Sitoyo Lopokoiyit, Managing Director of M-PESA Africa./FILE
ABSA Group has appointed M-Pesa Africa Managing Director Sitoyo Lopokoiyit as its new chief executive for personal and private banking.
The appointment, effective 1 April 2026, comes as Absa finalises its refocused Pan-African strategy and restructures its executive leadership team to sharpen customer-led growth, strengthen governance and deepen its leadership bench across the continent.
Lopokoiyit will exit Safaricom and the Vodacom Group on 31 March 2026, closing a 15-year chapter in which he helped shape M-Pesa into Africa’s largest and most influential fintech platform.
Lopokoiyit’s appointment is viewed as one of the most high-profile leadership moves between Africa’s fintech and banking sectors.
He has led M-Pesa Africa since April 2021, overseeing its expansion into eight African markets and growing the platform to more than 60 million customers and over five million businesses.
Under his stewardship, M-Pesa evolved far beyond a peer-to-peer money transfer service into a full-scale fintech ecosystem spanning payments, savings, credit, merchant solutions, interoperability, and global remittances.
He joined Safaricom in 2011 as head of M-Pesa Strategy and Business Development, playing a pivotal role in shaping the agent aggregator model that later became a global standard for mobile money.
Over the years, he held several senior roles within Safaricom and Vodacom, including Director of M-Commerce at Vodacom Tanzania and Chief Financial Services Officer at Safaricom PLC.
Absa on Wednesday noted that Lopokoiyit’s impact on financial inclusion has been recognised globally, including his induction into the 11:FS Hall of Fame, which honours industry leaders and innovators who have significantly improved the financial services ecosystem through innovation, resilience, and pioneering work.
“This appointment demonstrates Absa’s strategic focus on delivering integrated, customer centric solutions across our personal and private banking franchise while unlocking new growth opportunities”, Absa Group CEO Kenny Fihla, said.
As a member of Safaricom’s executive committee, Lopokoiyit contributed to many of the company’s defining milestones, including the launch of innovations such as Fuliza, the M-Pesa Super App and strategic global partnerships with Visa, PayPal, Ant Financial, Microsoft and Huawei.
Before joining Safaricom, he worked across multiple industries, including as a Business Adviser and Merchandising Manager at Caltex under Chevron Kenya Limited, giving him broad commercial exposure beyond telecoms and financial services.
Absa said Lopokoiyit’s appointment reflects its ambition to deliver more integrated and customer-centric solutions across its Personal and Private Banking franchise, while unlocking new growth opportunities across its Pan-African footprint.
“A highly experienced industry leader, Sitoyo brings deep expertise in financial services, telecoms, customer value propositions and large-scale business transformation,” the Group said.
Other changes announced by Absa includes a new role for Prabashni Naidoo, currently serving as Group chief internal audit executive, who will step into a newly reconstituted role that includes legal, compliance and group secretariat as Group Chief Governance Officer, effective March 1.
Managing executive: compliance strategy, regulatory relations and governance Rushdi Solomons has been promoted to Group chief internal audit officer. Fatima Newman has been appointed Chief Compliance Officer.
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