Paymenow, the earned-wage access platform, has merged its business with financial health company PayCurve in a move that underscores the wave of consolidation in South Africa’s fintech industry.
The combined business will operate under the Paymenow brand and creates “South Africa’s first fully integrated employee financial wellness platform”, said the group.
Founded in August 2019 by former Springbok and Western Province rugby player Bryan Habana and businessman Deon Nobrega, Paymenow is an app that allows employees to cash out a percentage of their earnings before payday, and this amount is then deducted from their salaries.
Paymenow serves more than 750,000 people in South Africa, Namibia, Zambia and Pakistan.
Johannesburg-based PayCurve, founded in 2020, specialises in using data to identify financially distressed employees “before crisis point”, personalised affordability assessments, structured debt rehabilitation, gamified money coaching and automated savings tools.
“This proactive debt intervention capability is widely regarded as one of the most innovative models in the South African market,” said the group.
The combined group is expected to help workers move from short-term cash pressure and debt stress to long-term financial stability, resilience and savings, in a single platform.
At a time when millions of South Africans rely on expensive short-term credit between paydays, the two companies are positioning their combined platform as a way to give employers “a practical way to reduce workforce stress, while helping employees regain control of their finances”.
“Millions of working South Africans face two realities at once: they run short of cash before payday, and they carry debt they cannot sustainably service,” said Nobrega, CEO of Paymenow.
“PayCurve has built a capability no-one else in the market has — identifying financially vulnerable employees early and helping them recover. By bringing that into Paymenow, we can now guide an employee from their first wage advance all the way to becoming debt-free and building savings.”
News of the merger comes almost a year after Paymenow secured a R400m line of credit from Standard Bank to help fund its business. This added to the R250m debt facility through Rand Merchant Bank that the company raised in 2023.
The transaction is the latest in a wave of merger and acquisition action involving local fintech.
Nedbank last year acquired iKhokha, one of Africa’s fastest-growing fintech companies, for R1.65bn in one of the biggest fintech deals of the year. Durban-based iKhokha was co-founded by Matt Putman, Ramsay Daly and Clive Putman, and since its establishment in 2016 has redefined the way SMEs do business through mobile innovation.
Capitec last year acquired fintech player Walletdoc as part of its strategy to offer leading secure payment acceptance to Capitec business clients and simpler, more affordable e-commerce solutions to Capitec personal banking clients.
There has also been consolidation among fintechs themselves.
Lesaka Technologies bought Bank Zero for R1.1bn in a transaction that will see it launch a suite of foreign currency products that will allow it to play in the competitive cross-border remittances market. Lesaka also bought fintech operator Adumo for R1.6bn in 2024.
It’s not only in South Africa that consolidation in the banking sector is under way, with Kenya and Nigeria also undergoing a wave of corporate activity.
With Kabelo Khumalo
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