Nigerian Fintech Paga Brings Tokenized Assets to Retail Users via Sui Blockchain, as Vodacom Seals $2.1B Safaricom Takeover
Nigerian payments platform Paga has partnered with blockchain infrastructure startup TBook to offer tokenized real-world assets to retail investors across Africa, with a $100 minimum entry point and settlement running on the Sui blockchain. The deal launched June 30, 2026, the same day Vodacom finalized its $2.1 billion acquisition of a controlling stake in Safaricom, the Kenyan telecom that operates M-PESA in Kenya.
Paga and TBook Put Tokenized Bonds and Real Estate Inside a Payments App
Founded in 2009, Paga processed more than $11 billion in transactions during 2025 and powers payments for more than 300 businesses through its Paga Engine platform. Operating primarily in Nigeria, with Ethiopia as its second major market, Paga will now allow users to invest in tokenized versions of government securities, commercial real estate, agricultural projects, private credit, and private business equity. The products are embedded directly inside the existing Paga app. Users do not need a separate crypto wallet or any knowledge of decentralized finance protocols.
The partner enabling the asset side is TBook, a New York-based startup founded in 2023 that connects regulated asset issuers to consumer fintechs through a tokenization layer. TBook reports 8 million users, more than 22.6 million on-chain identities created, 16.7 million tokenized assets claimed to date, and more than 200 distribution partners across its platform. Settlement runs on Sui, a layer-1 blockchain that Paga has worked with since at least May 2026, when it integrated Sui Dollar (USDsui), a USD-pegged stablecoin, for yield products.
The $100 minimum is deliberate. Instruments like government bonds or real estate funds have historically been accessible only to institutional or high-net-worth investors in most African markets. Tokenization, which converts ownership of a real asset into a blockchain-recorded digital token, allows that asset to be divided into much smaller units and transferred more cheaply. For retail users in markets with volatile local currencies and few savings vehicles, the case is concrete: the Nigerian naira lost more than half its value against the dollar between 2023 and 2025, leaving ordinary savers with few reliable stores of value. A dollar-denominated bond that requires $100 to enter is structurally different from one requiring $10,000.
Tayo Oviosu, Paga's founder and Group CEO, put the ambition plainly: "This partnership gives everyday Africans access to investment-grade opportunities that have historically been out of reach." TBook co-founder Nick Young framed the addressable opportunity in operational terms: "Every consumer fintech is sitting on idle balances that earn nothing for the customer and little for the business."
Paga holds a Mobile Money Operator license and a microfinance banking license from Nigeria's Central Bank, and the company says all products will be offered exclusively through regulated entities in each jurisdiction it operates. That matters for a Nigerian market where the Securities and Exchange Commission is advancing a regulatory framework for digital asset offerings but continues to adjust its enforcement posture toward crypto-adjacent products.
On-chain context: total tokenized real-world assets recorded on public blockchains stood at $957.3 million at the start of 2024 and have grown substantially in the period since, according to data aggregator rwa.xyz. The broader asset tokenization market, which includes private and institutional infrastructure, was valued at $2.08 trillion in 2025, with projections from Mordor Intelligence putting it at $18.74 trillion by 2031.
Vodacom Closes $2.1B Safaricom Deal, Shifting Control of M-PESA's Parent
On the same day, Johannesburg-headquartered Vodacom formally completed a R35 billion (approximately $2.1 billion) transaction that lifts its ownership in Safaricom from 35 percent to 55 percent. "This is a landmark moment for Vodacom, for Safaricom and for the communities we serve across East Africa," said Vodacom Group CEO Shameel Joosub. The sellers were the Kenyan government, which offloaded a 15 percent stake, and Vodafone Group, which sold an effective 5 percent. Kenya retains a 20 percent stake, and the government has said proceeds will fund infrastructure across roads, energy, water, and airports.
The transaction marks the first time a single corporate entity has held majority control of Safaricom since the company listed on the Nairobi Securities Exchange in 2008. For the 18 years since that listing, no single shareholder commanded an outright majority.
The deal required navigating a Kenya High Court conservatory order that froze the transaction. The Court of Appeal stayed that order on June 26, 2026, clearing the path to close, though the underlying constitutional petitions remain before the courts.
The accounting shift is material for Vodacom. Safaricom moves from equity-accounted associate to full consolidation on Vodacom's books, meaning Safaricom's R29 billion in EBITDA is now absorbed directly into group reporting. Safaricom posted revenue of KES 388.7 billion (roughly $3 billion) and net profit of KES 69.8 billion (roughly $540 million) in the financial year ended March 2025.
M-PESA, which accounts for roughly 44 percent of Safaricom's revenue, processed 46.4 billion transactions worth more than $450 billion in the year through early 2026. Transaction volumes on the platform now exceed 50 percent of Kenya's annual GDP, a figure that puts the governance significance of this ownership transfer in sharp relief. About 500 million transactions move through the platform daily, averaging $800 million per day, across 40 million monthly active users in Kenya and an agent network of 298,900 people. M-PESA also operates in Tanzania, Uganda, Mozambique, DRC, Egypt, and Ethiopia.
The governance shift has direct implications for M-PESA's blockchain-adjacent initiatives. In January 2026, the ADI Foundation announced a partnership with M-Pesa Africa to extend blockchain infrastructure to M-PESA's user base. Safaricom has deployed Chainalysis tools for transaction monitoring and has explored stablecoin development for cross-border remittances. These programs will now be subject to strategy decisions made in Johannesburg, and the central question for the platform's Web3 trajectory is whether Vodacom's leadership treats those initiatives as priorities to accelerate or costs to rationalize.
Elsewhere: DStv Loses HBO, Craydel Enters Ghana
Canal+, which completed its acquisition of DStv parent MultiChoice Africa in September 2025, renewed its content deal with Warner Bros. Discovery in late December 2025 covering CNN, Discovery Channel, and Cartoon Network. HBO content was not included. Series including House of the Dragon Season 3, The White Lotus, and The Last of Us have been removed from DStv. DStv Kenya has lost more than 80 percent of its active subscribers between June 2024 and March 2026, and the platform's streaming arm Showmax shut down on April 30, 2026.
Separately, Kenyan edtech startup Craydel expanded into Ghana, its eighth African market. The platform uses AI to match students with between 380 and 600 partner universities based on grades, budget, and career goals, and charges universities a commission on successful enrollments. Roughly 400,000 African students study abroad annually, and Craydel is positioning itself as a continent-built alternative to platforms like ApplyBoard and IDP Education.
What to watch: Nigeria's SEC regulatory posture toward CBN-licensed fintechs offering tokenized assets will be the key variable determining whether the Paga and TBook model scales or faces friction. For M-PESA, the question is whether Vodacom's Johannesburg-based leadership accelerates or slows the platform's Web3 partnerships in the months ahead.