Table Of Content
- Luno acquired GTXN, a Kenyan cross-border payment provider, for an undisclosed sum.
- Luno named Dan Kleinbaum, GTXN’s founder, as CEO of the new unit.
- Dan Kleinbaum previously co-founded Beyonic, a mobile money platform that Onafriq eventually acquired.
- Luno’s acquisition of GTXN comes shortly after it obtained a BMA license in Bermuda, furthering its 2026 growth and restructuring strategy.
- The acquisition lets Luno settle cross-border transactions on its own liquidity, bypassing the correspondent banking system.
- The deal also comes amid regulatory uncertainty in South Africa’s crypto space, with an industry coalition, of which Luno is a part, pushing back against what it describes as restrictive and biased exchange control rules.
Digital asset platform Luno announced the acquisition of GTXN, a Nairobi-based cross-border payment provider and fund manager on September 22. The financial terms remain undisclosed.
GTXN, founded in 2022, provides FX, digital treasury operations, and cross-border payment services for institutional clients. In 2024, GTXN obtained a fund management license from Kenya’s Capital Markets Authority. It is also registered under Canada’s FINTRAC as an MSB and licensed as a small payment institution in Poland.
Under the acquisition, GTXN will serve as Luno’s cross-border payments arm. The integration gives Luno the licensed collection and payout infrastructure it needs across corridors linking developed and emerging markets.
For institutional clients, Luno is offering a single regulated route to move money rather than the complex correspondent banking system.
The Problem Luno and GTXN Want to Solve
The traditional cross-border payments system involves a complex network of banks and intermediary channels. Most B2B transactions rely on this network.
In the correspondent banking system, money isn’t simply moved from the sender’s account to the recipient’s account. Instead, they are routed across several intermediary banks. Banks and intermediaries apply estimated 3-8% FX spreads and handling fees ranging from $15 to $50 at each intermediary, excluding AML/CFT costs.
This process often takes days, making the route slow and expensive. On average, cross-border transactions in Africa take 3 to 5 days and cost 7% to 20% of the transaction value.
The World Bank estimates that a cheaper cross-border transaction system could lead to over $290 billion in income gains for the continent.
Luno’s solution is to integrate GTXN’s licensed collection and payout infrastructure. “A client collects and pays out through one provider, over rails Luno owns, settled against Luno’s own liquidity,” Luno says.
“For businesses, the flow becomes simple; money moves in and out through one provider. The result is faster settlement and lower transaction costs on corridors that have long been slow and expensive to serve.”
Why Luno Chose GTXN and Dan Kleinbaum
Luno named GTXN founder Dan Kleinbaum CEO of the newly integrated unit. Luno’s acquisition of GTXN marks Dan Kleinbaum’s second major fintech exit in six years.
Before building GTXN and becoming part of the Luno entity, Kleinbaum previously co-founded Beyonic, a mobile money platform that provided a unified API for enterprise payments across seven African markets. MFS Africa, now Onafriq, acquired it in 2020.
He brings a decade of experience building payments infrastructure for B2B clients in emerging markets to Luno.
How This Fits Luno’s Bigger Strategy
Luno has spent some time restructuring in 2026. In July, it cut 20% of its global workforce, affecting only 5% of its African workforce. Luno said the restructure was driven by “material investments in automation,” weaker retail crypto-trading, and a desire to focus on serving institutional clients.
By August, Luno announced that it had secured a Class F Digital Asset Business license from the Bermuda Monetary Authority.
Luno is not the only African crypto firm to pursue a foreign license this year. Yellow Card, which announced it was focusing on the B2B arm of operations late 2025, secured a Swiss license in June 2026. It also expanded into North America via a licensed subsidiary called Alkepay.
VALR, a crypto firm with South African roots, also secured a provisional VASP license from the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority in May 2026.
Luno’s infrastructure will also have to compete with other institutional cross-border payment infrastructure being built across the continent, including those being built by AccessBank South Africa and Stable, Kredete’s recent acquisition of Gravv, Onafriq’s partnership with Privy, and Daya’s recent Tempo integration.
The Regulatory Backdrop
Luno’s push to own licensed and auditable payments infrastructure arrives at a critical juncture in South Africa’s crypto regulatory history.
The South African Reserve Bank (SARB) and the National Treasury published a draft Capital Flow Management regulations framework in April 2026. By August 2026, it published a draft crypto asset manual for cross-border activities.
The South African crypto industry, including Luno, formed a coalition called CATASTROPHE to push back against what it considers restrictive exchange control rules. Rules that are said to have paused R2 billion in investment in the industry.
Luno has instead called for rules that preserve access to regulated innovation so that “South African businesses can use the same cross-border tool being adopted elsewhere in the world.”
While regulators say its stance on the matter is not yet settled, Luno’s acquisition of a regulated entity like GTXN can be considered a highly proactive approach.
