Cantor8 Brings M-PESA and EVC Plus Onchain in Africa

What to Know:

• Cantor8, a leading infrastructure provider on the Canton Network, has signed exclusive MOUs with Yiksi Limited and the Taran App. 
• The partnership’s goal is to bring Kenya’s M-PESA and Somalia’s EVC Plus on-chain. 
• The pilot phase is intended as the foundation for a broader pan-African rollout targeting Africa’s enormous mobile money landscape. 
• The move follows an earlier partnership in January 2026 between M-PESA and the ADI Foundation, indicating a broader interest in integrating mobile money and blockchain infrastructure in Africa. 

The Deal

On May 12, Cantor8 announced the signing of exclusive MOUs with the crypto exchange arms of the African fintech platform Taran App, Yiksi Limited. The arrangement is set to migrate two of Africa’s most popular mobile money services, Kenya’s M-PESA and Somalia’s EVC Plus, onto blockchain rails. 

Cantor8 will utilise Taran App’s existing fintech infrastructure as the operational bridge to bring these mobile-native payment systems on-chain via the Cantor Network. If successful, this arrangement will serve as the pilot phase for a broader rollout across additional African markets. 

This announcement positions Cantor8 as a key connector between Africa’s informal digital economy and institutional-grade blockchain infrastructure that global investors and development finance institutions commonly seek. 

The Banking Gap

To understand what is at stake, you must first grasp how unusual the financial ecosystems in Kenya and Somalia are, and how structurally unsuited they are to conventional banking. These limitations have led to the widespread use of M-PESA and EVC Plus in the region. 

After the collapse of Somalia’s central government in 1991, the nation’s formal banking infrastructure has been sparse. While the country’s banking infrastructure is rebuilding, research indicates that only 15% of the population has a formal bank account, with fewer than 5% of those active users. 

Branch scarcity, as well as rigid documentation requirements, are major contributing factors to the constraint on formal bank penetration. Decades of widespread counterfeit currency have further pushed the population towards USD-denominated mobile accounts as a more dependable store of value.

This leaves the vast majority of the population unbanked, and that gap has been filled almost entirely by mobile money, most notably EVC Plus, which Hormuud Telecom runs. Over 87 per cent of the Somali population now use mobile money services, and Hormuud serves nearly five million users, providing access to everyday commerce, remittances, and bill payment.

In Kenya, the situation is different, but the outcome is the same: the vast majority of the population uses mobile money services. As of the end of 2025, Kenya recorded a SIM Card penetration of 149.5%, which amounts to roughly 1.5 SIM card subscriptions per person, making it one of the most mobile-staturated countries in the world. 

By December 2025, Kenya’s mobile money market penetration was about 98%, and M-PESA held around 89% of the market share. In practical terms, M-PESA is Kenya’s payment infrastructure. 

Supporting regulatory frameworks from the Kenyan Central Bank, a widespread network of over 500,000 agents contributes to rapid growth and extensive use of mobile money in Kenya. 

Both economies have organically built foundations required for the next generation of digital money systems: universal mobile access, a market comfortable with mobile-based finance, and a clear preference for digital dollars. 

Why Canton Network Over Public Blockchains?

Why does a mobile money system not use established public chains like Ethereum or Solana? Why Canton Network? 

Mobile money and payment systems often operate under central bank oversight and telecommunications regulation. One aspect of that regulation is data disclosure.

Regulated financial systems are structured to protect user data. Public blockchains expose all transaction data by default. Anyone who looks can find counterparties, amounts, timing, and transaction history. That makes public blockchain inherently incompatible with the regulatory infrastructure. 

Canton Network is built around the inverse model. It offers institutions their own private ledgers, keeping sensitive data confidential from the general public. At the same time, the Global Synchronizer, Canton’s interoperability layer, enables these ledgers to interact seamlessly when transactions cross boundaries. 

Importantly, Canton generates tamper-proof audit trails accessible to only authorised regulators and auditors. Simply put, Canton allows regulators and authorised participants to access the necessary data while keeping it confidential from the general public. Your data remains safe and private, while still meeting compliance and regulation standards.

Mobile money systems like M-PESA and EVC Plus handle a high volume of small, low-value transactions, which require instant settlement. Public blockchains often face higher transaction costs and gas fees and slower transaction speeds during periods of high demand, making them incompatible with the types of transactions often carried out on these systems. 

Cantor8 uses its C8 registry token issuance engine to translate mobile money balances into on-chain tokens. These tokens carry canton atomic settlement guarantees, ensuring they are backed by real assets.

This means Canton potentially eliminates the in-transit risk many mobile systems face today. With atomic settlement, a transaction is either fully completed or it doesn’t happen at all; there is no money stuck in limbo. 

The Road Ahead

This Cantor8-Yiksi Limited pilot is a part of a larger wave of institutional and global interest in Africa’s mobile money stack. In January 2026. The ADI Foundation announced a partnership with M-PESA Africa to deploy ADI Chain, a Zero-knowledge proof-powered Layer 2 system backed by the UAE, across M-PESA’s operations in eight countries, reaching its over 60 million monthly users. 

While there is a notable difference in the architecture of these systems, both the ADI Chain and Cantor8’s Canton Network are chasing after privacy-compliant blockchain integration with Africa’s mobile money platforms. 

Somalia and Kenya are an ideal blueprint for places where blockchain rails can first scale to mass-market levels across the African continent. The high use of mobile phones and mobile money systems as primary financial instruments, and the willingness of the regulatory system to accommodate fintech innovation, make them promising. 

The African diaspora sends about $100 billion back home every year. That corridor is expensive and often slow. If the Cantor8 pilot program succeeds, the implication extends beyond East Africa. An interoperable, on-chain mobile money network across multiple African countries could represent one of the few realistic alternatives to that infrastructure in the near term.