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The Daily Savannah · Edition Nº 45

Nedbank completes its takeover of 66% of NCBA, and the shares stop trading on Wednesday

The Daily Savannah · · 5 stories

Nedbank now owns two-thirds of NCBA, Meta's Nairobi pitchathon picks a tele-radiology platform and a local-language reader, Safaricom's cheaper M-Pesa business fees run out at the end of the month, Kenya climbs to fifth in Absa's ranking of Africa's financial markets, and Mastercard signs a five-year deal with Moovn.

Featured · Banking

Nedbank completes its takeover of 66% of NCBA, and the shares stop trading on Wednesday

South Africa's Nedbank Group has completed its offer for a controlling 66% stake in NCBA Group, the two said in a joint statement on Monday, making the Kenyan lender a Nedbank subsidiary and giving Nedbank its first big foothold in East Africa. The offer, announced in January, was KSh 105 a share, about 17% above NCBA's price before the deal and about 1.4 times book value, paid 20% in cash and 80% in new Nedbank shares; holders who would get fewer than 200 Nedbank shares, roughly those with under 9,400 NCBA shares, are paid in cash only. Demand outran the target: by the close on 10 July shareholders had tendered 1.32 billion shares, 79.9% of NCBA, so acceptances were scaled back pro rata to about 83% of what each holder offered. TechMoran puts the total at about R13.9 billion (about US$800 million) at Nedbank's R250 issue price; its headline says more than US$850 million, so treat the dollar figure as approximate. The Capital Markets Authority exempted Nedbank from making an offer for every share in February, the Central Bank of Kenya approved in early September, and regulators in South Africa, Rwanda and Tanzania and competition authorities at COMESA, the EAC, Tanzania and ECOWAS also signed off. NCBA stays listed on the NSE with the other 34% in public hands, but its shares are suspended from around the close on Wednesday 21 October to 2 November while the register is reconciled; the shares pass to Nedbank in a block trade on 3 November, when payment starts. NCBA keeps its name, Nairobi head office, local management, branches and apps, and CEO John Gachora summed it up as "the name is the same, the people are the same". Both outlets repeat the companies' figure of more than 60 million customers through 122 branches, most of them users of the digital loans NCBA runs with Safaricom.

Sources: TechMoran · TechTrends

The Nairobi Expressway curving between the city's office towers
AI

Neural Labs and Me-Nasoma win Meta's Nairobi pitchathon

The two winners of the first AI Academy Kenya Pitchathon, run by Meta and the Nairobi accelerator This Is Digital on Friday, are Neural Labs Africa, whose NeuralSight platform links health facilities with remote radiologists and supports diagnostic reports where connectivity is poor, and Me-Nasoma, which turns documents and web pages into audio in local languages on mobile, web and a browser extension. Each gets US$5,000 in equity-free funding and Meta advertising credits, and both are invited to pitch at Meta's Regional AI Summit in Istanbul on 24 November. The contest drew more than 400 applications for ten finalist places; the other finalists included HakiChain, Sawazisha AI, O.C.A. and TemboTrade. Meta has run the same AI Academy programme in Nigeria.

TechTrends

M-PESA

Safaricom's cheaper M-Pesa fees for small businesses end on 31 October

Safaricom's "Pata More" offer for small businesses, running since 1 August, ends on 31 October, and TechMoran has set out what it changed. Lipa na M-Pesa Till owners pay nothing on payments up to KSh 500, up from KSh 200; above that the 0.55% merchant charge and the KSh 200 cap are unchanged. On Pochi la Biashara, customer payments of KSh 200 and below are free, and both what customers pay to send larger amounts and what owners pay to withdraw are capped at KSh 50, down from as much as KSh 108. Payouts from a Business Till cost up to half as much: sending KSh 1,001 to 1,500 to a phone falls from KSh 23 to KSh 12, and the top band from KSh 108 to KSh 54. The Paybill cuts cover only Business Bouquet and One Account Business Bouquet Paybills; Mgao and Customer Bouquet Paybills and fuel merchants are unchanged. TechMoran does not say what the fees will be from 1 November, and its tables have not been checked against Safaricom's tariff sheet.

TechMoran

MARKETS

Kenya climbs to fifth in Absa's ranking of Africa's financial markets

Kenya has moved up from seventh to fifth in the 2026 Absa Africa Financial Markets Index, which Absa Group compiles with the think tank OMFIF to measure how well African countries can raise and move capital. South Africa stays first, followed by Mauritius and Namibia; Ghana rose four places to sixth, while Botswana and Nigeria each fell two. Kenya scored 100 for market transparency, level with South Africa, and full marks on tax and regulation, but only 43 on market depth and 30 on pension fund development. TechTrends ties the climb to a busy year at the NSE: market capitalisation passed KSh 4 trillion, equity turnover reached KSh 322.2 billion in the six months to June against KSh 145.4 billion in all of 2025, and Safaricom's Ziidi Trader logged more than KSh 1 billion across 351,440 trades by the end of June. The caveats are in the article too: most of that is existing shares and bonds changing hands rather than new money for companies, and the rally is concentrated in a few heavily traded stocks. The scores are the index's own; the article quotes no one.

TechTrends

FINTECH

Mastercard signs a five-year deal with Moovn for prepaid cards, but no dates or fees yet

Mastercard and Moovn Technologies, which runs ride-hailing, delivery, marketplace and payments services, have signed a five-year agreement to build Mastercard's network into MoovnPay and its Shooga wallet. The plan covers virtual and physical prepaid Mastercard cards, online and in-app payments, transfers between users, international transfers through Mastercard Move for eligible users, and wider roll-out of Pay Local, a QR merchant-payment service, in Kenya and Tanzania. What exists today is Mastercard's payment gateway service, already live in Kenya; MoovnPay was one of 11 fintechs picked for Mastercard's Start Path Emerging Fintech programme in September 2025. The deal's value, launch dates, card charges, transfer fees and the bank that will issue the cards have not been disclosed, which Tech-ish says users will need before they can compare it with what they already use.

TechTrends · Tech-ish

KSh 105Nedbank's price per NCBA share, 20% in cash and 80% in Nedbank shares
79.9%of NCBA tendered by shareholders, for a 66% target
400+applications to Meta's Nairobi pitchathon, for ten finalist places
5thKenya in the 2026 Absa Africa Financial Markets Index, up from seventh

The Daily Savannah is The Tech Hut's automated daily digest of Kenya's tech ecosystem, researched and written by Claude every evening at 9:00 PM Nairobi time. Every story links to its original source; figures are as reported by the cited outlets.