Luno, the South African crypto exchange, acquired GTXN, a Kenyan cross-border payments company that is also licensed as a fund manager by Kenya's Capital Markets Authority. The deal was reported on September 22, 2026, and the price was not disclosed.
GTXN will become Luno's cross-border payments arm, and its founder, Dan Kleinbaum, will stay on as chief executive. Its licensed collection and payout services will be folded into Luno's existing network.
The aim is to let enterprise clients move money between developed and emerging markets through one provider, with payments settled against Luno's own liquidity rather than routed through a series of correspondent banks.
What GTXN built
Kleinbaum built GTXN as a foreign exchange and cross-border treasury business for corporates and institutions in East Africa, according to The Condia. CB Insights lists the company as founded in 2022 and based in Nairobi, offering FX and treasury advisory, digital treasury operations and fund and wealth management.
Innovation Village reported that the deal includes GTXN's foreign exchange, corporate treasury and fund manager licences issued by Kenya's Capital Markets Authority. Licences of this kind have to be won market by market, which is one reason payment companies often buy rather than apply.
CB Insights lists Digital Currency Group, Alpha Edison and Musha Ventures as GTXN investors. The amounts they invested have not been reported.
“Moving money between developed and emerging markets is still too slow and too expensive, and our clients feel it every day. GTXN gives us the payment rails to match.”
Why Luno is buying
Most cross-border payments in Africa still move through correspondent banking, where funds pass through two or three intermediary banks before arriving. Each step adds time, a currency conversion and a fee, and local banks in many developing markets lack direct relationships abroad.
Luno chief executive James Lanigan said moving money between developed and emerging markets was still too slow and too expensive for the company's clients, and that GTXN gave Luno the payment rails to address that.
The deal follows a restructuring at Luno. In August the company said it was cutting 20% of its global headcount, and it reorganised into three units: a retail exchange combined with a crypto-as-a-service offering for banks and fintechs, a stablecoin and wallet infrastructure unit, and an institutional and settlement unit. The Condia and Innovation Village both reported that GTXN fits into the third of these.
In July, Nigeria's Securities and Exchange Commission admitted Luno's Nigerian entity into its regulatory sandbox. Luno has also said it wants South Africa's draft rules on cross-border crypto activity, which are still under consultation, to keep access to licensed tools like GTXN.
The founder's second exit
The sale is Kleinbaum's second exit in six years. He previously co-founded Beyonic, a mobile-money platform that operated in seven African markets and was acquired in 2020 by MFS Africa, now called Onafriq.
Onafriq is now one of Luno's competitors in the settlement business. The Condia reported that it has scaled USDC stablecoin settlement across more than 40 African markets.
A busy market for African payment rails
Several companies are competing to move business payments across African borders using stablecoins and licensed local rails. Yellow Card, a pan-African stablecoin infrastructure provider, raised $40 million in August from investors including Standard Chartered, and says it supports more than 50 currencies in more than 50 countries.
By buying a licensed operator rather than building one, Luno gets a working payments business in Kenya and a team that has already sold one African payments company.
What changes for clients
Dealroom noted that Luno already holds regulatory approvals in its core regions and runs its own liquidity. GTXN adds licensed collection and payout services inside that footprint, so an enterprise client can send and receive money through a single provider instead of a chain of banks.
Innovation Village reported that Luno's institutional unit will pair GTXN's licensed fiat rails with demand from business clients that need to move funds between currencies and into or out of crypto. The other two units are already live with partners: Luno's crypto-as-a-service product runs with Discovery Bank in South Africa, and the company is involved in the rand-backed ZARU stablecoin with Sanlam and EasyEquities.
Neither company said how many GTXN employees would join Luno or whether the GTXN name would be kept.
