Airtel Money is going public in London. On 23 September 2026, Airtel Mobile Commerce N.V., the Dutch-registered company that owns Airtel Money in 13 African countries, published its intention to float on the Main Market of the London Stock Exchange. An intention to float is the formal notice a company gives a few weeks before its initial public offering (IPO), the first sale of its shares to outside investors.
There’s no price yet. Airtel Money will publish a prospectus, the legal document with the price range and the number of shares on offer, in early October. The final price is expected in mid-October. Airtel Money hasn’t said what it thinks the business is worth.
Airtel Money is Airtel’s mobile money service. You use it to send money, pay bills and shops, and withdraw cash at an agent. In some countries it also does loans, savings and a Mastercard virtual card for online shopping. It had about 53 million monthly active users and more than 2.3 million agents on 30 June 2026.
Who is selling, and who gets the money
Every share in the offer already exists. Airtel Money isn’t issuing new ones, so the business itself raises nothing. The money goes to whichever shareholders sell. Ian Ferrao, Airtel Money’s CEO, puts that down to the balance sheet: the business has no debt, which he says is “why this Offer consists solely of shares sold by existing shareholders”.
Airtel Africa, the London-listed company that runs Airtel in Kenya and 13 other African countries, owns 77.85% of Airtel Money. TPG, Mastercard, the Qatar Investment Authority and Chimetech Holding bought minority stakes in 2021 for a combined USD 550 million, or about KES 71 billion. Airtel Africa says it’ll stay on as a long-term shareholder. Airtel Money expects at least 10% of its shares to trade freely once it lists.
The announcement doesn’t say which shareholders are selling or how many shares. It says nothing about the put options either. As we reported in July, TPG’s Rise Fund and Mastercard could make Airtel Africa buy their stakes if Airtel Money hadn’t listed by 31 July 2026. Airtel Africa valued that bill at USD 515 million, about KES 67 billion, at the end of March. The 31 July date has passed.
The International Finance Corporation (IFC), the World Bank Group’s private-sector arm, has signed on as a cornerstone investor, a buyer that commits before the offer opens. It’ll buy up to GBP 67.2 million of shares, about USD 90 million or KES 11.6 billion, from existing shareholders at the final price.
The offer is open to large institutional investors in the US and elsewhere, and to retail investors in the UK through RetailBook’s network of investment platforms and brokers. There’s no retail offer in Kenya or in any of Airtel Money’s African markets. So if you’re in Kenya, you can only buy Airtel Money shares once they start trading in London, through a broker with access to the exchange.
How Airtel Money’s numbers compare with M-Pesa
In the year to 31 March 2026, Airtel Money made USD 1.346 billion in revenue, about KES 174 billion. Its EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation, a rough measure of operating profit) was USD 676 million, about KES 87.5 billion. That’s a margin of about 50%. Net income was USD 373 million, about KES 48 billion.
Over the same 12 months, M-Pesa made KES 182.7 billion in Kenya alone, from 41 million active customers. Airtel Money made slightly less across 13 countries. The gap is wider on money moved. M-Pesa handled KES 41.68 trillion. Airtel Money’s total processed value (TPV), the value of every transaction on the platform, was USD 192 billion, about KES 24.9 trillion.
Airtel Money is growing faster, though. Its revenue rose 36% in dollar terms, from USD 990 million the year before. M-Pesa’s grew 13.4%.
If you read our July piece, the customer count looks lower. Airtel Africa’s June quarter results put Airtel Money at 56.5 million customers and USD 404 million in revenue. The IPO figures for the same quarter are 53.0 million and USD 399 million. Airtel Money doesn’t name its 13 countries, but the difference is almost exactly Nigeria, where Airtel Africa counted 3.4 million mobile money customers and USD 5 million in revenue.
Where Kenya fits
Kenya is a small Airtel Money market. Airtel Money had 11.1% of Kenya’s 54 million mobile money subscriptions at the end of June 2026, against M-Pesa’s 88.8%, on the Communications Authority’s count. Kenya isn’t among the six markets Airtel Money names as its top six: Uganda, Zambia, Tanzania, Malawi, the DRC and Gabon.
Kenya still turns up twice in the pitch. Nairobi is Airtel Money’s product development hub. And Kenya is the benchmark. Airtel Money says mobile money transaction value as a share of GDP is three times higher in Kenya than across sub-Saharan Africa, and it’s asking investors to bet on its other markets catching up.
At home, Airtel Money Kenya launched Bizna Wallet, its answer to M-Pesa’s Pochi la Biashara, on 3 August. That was nine days after managing director Anne Kinuthia-Otieno left.
What Airtel Money plans to do next
The growth plan starts with Airtel’s own subscribers. More than 75 million people across the 13 markets use Airtel but not Airtel Money, and only 41% of Airtel’s subscriber base uses the wallet. The second part is the app. About half of Airtel Money’s customers have smartphones, but only about 13% of those use the Airtel Money app. App users bring in average revenue of USD 9.5 each, about KES 1,200, against USD 1.8, about KES 230, for feature phone users.
For shareholders, Airtel Money plans to pay out at least 80% of its net profit as dividends, twice a year. For the year to March 2027, it’s aiming for revenue growth in the mid-20s percent in constant currency, which strips out exchange rate swings. It expects its EBITDA margin to fall by up to 2 percentage points because it has revised its agreements with other Airtel Africa companies.
When we covered the plan last September, Airtel Africa was aiming for the first half of 2026. The prospectus in early October will carry the price range, and that’s the first time Airtel Money puts a number on what it’s worth.
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