This archive report was first published on 30 June 2020.
On June 30, 2020, MFS Africa announced the completion of its takeover of payment provider Beyonic. The acquisition will see MFS absorb Beyonic's entire team, with Beyonic's Founder and CEO Luke Kyohere joining the MSF leadership team.
The acquisition is a strategic move by MFS Africa to expand its pan-African expansion strategy, focusing on domestic payments and collections, as well as secure front-end business functionality. This will promote cross-border mobile money payments, leveraging MFS Africa's existing connections to over 200 million mobile wallets on the continent.
The Beyonic platform is a two-way payments management toolbox that gives enterprises access to 26 mobile money networks and over 20 banks in nine countries through a single sign-on. Beyonic operates in Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, and Tanzania.
With the acquisition, Africa's booming e-commerce sector will benefit from the expansion of cross-border payments, enabling the transfer of funds across different territories. MFS says that bringing Beyonic on board will open up intra-Africa and global payment possibilities to SMEs, fintechs, and social impact organizations across the continent and around the world.
Extended access and functionality will become available to customers of both organizations in the second half of 2020. This will enable a Kenyan-based organization that uses Beyonic to manage digital payments to and from Kenyan mobile wallets and bank accounts to reach additional markets directly and seamlessly using the same interface.
