👨🏿‍🚀TechCabal Daily – South Africa wants to tax betting

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MoMo Payment Service Bank, MTN Nigeria’s fintech arm, has partnered with Thunes, a Singapore-based cross-border payments platform, to enable its 2.7 million users to receive international money transfers instantly. The partnership connects MoMo users to eight remittance corridors, including the USA, UK, Canada, France, Australia, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and South Africa.

How it’d work: By joining Thunes’ Direct Global Network, which spans over 130 countries and 80+ currencies, MoMo PSB users can now receive funds from abroad in real time. 

Between the lines: Nigeria’s remittance market continues its upward climb. World Bank data shows inflows jumped 9% in 2024 to hit $20.9 billion. MoMo PSB is positioning itself as a key gateway for diaspora money flowing into Nigeria’s digital economy.

The big picture: Thunes’ network connects over 7 billion wallets and 320 payment methods globally, including major platforms like M-Pesa, GCash, and WeChat Pay. For MoMo PSB, this partnership deepens its financial inclusion mandate by making global remittances as simple as a local transfer; instant, transparent, and affordable.

South Africa’s National Treasury wants to slap a 20% national tax on online betting, a wake-up call as online betting morphs into a social headache for the country. The thing is, online betting companies already pay provincial gambling taxes, but Treasury now wants a national layer, collected by the South African Revenue Service (SARS).

What does this mean? Gamblers, betting companies, and onlookers should expect tighter compliance, greater reporting requirements, and higher operating costs in the betting sector. Platforms offering illegal interactive games, including online slots, roulette, and blackjack, could also be taxed despite those products being outlawed. The Treasury’s logic is that if it’s happening anyway, tax it and curb harm.

Has everyone suddenly had enough of online gambling? Three weeks ago, Kenya introduced the Gambling Control Act, 2025, which gives the newly created Gambling Regulatory Authority (GRA) the power to impose a built-in deduction on every wager. In October, South Africa ruled that online gambling, including games like roulette wheels, poker, and blackjack, is banned. Benin Republic has also begun to collect a 10% levy on the gross turnover of all land-based gambling activities and a 25% tax on online gambling winnings.

What is South Africa’s endgame? To slow down problem gambling, which, according to the Treasury, affects about a third of local punters. The country wants to make gambling less invisible and far less attractive to those already on the edge. Could this actually pull the brakes on online betting?

Vodacom, South Africa’s second-largest mobile network operator, has finally crossed the regulatory finish line in its marathon bid to buy controlling shares in Maziv, a holding company whose assets include fibre network operators Dark Fibre Africa (DFA) and Vumatel, four years after the deal was first announced.

But why did it take four years? This deal collided with every possible hurdle that both parties couldn’t have foreseen. The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA), the country’s telecoms regulator, initially approved the deal in 2022, saying it would be in the best interest of the public. 

But a year later, the deal hit a roadblock when the Competition Commission, South Africa’s anti-trust regulator, advised against it, fearing that the merger would reduce competition and give Vodacom too much control over the fibre market. Vodacom was not too happy about that, and these doubts, along with the operators taking the deal to court, kept the deal in limbo for years.

Icasa has now granted the last approval the operator needed, clearing the way for Vodacom to take a 30% co-controlling stake in Maziv. The implementation kicks in on 1 December 2025.

Through the lens of the competitors: Vodacom now sits in both mobile and fibre infrastructure, a position that could put pressure on MTN and other rivals to deepen their own fibre bets or speed up fibre acquisitions. This means consolidation conversations will heat up, especially as the economics of data networks begin to favour bigger players.

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South Africa’s Competition Tribunal has unconditionally approved Lesaka Technologies’R1.1 billion ($61 million) acquisition of Bank Zero, clearing one of the final hurdles for the dealfirst announced in June 2025. The transaction still needs approval from the Prudential Authority and Exchange Control before it can close.

Why it matters: Lesaka, a South African fintech, is evolving from a payments platform into a fully licensed digital bank. The deal gives it access to Bank Zero’s banking licence, modern tech infrastructure, and over R400 million ($22 million) in deposits from 40,000+ funded accounts. Bank Zero shareholders will own roughly 12% of Lesaka, plus up to R91 million ($5 million) in cash.

Between the lines: Bank Zero, co-founded by former First National Bank (FNB) CEO Michael Jordaan and launched in 2021, built its reputation on zero-fee, app-based banking with a patented fraud-resistant card. Jordaan and co-founder Yatin Narsai will remain as chairman and CEO, respectively, with Jordaan joining Lesaka’s board. The founding team stays on with shareholding lockups ranging from 18 to 36 months.

The big picture: Lesaka expects the integration to reduce its gross debt by over R1 billion ($56 million) and fund lending growth through customer deposits rather than expensive bank debt. For competitors like TymeBank, Discovery Bank, and regional challengers, the deal raises the stakes. Lesaka now has both fintech agility and a full bankin

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The World Wide Web3

Source:

Coin Name	Current Value	Day	Month
Bitcoin	$90,398	+ 3.18%	– 20.79%
Ether	$3,027	+ 1.93%	– 26.55%
XRP	$2.22	+ 0.97%	– 15.75%
BNB	$892	+ 3.71%	– 21.53%

* Data as of 00.00 AM WAT, November 27, 2025.

Written by: Opeyemi Kareem and Zia Yusuf

Edited by:Ganiu Oloruntade