based company offering payments services and credit to businesses. Moniepoint on the other hand provides business payments and banking platforms.
Kopo Kopo was founded by in 2010 by Ben Lyon and Dylan Higgins, and has so far raised $5.4 million backed by Accion Venture Lab, Havelin Venture Partners, First Light Venures, and Khosla Impact.
Kopo Kopo enables small merchants to accept mobile money payments from their customers, and Moniepoint seems to be eyeing Kenya’s mature mobile money market which is dominated by Safaricom’s M-Pesa service.
The fintech intends to expand its services to Kenya while continuing its growth plans across the continent. Moniepoint, is one of Nigeria’s largest business payments and banking platforms, is said to be keen on expanding to new markets that have a mature banking or payments infrastructure.
CA had this to say in a statement, “The Competition Authority of Kenya has approved the proposed acquisition of 100% shares in Kopo Kopo Inc. by Moniepoint Inc. unconditionally…This approval has been granted based on the two key considerations during the merger analysis that; first, the transaction is unlikely to negatively impact competition in the market for digital credit; and second, the transaction will not elicit negative public interest concerns.”