Inside the R1.1 billion Bank Zero deal backed by venture capitalist and banking legend Michael Jordaan

Lesaka’s R1.1 billion acquisition of Bank Zero will solve the single biggest challenge any fintech start-up faces: acquiring distribution.

Essentially overnight, Bank Zero will gain access to Lesaka’s 2 million retail customers and 125,000 business customers.

This will be a powerful accelerant for Bank Zero, which recently became profitable 4 years and 10 months after its October 2021 launch.

In an interview with Daily Investor, Bank Zero co-founder and chair Michael Jordaan explained how the Lesaka deal came to be.

The deal was first announced in June 2025, when Lesaka said its subsidiary, Lesaka Technologies, entered into an agreement to acquire 100% of Bank Zero’s issued ordinary shares.

The acquisition consideration will be settled through a combination of newly issued shares and up to R91 million in cash, for a total of R1.1 billion.

Since the deal was announced, the transaction has been unconditionally approved by South Africa’s competition authorities.

Now, only a few regulatory hurdles remain, including approval from the Prudential Authority and exchange control approval from the Reserve Bank.

Lesaka recently announced that it expects the transaction to become unconditional in December 2026.

This means the deal will be completed roughly three months after Bank Zero achieved the all-important break-even milestone.

With this milestone under its belt, the bank’s next challenge will become scale, which requires strong distribution channels to acquire more customers.

Currently, the bank boasts 100,000 customers, which is far less than its competitors required to reach the break-even point.

For Bank Zero to grow this customer base further, it will need to solve what Jordaan considers the biggest challenge for a fintech start-up: distribution.

This is where the Lesaka deal will play a critical role in Bank Zero’s growth in the coming years.

The Lesaka-Bank Zero puzzle

Jordaan told Daily Investor that when the deal was first proposed, it was “like a puzzle where the pieces just fit in perfectly”.

He said there are obvious synergies for both sides in this deal: Bank Zero requires distribution, and Lesaka needs a bank.

Lesaka is a JSE-listed company that provides fintech products and services to underserved consumers and small businesses. 

In South Africa, it also provides low-cost financial services to underserved and unbanked customers, including insurance, microloans, and payment processing. 

For Lesaka to scale these services and give more value to its existing customers, it requires its own banking infrastructure.

Up until now, Lesaka has been using African Bank to offer customers a basic transactional account through its EasyPay Everywhere service.

With Bank Zero in its stable, Jordaan explained that Lesaka can now “unplug” from other banks and plug directly into Bank Zero.

Given Lesaka’s existing large customer base, the acquisition will also give Bank Zero immediate access to 2 million retail customers and 125,000 business customers to cross-sell to.

Bank Zero CEO Yatin Narsai told Daily Investor that the synergy benefits of the Lesaka acquisition exceed R100 million.

He said it will be an accelerator for Bank Zero and will also allow it to enter lending, “which is done very well by Lesaka”.

Bank Zero has applied to the Prudential Authority to begin lending and to expand its authorised dealer licence to allow offshore business payments and remittances.

Lesaka’s presence in South Africa’s R1 trillion informal economy presents Bank Zero with another growth channel in the coming years.

“It’s like a puzzle where the pieces just fit in perfectly. They needed a bank, Bank Zero needed the distribution, and the synergies were obvious,” Jordaan said.