Square is testing a direct bypass of the delivery apps today, linking its restaurant point-of-sale systems natively to ChatGPT and Claude. Meanwhile, Safaricom's M-Pesa is moving its massive transaction data into SME underwriting, and Vodacom has finalized its majority takeover of the Kenyan telecom giant.
Visa announced that Co-operative Bank of Kenya will launch its 'Tap to Phone' solution "in the coming weeks," enabling small businesses to accept contactless card payments directly on their smartphones without additional hardware. This is part of a broader push by Visa to expand its 'Visa Accept' SoftPOS capabilities in emerging markets.
Why it matters
The continued rollout of SoftPOS in Kenya is a key signal of the push to digitize small merchants. While M-Pesa dominates P2P and C2B payments, SoftPOS provides a crucial on-ramp for accepting card payments, especially from tourists and business clients. This expands the payment ecosystem and lowers the barrier to entry for formal digital payment acceptance.
Square has launched integrations with OpenAI's ChatGPT and Anthropic's Claude, allowing customers to discover and place orders from US restaurants directly within the AI platforms. The system routes orders through Square's 'Order by Cash App' infrastructure, charging merchants only standard payment processing fees and bypassing the high commission rates of third-party delivery aggregators.
Why it matters
This is a significant strategic move by Block to disrupt the high-commission restaurant ordering market. By creating a new, AI-native sales channel that leverages its core payment rails, Square is directly addressing a major merchant pain point and positioning itself as foundational infrastructure for agentic commerce. For operators, this is a powerful case study in using AI to disintermediate aggregators and improve merchant economics.
Following up on yesterday's initial launch of the 'Open USD' (OUSD) stablecoin by Visa, Stripe, and Mastercard, the consortium has formally rolled out the token with a broader coalition of over 140 companies, now notably including Adyen. Alongside the shared reserve revenue model we noted, a key new detail is that OUSD's collaborative governance structure is explicitly designed to comply with the U.S. GENIUS Act.
Why it matters
This is a coordinated move by the incumbents of the payments world to define the standards for enterprise-grade stablecoins, challenging existing players like USDC and USDT. The cooperative, revenue-sharing model is designed for rapid adoption for cross-border payments, merchant settlement, and agentic commerce. This could fundamentally alter global payment rails and accelerate the integration of digital assets into mainstream financial infrastructure.
South Africa's Constitutional Court ruled on Wednesday that competition authorities can proceed with long-standing forex-rigging claims against six banks, including Investec. The banks are accused of colluding to manipulate the rand-dollar exchange rate over a decade ago. The ruling allows one of the country's largest market-manipulation cases to finally have a full hearing.
Why it matters
This decision keeps a major financial misconduct case alive and has significant implications for the regulatory environment in South Africa's banking sector. For fintechs, it underscores the intense scrutiny on market conduct and could create openings if it leads to stricter controls or loss of trust in incumbent banks.
We've been tracking a structural shift toward debt and consolidation in African tech funding, and the full H1 2026 numbers confirm it. Startups raised $1.21 billion in the first half—a 17% year-on-year decline—with debt financing officially surpassing equity as the primary capital instrument. The median deal size has nearly halved, and funding remains highly concentrated, with a single mobility player, Spiro, accounting for over a quarter of the total.
Why it matters
These figures confirm the 'flight to safety' in African VC. The dominance of debt favors companies with predictable cash flows over high-growth, cash-burning models. For fintech operators, this signals a tougher environment for raising early-stage equity and places a premium on achieving positive unit economics and operational efficiency to attract capital.
Kenya's new Finance Act, 2026 has reversed a recent court decision, reintroducing a withholding tax on interchange fees earned by banks and payments made to card companies like Visa and Mastercard. The legislative move overrides a judicial ruling that had previously sided with the banks.
Why it matters
This regulatory reversal directly impacts the profitability of card-acquiring for Kenyan banks and payment processors. The increased tax burden is likely to be passed on to merchants through higher fees, affecting the economics of digital payments. It underscores the political and regulatory risk inherent in African markets, where tax policy can shift rapidly.
In an interview, Seun Osunkeye, MD of Nombank, detailed the microfinance bank's strategy for tackling Nigeria's SME credit gap. Spun out of payment terminal provider Nomba, the bank uses its parent's extensive merchant transaction data to underwrite loans, reporting a jump in daily transaction volume from NGN 7 billion in May 2025 to NGN 250 billion in May 2026.
Why it matters
This is a clear case study of the playbook being used by African fintechs: build a large payment processing network, collect proprietary transaction data, and then leverage that data to de-risk and launch a lending business. Nombank's rapid growth demonstrates the power of this model in serving the 'missing middle' of SME finance that traditional banks often overlook.
Vodacom Group has finalized its acquisition of an additional stake in Safaricom, raising its total ownership to 55% and gaining majority control of East Africa's largest telecommunications company. The deal, valued at around R35 billion ($2.1 billion), followed the clearance of a long-running legal hurdle and saw the Kenyan government sell down its holding.
Why it matters
This deal reshapes the power structure of one of Africa's most important digital ecosystems. Vodacom now has significantly more influence over the strategic direction of Safaricom and its dominant mobile money service, M-Pesa. This could accelerate the platform's expansion and integration across the continent, impacting the competitive landscape for pan-African fintech and digital services.
Safaricom's M-PESA is strategically evolving from a pure payment utility into a significant SME lending engine in Kenya. Under its 'Fintech 2.0' strategy, M-PESA is leveraging its vast transactional data to underwrite and offer specialized credit lines (like Fuliza Biashara and Taasi Till) up to KES 400,000, in partnership with financial institutions.
Why it matters
This pivot is a powerful example of how a dominant payment platform can leverage its data and infrastructure to address a critical market gap: SME credit. For operators in African markets, M-PESA's playbook shows the path from transaction processing to value-added financial services. It demonstrates a scalable model for merchant financing that could be replicated, turning payment data into a core asset for lending.
AEON has expanded its AEON Pay service into Zambia, integrating with local mobile money providers Airtel Money and MTN Mobile Money. The service allows Zambian users to spend digital assets like stablecoins at merchants, who receive instant settlement in Zambian Kwacha.
Why it matters
This provides a critical piece of infrastructure for emerging use cases like agentic commerce in Africa. By bridging decentralized finance with widely-used local mobile money networks, AEON is creating a programmable settlement layer that allows AI agents and other automated systems to transact in the real economy, a key step in moving from theory to practice.
Sony announced on Wednesday it will stop releasing new PlayStation games on physical discs starting in January 2028, moving to a digital-only distribution model. The decision was driven by a dramatic shift in consumer preference, with digital sales accounting for nearly 80% of PlayStation game revenue in 2025. Sony will also close the digital stores for the PS3 and PS Vita.
Why it matters
This marks a definitive end to an era for physical media in console gaming. The move raises significant concerns about game ownership, the viability of the second-hand market, and long-term game preservation. For a generation that grew up with physical game libraries, this is a major cultural and practical shift, cementing the transition to a future of licensed, ephemeral digital access.
Square Bypasses Aggregators with Direct AI Ordering Square's integration with ChatGPT and Claude allows restaurants to take orders directly through AI conversations, bypassing high-commission marketplace models like Uber Eats. This leverages Square's existing payment infrastructure to offer a lower-cost sales channel, a significant move in agentic commerce for vertical SaaS.
Payment Networks Form a Consortium for 'Open USD' Stablecoin In a major push for standardized digital dollars, over 140 firms including Visa, Mastercard, Adyen, and Stripe have launched a shared stablecoin, Open USD. The cooperative model, which shares reserve revenue with partners, aims to create a compliant, low-cost rail for enterprise payments and challenge existing stablecoin incumbents.
African Fintech Infrastructure Continues to Attract Investment and Expand Funding and strategic moves highlight the maturation of Africa's fintech ecosystem. Vodacom gained majority control of Safaricom, strengthening its hand in East African mobile money. H1 2026 funding data shows a pivot to debt financing, and new platforms like Stabyl are emerging to solve core infrastructure problems like FX liquidity.
SoftPOS Adoption Accelerates in African Markets Visa is expanding its 'Tap to Phone' (SoftPOS) capabilities in emerging markets, with Kenya's Co-operative Bank being the latest to roll out the service. This trend lowers the barrier for small merchants to accept card payments by turning smartphones into POS devices, expanding the digital payments footprint.
The End of an Era: PlayStation Abandons Physical Media Sony announced it will cease producing physical game discs from January 2028, moving to a digital-only future. The decision, driven by the collapse in physical sales, has sparked intense debate about game ownership, preservation, and the long-term viability of closed digital ecosystems.
What to Expect
August 2026—PlayStation Store to begin shutting down for PS3 and PS Vita consoles in some regions.
January 31, 2027—Extended deadline for Lesaka Technologies' planned acquisition of Bank Zero.
January 1, 2028—Sony will cease production of physical game discs for all new PlayStation titles.
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