Rahul Jain, CEO and co-founder of Peach Payments, and Aziz Yérima, co-founder of PayDunya.

Peach Payments, a South African fintech, is expanding its reach across Africa after agreeing to acquire West-African payment network PayDunya.

The move announced yesterday allows Peach Payment to reach mainland Francophone Africa for the first time, following its expansion into Eswatini (2024), Mauritius (2021), and Kenya (2018).

Peach Payments is an enterprise-grade payments gateway that facilitates online payments in Africa for businesses of all sizes.

PayDunya, a Dakar-based fintech that began operations in 2015, allows users to send and receive payments via websites and mobile applications, as well as collect and distribute bulk payments.

The company handles payments for companies like as Jeune Afrique, VFS Global, SUNU Assurances, Dubai Port Dakar, Sky Mali, Free Business (now Yas), and other fintechs that use its rails.

The startup transformed €20,000 in bootstrap funding into a viable net income business that employs over 40 people, services over 4,000 B2B customers, and handles 70,000 transactions every day.

“With strong unit economics, PayDunya was profitable in its third year and has increased its revenues every year since inception,” Peach Payments said.

Aziz Yérima co-founded PayDunya with fellow students from the international institution of higher learning, ESMT-Daka, Youma Fall, Christian Palouki, and Honoré Hounwanou (from Senegal, Togo, and Côte d'Ivoire, respectively).

Yerima spoke about the growth the opportunities that comes with tying up with Peach Payments, saying: “Together, we are poised to create a seamless, inclusive, and robust payment ecosystem that empowers African businesses to thrive in the digital economy.”

He continued: “The West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA) region and neighbouring Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC) region represent a tremendous opportunity for growth, with digital payments adoption increasing rapidly due to rising smartphone penetration and mobile money services.

“It is early days for e-commerce and digital payments in these markets and by combining our expertise with Peach Payments’ capabilities; we are positioned to drive this growth for us and other businesses.”

Peach Payments quoted Statista statistics, which showed that revenue in the West African ecommerce market is expected to reach $15.33 billion by 2029, with 47.7 million users.

While user penetration is predicted to reach 12.5% by 2029, the average income per user is estimated to be $330.96.

Rahul Jain, CEO and co-founder of Peach Payments, commented on the prospects for payments in Africa.

He went on to say: “Aziz, Youma and Christian have built a market-leading business that is now part of our journey to build a truly pan-African payment ecosystem.

“By integrating PayDunya, we are expanding our footprint into the UEMOA and CEMAC regions, unlocking new opportunities for merchants who can now partner with us and access over 450m people across the markets we operate in.

“Together, we can now offer seamless payment solutions across 12 countries and we will continue to expand this coverage rapidly."