MNT Halan’s Cairo Listing Flies In Face Of African Fintech IPO Exodus

Free Reads

MNT Halan’s Cairo Listing Flies In Face Of African Fintech IPO Exodus

By
Staff Reporter
 |  September 9, 2026

On Tuesday, MNT Tech Holding for Financial Investments, an arm of Egyptian fintech unicorn MNT-Halan, submitted a formal application to list 1.6 billion shares on the Egyptian Exchange’s main market. The filing caps months of speculation about the company’s public market ambitions and sets up a potential IPO that could value its domestic operations at between USD 900 M and USD 1 B.

The move comes as Africa’s largest fintech players race toward public listings in a remarkable synchronised wave. OPay has hired Citigroup, Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan for a US IPO targeting a USD 4 B valuation, while weighing a secondary listing in its primary market, Nigeria. PalmPay is preparing a Hong Kong listing. Airtel Money has chosen London, where it could be valued at roughly USD 10 B. All three are Nigerian-linked businesses, and all three are listing abroad. MNT-Halan is the only one heading to a local bourse.

It raises a question that should worry policymakers from Lagos to Nairobi as to why Africa’s most successful fintech companies, built on African consumers and transaction volumes, are taking their equity stories to New York, Hong Kong and London instead of staying home.

MNT-Halan’s decision to list in Cairo offers one possible answer. The company, founded in 2018, has grown into a vertically integrated fintech platform offering micro-business lending, payments, consumer finance, and e-commerce. It now serves more than 7 million customers in Egypt alone and has disbursed over USD 10 B in loans since inception. In June, Al Ahly Capital, the investment arm of the National Bank of Egypt, led a funding round that lifted the company’s overall valuation to USD 1.4 B. The IPO would cover only the Egyptian business, leaving operations in the UAE, Turkey and Pakistan private.

The listing is also a test for the Egyptian Exchange. The benchmark EGX index is up over 23.6% year-to-date, and local fintech Valu saw its shares jump 852.4% on its first day of trading last year. But the exchange still lacks the depth to compete with global venues.

Moreover, considering its peers in other African markets, a survey found that 76.5% of Nigeria-funded startups hold dollar capital, making exchange rate instability a critical factor in listing decisions. Companies generating revenue in naira but seeking dollar exits face a currency mismatch that local markets cannot easily resolve. The Nigerian Exchange has recorded zero startup IPOs.

MNT-Halan is betting that Egypt can offer something different. The company holds more than 25% of the country’s microfinance market and has positioned itself as the seventh-largest financial institution in Egypt by reach. Its deep local roots, combined with a domestic investor base that has already demonstrated appetite for fintech stocks, may make a Cairo listing more viable than it would be for a Nigerian counterpart. The Egyptian government, meanwhile, has been actively supporting digital transformation and broadening access to financial services through technology-driven platforms.