Moniepoint, the Nigerian payments and banking platform, has launched its merchant services in Kenya, marking its first expansion outside its home market. The company confirmed the move on July 15, 2026, positioning itself to compete in East Africa's crowded digital payments landscape, which is anchored by the dominant mobile money service M-Pesa.
The expansion follows a period of significant growth for Moniepoint in Nigeria, where it has established itself as a major provider of payment infrastructure for businesses. According to a recent company profile, Moniepoint now processes an annualized total payment volume of over $200 billion. Its core offering includes point-of-sale terminals, online payment gateways, and business banking accounts, primarily serving small and medium-sized enterprises.
In Kenya, Moniepoint will initially focus on providing its suite of merchant acquisition and payment processing tools. The company faces a market with high mobile money penetration but also intense competition from both established telecom-led services like M-Pesa and a growing field of fintech startups. Analysts note that Moniepoint’s business-to-business approach, which differs from the consumer-centric model of many mobile money wallets, could carve out a distinct niche by targeting formal and informal retailers directly.
The move into Kenya is seen as a strategic step to diversify Moniepoint’s revenue base and tap into the broader East African Community trade bloc. The company’s deep experience in Nigeria, a market with complex logistics and a vast informal economy, may provide relevant insights for operating in similar environments across the continent. Moniepoint’s parent group, TeamApt, has previously received regulatory approval in principle for a banking license in Nigeria, underscoring its ambitions in the broader financial services sector.
Industry observers will be watching how Moniepoint navigates Kenya’s specific regulatory framework, governed by the Central Bank of Kenya, and whether it can achieve the same scale of merchant adoption it has in Nigeria. Its success there has been partly built on powering transactions in key sectors like the food service industry, which it estimates to be worth $11 billion annually in Nigeria.
The expansion highlights the ongoing trend of Africa’s leading fintech companies looking beyond their national borders for growth, despite the challenges of varying regulations and market dynamics. Moniepoint’s entry sets the stage for increased competition in Kenya’s digital payments sector, potentially offering merchants more choice and driving further innovation in business-facing financial tools.