Sitoyo Lopokoiyit is a Kenyan fintech executive and corporate leader recognized for his pivotal role in scaling digital financial services across Africa. Formerly the Managing Director of M-PESA Africa at Safaricom, he was appointed Chief Executive of Personal and Private Banking at Absa Group effective April 2026, marking one of the continent’s most notable transitions between telecom-fintech and mainstream banking sectors.
Key facts
- Current role: CEO, Personal & Private Banking, Absa Group (2026–)
- Previous role: Managing Director, M-PESA Africa (2021–2026)
- Education: MSc, Lancaster University (UK); BCom, University of Nairobi
- Notable honor: Inducted into the 11:FS Hall of Fame for fintech innovation
- Nationality: Kenyan
Career and leadership
Lopokoiyit joined Safaricom PLC in 2011, where he led M-PESA’s strategy and business development before serving as Director of M-Commerce at Vodacom Tanzania. Returning to Kenya, he became Chief Financial Services Officer and later Managing Director of M-PESA Africa in 2021. Under his leadership, M-PESA grew into Africa’s largest mobile-money ecosystem, serving more than 60 million customers and five million businesses across eight countries.
Impact on fintech and financial inclusion
At M-PESA Africa, Lopokoiyit drove innovations such as the M-PESA Super App, Fuliza (overdraft service), M-Shwari (savings and loans), and M-PESA Global (remittances). These products broadened financial access for individuals and small businesses while integrating Africa’s digital economy through partnerships with PayPal, AliPay, and Visa. His vision helped position the platform as a global benchmark for mobile financial innovation.
Transition to Absa Group
In 2026, Lopokoiyit joined Absa Group to lead its Personal and Private Banking division, bringing over a decade of fintech expertise to traditional banking. The move reflects Absa’s strategy to accelerate digital transformation and expand inclusive financial solutions across its Pan-African footprint.
Public and board service
Beyond corporate roles, Lopokoiyit chairs the KCA University Council and the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital Board, demonstrating his commitment to education and public-sector governance in Kenya.
The Exit That Marks a Turning Point for M-PESA
When Sitoyo Lopokoiyit leaves Safaricom at the end of March 2026, it will close one of the most consequential leadership chapters in African fintech. The company has framed his departure as a strategic transition, acknowledging his role in transforming M-PESA from a dominant Kenyan mobile wallet into a multi-market digital financial services platform operating under M-PESA Africa.
His exit comes at a moment when M-PESA is no longer just about person-to-person transfers. It is about embedded finance, capital markets access, merchant digitisation, and cross-border interoperability. And many of those shifts bear Lopokoiyit’s fingerprints.
Before M-PESA: A Commercial Operator, Not a Career Telco Executive
Unlike many telecom executives, Lopokoiyit did not rise through network engineering or spectrum strategy. A graduate of the University of Nairobi with a degree in mechanical engineering and later an MBA from the University of Warwick, his early career was grounded in distribution economics and consumer behaviour.
He worked at Uchumi Supermarkets, gaining exposure to fast-moving consumer logistics and margin discipline. He later joined Chevron Kenya (Caltex), where he dealt with retail networks and dealer economics—experience that would later prove critical in understanding M-PESA’s agent liquidity model. A subsequent stint at Total Kenya deepened his operational exposure to distributed infrastructure businesses.
By the time he joined Safaricom in July 2011 as Head of M-PESA Strategy and Business Development, he was less a telecom insider and more a systems thinker focused on scalable commercial ecosystems.
From Strategy Lead to Continental Architect
After shaping M-PESA’s product roadmap in Kenya, Lopokoiyit moved to Vodacom Tanzania in 2015 to lead M-Commerce, sharpening his understanding of cross-market regulatory and competitive realities. He returned to Safaricom in 2018 as Chief Financial Services Officer, and in April 2021 became Managing Director of M-PESA Africa—the joint venture between Safaricom and Vodacom Group.
That appointment signalled a strategic shift: M-PESA would no longer be managed as a Kenyan product with satellite markets. It would become a unified African fintech platform.
Financial Engineering at Scale: From Fuliza to Ziidi
Much has been written about Fuliza, the contextual overdraft facility that turned mobile money transaction data into a real-time credit scoring engine. But the deeper innovation under Lopokoiyit was architectural: repositioning M-PESA as a balance-sheet light but data-rich financial rail capable of hosting savings, lending, and investment products in partnership with regulated institutions.
One of the clearest examples is Ziidi, the investment product that enables customers to earn returns on wallet balances. Instead of idle e-float sitting passively, Ziidi channels user funds into regulated money market structures, effectively democratising yield for millions who would otherwise lack access to formal investment instruments.
Ziidi reflects a deliberate strategy: push M-PESA beyond transactional liquidity into asset formation.
Even more transformative was M-PESA-enabled trading at the Nairobi Securities Exchange. By integrating mobile money rails with brokerage and settlement processes, retail investors could fund trading accounts directly from their phones. This move quietly lowered the barrier to entry for participation in Kenya’s capital markets. It also signalled M-PESA’s evolution from payments infrastructure to capital markets gateway.
That integration required regulatory coordination, settlement reliability, and trust—three variables that fintech platforms often struggle to align.
Merchant Digitisation: From Till Numbers to Embedded Commerce
Under Lopokoiyit, merchant strategy shifted from passive “till number” aggregation to active SME tooling.
Products like Pochi la Biashara formalised informal traders into digitally identifiable micro-enterprises. The M-PESA Business App added analytics, reconciliation tools, and credit linkages. This was not cosmetic iteration; it was infrastructure for underwriting small businesses using transactional data exhaust.
The shift had two strategic consequences:
- It increased stickiness of merchants within the M-PESA ecosystem.
- It created richer datasets for credit modelling and product cross-selling.
The merchant push also aligned with partnerships involving global players such as Visa Inc. and PayPal, strengthening international acceptance and cross-border capabilities.
Technological Breakthroughs: The Super App and API Strategy
The launch of the M-PESA Super App marked a structural re-architecture. Rather than a closed wallet, M-PESA began functioning as a platform hosting mini-apps—third-party services embedded within its ecosystem.
This pivot mirrors global platform economics: distribution + identity + payments = ecosystem gravity.
By opening APIs and enabling external developers, M-PESA reduced friction for innovation while retaining customer ownership. The Super App strategy was particularly important as smartphone penetration rose across East Africa, shifting user expectations from USSD simplicity to app-based experiences.
Geographic Expansion and Its Frictions
As Managing Director of M-PESA Africa, Lopokoiyit oversaw consolidation across multiple markets. Expansion into Ethiopia—one of Africa’s largest untapped telecom markets—was strategically bold but financially complex. Monetisation has lagged user acquisition, reflecting regulatory constraints and competitive dynamics.
This is the tension his successor inherits: balancing continental ambition with disciplined capital allocation.
The Numbers and the Influence
During his leadership, M-PESA Africa surpassed 60 million customers across eight markets and millions of businesses integrated into its ecosystem. Transaction volumes scaled into trillions of shillings annually, reinforcing Safaricom’s position as more fintech than telco in profit composition.
More importantly, M-PESA shifted from being a Kenyan innovation to a reference case in global digital financial inclusion discourse.
What His Successor Must Confront
The next leader of M-PESA Africa will inherit scale—but also structural headwinds:
1. Margin Pressure in a Competitive Fintech Era
Banks are digitising aggressively. Startups are unbundling profitable niches. Interoperability reduces lock-in. Pricing power cannot be assumed.
2. Regulatory Convergence
As M-PESA deepens into investments and capital markets, it edges closer to being treated like a bank without a banking licence. Prudential oversight and compliance complexity will intensify.
3. Monetising Ethiopia
High population, high potential—but monetisation pathways remain uncertain.
4. Platform Discipline
The Super App strategy must translate into measurable ecosystem revenue, not just downloads and integrations.
A Career Pivot That Makes Strategic Sense
Lopokoiyit’s move to Absa Group as Chief Executive for Personal and Private Banking is not a departure from fintech logic—it is an expansion of it. He now carries platform thinking into traditional banking, at a time when banks are scrambling to replicate fintech agility.
Sitoyo Lopokoiyit did not invent M-PESA. But he professionalised, scaled, and platformised it.
He pushed it into capital markets via NSE integrations.
He unlocked idle wallet balances through Ziidi.
He embedded credit through data-driven lending.
He repositioned it as a super-app ecosystem.
His successor inherits a continental payments giant. The harder task ahead is ensuring it remains a profitable financial infrastructure backbone in an increasingly crowded digital economy.
