👨🏿‍🚀TechCabal Daily – Zenith eyes Cameroon entry

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Zenith Bank, Nigeria’s second-largest commercial lender by assets, has plans to expand into the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC) region, with Cameroon set to become its headquarters.

Zenith Bank disclosed the move at the launch of its Côte d’Ivoire subsidiary last week. The Côte d’Ivoire entry marked its second expansion this year, entering Kenya in the same month, and kicked off its operations in the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) region.

The choice of Cameroon is not arbitrary. In 2025, Cameroon accounted for 46.5% of bank deposits in the CEMAC zone and remained the largest contributor to the region’s banking profits. Setting up there gives Zenith access to the deepest financial activity in the region and a position from which the lender can easily expand into neighbouring Central African markets.

We still don’t know how Zenith plans to enter Cameroon: When banks want to enter a new territory, they either get a licence and establish a subsidiary or acquire an existing institution. While Zenith has not disclosed its entry plan into Cameroon, its Francophone Africa ambition was never hidden. 

In October 2025, after it acquired an Ivorian licence, the bank said it was going to expand to eight other Francophone African countries. That licence could allow Zenith to expand into all eight member states of the WAEMU, including Benin, Mali, and Togo, after the region unified a banking framework in 2023.

Nigerian banks are becoming continental banks: Access Bank and United Bank for Africa (UBA), other Nigerian tier-1 lenders, are already active in Cameroon, and across several African markets, building networks that support trade. 

For banks like Zenith, expansion has become a growth strategy and a competitive necessity to claw market share away from home.

From June 1, Yoco will have a new person at the wheel.

Carsten Höltkemeyer will be stepping into a new role as the chief executive officer (CEO) of the South African digital payments startup that helps small businesses accept digital payments through card machines and software. 

His appointment ends the nine-month period during which Yoco’s co-founders, Bradley Wattrus and Lungisa Matshoba, served as co-CEOs after founding executive Katlego Maphai exited the company in September 2025.

Who is Yoco’s new CEO? Höltkemeyer comes from the world of European banking and embedded finance companies. Before joining Yoco, he served as CEO of Solaris, the Berlin-based embedded finance company, and before that led auxmoney, one of Europe’s largest digital lending platforms. He also held executive roles at Barclays Bank and the Royal Bank of Scotland, with roots in audit at PwC, a pedigree that suggests Yoco is in capable hands. 

What happens to Yoco now? Yoco was launched in 2013 to make card machines accessible to small businesses and has since expanded into online payments and financial software, now carrying a valuation of around $700 million.

Once Höltkemeyer settles in, Wattrus will move into a chief financial officer (CFO) role, while Matshoba will take up a chief product and technology officer (CPTO) position. The company says its next decade will focus heavily on AI and integrated software tools that help independent businesses compete more effectively. 

What this means: Bringing in someone with deep experience in regulated finance, payments, and scaling infrastructure suggests that Yoco sees itself entering a growth phase. The startup now wants to operate like a serious financial institution.

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South African fintechs Paymenow and PayCurve merge

Image Source: Tenor

Getting paid before payday sounds like a fix. For many workers, it quietly becomes a cycle they struggle to exit. Two South African fintechs are betting they can close that loop. 

Paymenow and PayCurve have merged to create what they describe as a full‑stack financial wellness platform, combining earned wage access (EWA) with debt‑intervention tools under a single brand.

Paymenow, founded in 2019, lets employees tap a portion of their earned salaries ahead of payday, alongside savings and voucher products. PayCurve, launched in 2020, focuses on prevention. The fintech spots financially stressed workers early and routes them into debt‑repayment and coaching plans. The merged entity now says it reaches more than 750,000 employees across four markets, including South Africa, Namibia, Zambia, and Pakistan.

State of play: EWA has grown quickly as an alternative to payday loans, especially in markets where short‑term credit is both expensive and pervasive. Paymenow says that 94% of its users reported improved quality of life, while three in four said they no longer rely on payday lenders. Its new play is to swap high‑interest borrowing for controlled access to wages already earned, and claim a wellness dividend.

Between the lines: The model only works if early access does not harden into dependency or shrink take‑home pay at month‑end. This is where PayCurve’s data‑led monitoring and intervention becomes central. Employers matter here, too. They plug these tools straight into payroll, and they care because money stress shows up as missed work, higher staff turnover, and lower productivity. 

Zoom out: The merger underlines a broader shift in fintech from single‑feature apps to bundled financial services built around the payslip. It also shows how crowded the category is becoming, with banks, payroll providers, and startups all circling the same problem: workers need liquidity, but they also need a way out of needing it every month.

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