WayaWaya has partnered with Choice Bank to launch WayaWaya Banking, a service that lets Kenyan users open bank accounts, hold funds in multiple currencies, make local and international transfers and pay utility bills. The pitch is a bank app that reshapes itself around each customer. The harder question is whether anyone will leave M-Pesa for it.
The partners signed the agreement in Nairobi on 6 November, Business Tech Africa reported. Choice Bank supplies the regulated banking infrastructure under its Central Bank of Kenya licence. WayaWaya builds the app and owns the customer experience. The company says Kenya is the first step toward a pan-African neobank built on partnerships with licensed banks.
How Intelligent Adaptive Banking Works
WayaWaya calls its approach Intelligent Adaptive Banking. The app studies incoming and outgoing transactions, balances and recurring payments, then rearranges itself around how a user earns, spends and saves. A salaried customer who starts receiving business payments would see collection and expense tools move to the front.
Founder and CEO Teddy Ogallo frames it as a reversal of normal bank design. Banks build around products, he argues, and “banking should adapt to the customer.” The company concedes a limit, though. Transaction patterns do not always explain why someone moved money.
That limit matters more in banking than elsewhere. A wrong guess in a music app costs a bad playlist. In a bank app, it can bury the tool a customer needs or push a product they never wanted.
Why Choice Bank Holds the Licence
Choice Bank is a microfinance bank, not a commercial lender. The CBK licensed it in 2015, and it began as a community bank serving Kenyans abroad. It won a nationwide licence in November 2024, according to Khusoko, and it sells banking-as-a-service that lets non-bank partners embed accounts through APIs.
For WayaWaya, borrowing a licence beats building one. ITWeb Africa reported earlier this year that Moniepoint bought into Kenya through Sumac Microfinance Bank partly to get around a freeze on new licences. WayaWaya is taking a lighter route to the same destination.
The structure raises practical questions. Customers will see WayaWaya’s brand while the regulated banking sits with Choice Bank. The coverage TechMoonshot reviewed does not spell out fees, foreign-exchange pricing, transfer limits or how disputes get handled.
A Crowded Field Led by M-Pesa
Kenya had 54 million mobile money subscriptions in June 2026, according to Communications Authority figures cited by Business Tech Africa. M-Pesa held 88.8% of them. That is the incumbent WayaWaya must pry customers from.
Safaricom is also tightening its grip. It recently merged M-Pesa and My Safaricom into one app, putting balances, bills and financial services in one place. On the multi-currency side, Grey already offers dollar, pound and euro accounts and added local-currency deposits in Kenya and Ghana this year.
More features alone rarely change habits. WayaWaya has to show its AI delivers something customers cannot already get.
From Kenya to Nigeria and Uganda
WayaWaya wants to enter Nigeria and Uganda next. Each move needs a local bank partner and regulatory approval, Business Tech Africa noted. The company named Raj Singh, a former Chase Bank Kenya executive, as a non-executive director in July to help with governance and expansion.
Ogallo argues that a business moving from Kenya into Nigeria or Uganda should not face a disconnected financial system in each market. The problem is real, and founders keep attacking it. Hizo, a Lagos startup, raised $100,000 to route intra-African transfers without a dollar hop.
WayaWaya is also not a newcomer. TechCrunch reported in 2021 that Kenyan firm Ajua had acquired it. The launch coverage TechMoonshot reviewed does not explain how that deal relates to today’s WayaWaya.
What to Watch Next
Four signals will show whether the product has traction. Watch for published fees, user numbers, a clear statement of what the service can and cannot do, and a second-country bank partner.
Trust may be the deciding factor. WayaWaya Banking will be judged less on its AI than on whether customers will park their salaries with a brand they met last week.
