Luno has acquired GTXN, a Kenyan cross-border payments provider and licensed fund manager, giving the crypto exchange a regulated route to move money between developed and emerging markets through infrastructure it now owns outright.
The deal, for an undisclosed sum, folds GTXN’s licensed collection and payout rails into Luno’s existing footprint. Instead of a client routing a transaction through a chain of correspondent banks, each adding delays, currency conversions and fees, the flow now runs through a single provider on rails Luno controls, settled against its own liquidity. GTXN will operate going forward as the group’s cross-border payments arm, with founder Dan Kleinbaum staying on as chief executive.
Read: Luno says only 5% of jobs in Nigeria, Kenya, and Uganda affected by global layoffs
For Kleinbaum, it’s a second exit in six years. He previously co-founded Beyonic, a mobile-money platform spanning seven African markets, which Onafriq (then MFS Africa) acquired in 2020. He went on to build GTXN as a foreign exchange and cross-border treasury business for corporates and institutions in East Africa, one licensed by Kenya’s Capital Markets Authority as a fund manager.
Cross-border payments remain one of the more stubborn problems in African fintech. Most transfers still run on correspondent banking, where money hops through two or three intermediary banks before reaching its destination, particularly in developing markets where local banks lack direct relationships abroad. Each hop adds settlement delay, a currency conversion and a fee, and inconsistent compliance screening at each stage can turn a transfer that should take seconds into one that takes days.
Where the GTXN deal fits is worth reading alongside Luno’s other recent moves. In July, Nigeria’s SEC admitted Luno‘s Nigerian entity into its ARIP regulatory sandbox, giving the exchange formal standing to operate crypto products in the market under supervision. A month later, Luno confirmed it was cutting 20% of its global headcount, though its Africa GM said only about 5% of roles in Nigeria, Kenya and Uganda were affected, and framed the restructuring as unrelated to the company’s commitment to the continent.
That restructuring split Luno into three business units: a retail exchange merged with a new “crypto as a service” platform for partners like banks and fintechs (already live with Discovery Bank in South Africa), a unit focused on stablecoins and wallet infrastructure, including Luno’s role in the rand-backed ZARU stablecoin alongside Sanlam and EasyEquities, and an institutional and settlement-focused unit. The GTXN acquisition slots most directly into that third pillar, giving Luno licensed cross-border settlement infrastructure to pair with its stablecoin and B2B ambitions, rather than as a standalone.
The timing also lands while South Africa’s regulatory approach to cross-border crypto activity is still being written. National Treasury and the South African Reserve Bank have draft Capital Flow Management Regulations and a Draft Crypto Asset Manual for Cross-Border Activities open for consultation. Luno has said publicly it wants the final rules to preserve access to licensed, regulated tools like GTXN rather than restrict them.
Its competitors are also active. Yellow Card, a pan-African stablecoin infrastructure provider, raised $40 million in August from investors including Standard Chartered and already supports more than 50 currencies across over 50 countries with customers like Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, and Coinbase. Onafriq, the company that bought Kleinbaum’s last startup, has meanwhile scaled its own USDC stablecoin settlement across more than 40 African markets.
Last updated: September 22, 2026
