The competition ombudsman in Kenya has allowed Moniepoint to buy Kopo Kopo , a Kenya-based provider of payment services and credit to businesses. Following the approval by Competition Authority of Kenya (CA), Moniepoint (formerly TeamApt) will expand its services to Kenya continuing its growth plans across the continent.

Moniepoint, which runs one of the largest business payments and banking platforms in Nigeria, is said to be keen on expanding to new markets that have a mature banking or payments infrastructure. Expanding financial services footprint Officials from Moniepoint said that they have a publicly stated interest in Kenya as part of their mission to provide financial happiness for people across Africa and are delighted to have reached the milestone of securing regulatory approval for our plans. Aside from offering credit to businesses, Kopo Kopo enables small merchants to accept mobile money payments from their customers.

Moniepoint seems to be eyeing Kenya’s MSME digital lending space, and its mature mobile money market, which is dominated by Safaricom’s M-Pesa service. In Nigeria, Moniepoint operates a payment gateway and provides capital and expansion loans, in addition to expense management (business payments cards), accounting and bookkeeping tools, and insurance to businesses. In a statement, CA said they have approved the proposed acquisition of 100% shares in Kopo Kopo by Moniepoint 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. Kopo Kopo was founded in 2010 and has so far raised USD 5.4 million backed by Accion Venture Lab, Javelin Venture Partners, First Light Ventures, and Khosla Impact. .