It was recently announced that Ukheshe International has acquired 100% of EFT Corporation Limited (EFTCorp) from parent Loita Transaction Services (LXS – a deal that will have a significant bearing in Africa’s fintech landscape.
EFT Corporation is an African payment solutions provider with end-to-end payment offerings for retail and financial institutions. They have a presence in 18 locations, 6 international partners and over 20 years of product development and service experience. EFT Corporation will future-proof your enterprise for current and emerging market requirements. EFT Corporation was established in 1999 as an information technology organization offering solutions across Africa.
Their business model is based on software (Postilion) licensing and maintenance, reselling Hypercom POS devices, Futurex HSMs, Stratus ftServers or any other third party product needed to provide a switching / EFT solutions.
EFT also has their own developed products they sell. Providing/delivering these solutions is on a per-project basis, so the business model will also include service fees for project management, technical consultation and support, implementation costs, customised development, training, etc. The business model for the switches is based on a joining fee, monthly service fees and then the main and lucrative draw card for any switching business is its transaction fee.
EFTs product and service offerings include the following:
| Products | Services |
| Retail solutions | POS Acquiring |
| Agency Banking | Multi-Lane integrated POS |
| Card management | Hosted Card Issuance |
| Bulk Payment Solutions | Terminal Management |
| Webservices API | Secure Key Loading via PCI Trusted Centre |
| Mobile POS | Fraud (Proactive Risk Manager) |
| Fraud Prevention | Support Services |
| Bespoke Software Solutions | PCI Certification |
| Hardware/ Terminal repair centre | |
| Secure key injection facility | |
| POS acquiring and application development | |
| Electronic voucher dispensing solution |
The acquirer, Ukheshe is a market-leading fintech “enablement” partner, with a legacy in enterprise platform delivery in the banking and telco sectors. Some of their notable partnerships include building out Nedbank’s WhatsApp payment solution in 2021. More recently Ukheshe enabled crypto payments on their Scan to Pay app. Scan to pay happens to be South Africa’s biggest QR platform – used by more than 600,000 vendors, 14 banks and fintech companies and 94 payment service providers.
The acquisition is a real statement of intent considering that Ukheshe is a relatively fresh startup having been founded in 2018. Since then they’ve been funded through debt financing and a venture round by Nedbank. They followed this up by raising Series A funding from Fireball Capital and Development Partners International (DPI). Ukheshe’s CrunchBase profile shows that the 3 funding rounds have amounted to $42 million raised.
In the announcement for this EFTCorp acquisition, Ukheshe highlighted how the deal was important as a means to consolidate the market.
What makes EFT attractive?
The market is ripe for consolidation and disruption, bringing together these like-minded executive teams & our great products positions us to dominate the African continent as the preferred banking solutions partner.
Ukheshe’s co-founder and CEO, Clayton Hayward
Ukheshe particularly noted that their expertise in digital onboarding, KYC, digital wallets, and various payment channels will “open new opportunities to digitise EFTCorp’s traditional customers who rely on established electronic payment processing systems.” This is a big deal because EFTs client base consists of 80 customers spread across 18 markets within Africa.
The acquisition potentially allows existing offerings from both Ukheshe and EFT Corp to be potentially introduced in new markets where either entity is operational. The two are said to be continuing operations separately with EFT Corp set to retain its existing management structure going forward.
