In June 2025, dLocal, the Uruguayan fintech that first expanded into Africa in 2018, announced plans to acquire AZA Finance, a Kenya-based cross-border payments company. While neither company disclosed the financial terms of the transaction, Bloomberg reported at the time that AZA Finance was valued at around $150 million in a 2024 funding round.
Eight months later, dLocal bought a stripped-down version of the company.
On February 27, 2026, the Uruguayan fintech acquired three key assets from AZA Finance: Mint Code Solutions S.A., a Cameroonian payments entity and its payment licence; intellectual property tied to NeWurth S.A., the Luxembourg-incorporated company behind the AZA Finance brand; and customer relationships across AZA Finance’s African payments business.
dLocal acquired these assets by cancelling debt it had previously extended to AZA Finance on two separate occasions, with the final transaction valued at $23.7 million, according to its Q1 2026 financial report.
According to dLocal, regulatory complications prolonged the timeline to finalise the transaction, affecting AZA Finance’s topline growth during the process. Yet, dLocal said the deal gave it strategically important assets that would help deepen its presence in Cameroon—where it has operated through mobile money partnerships since 2020—and expand its reach across the Francophone Central African region.
The drawn-out transaction tells a broader story: breaking into African payments infrastructure is slow, complicated and rarely goes according to plan. Licences, local relationships, and regulatory approvals can take years to build and are rarely readily available for sale.