Yoco Secures $100 Million Credit Facility to Fund Cash Advances for South Africa’s Small Businesses

South African fintech company Yoco has secured a $100 million credit facility to fund cash advances for the small businesses that use its card machines. The deal, announced on 9 November 2026, is the company’s first step into the debt market — and it could change how hundreds of thousands of small traders in South Africa get the money they need to grow.

The money comes from Victory Park Capital Advisors, a private credit firm based in Chicago in the United States. Yoco will use the facility to fund its Yoco Capital service, which gives working capital advances to merchants already using Yoco’s payment terminals and software. In simple terms, the shops, cafés and market stalls that take card payments through Yoco can now borrow against their future sales — and Yoco, rather than an outside lender, will be the one providing the money.

What happened

Yoco Technologies, the Cape Town-based digital commerce company best known for its small card terminals, lined up the $100 million facility with Victory Park Capital Advisors, Bloomberg reported on 9 November. At current exchange rates the facility is worth about R1.6 billion, according to BusinessTech, which carried the Bloomberg report.

The transaction marks Yoco’s first foray into the debt market, Bloomberg said. Until now, Yoco Capital — the company’s embedded finance arm — has advanced money to merchants in partnership with specialist credit providers. The new facility changes that: Yoco will fund the advances itself, through its own balance sheet, giving it direct control over pricing and risk for the first time.

Chief executive Carsten Höltkemeyer said the facility would “give Yoco direct control over the financing needs for our merchants at scale and in-house”, Bloomberg reported. The company describes the deal as one of the largest dedicated merchant cash advance facilities in Africa, although that is Yoco’s own characterisation of the deal.

The terms of the facility — how long it runs for and what it costs Yoco — have not been disclosed.

What is Yoco?

Yoco was founded in Cape Town in 2015. It started by selling small, affordable card machines to businesses that had never been able to take card payments before — the spaza shops, hair salons, food stalls and market traders that make up so much of South Africa’s economy. A small business could buy a Yoco terminal, plug it into a phone, and start accepting Visa and Mastercard payments the same day.

That simple idea grew fast. Today Yoco powers more than 200,000 small and independent businesses across South Africa, according to the company, and it is backed by the global private equity firm TPG. Alongside payments, Yoco now offers point-of-sale software, online payment links and other tools that help small businesses run their shops. Lending was the natural next step: the same sales data that flows through Yoco’s terminals can tell the company which merchants are doing well — and how much they can safely borrow.

How Yoco Capital works

Yoco Capital is the company’s working capital service. It offers cash advances to merchants who already use Yoco’s platform, using their live card sales data to decide who qualifies and how much they can get.

The advances range from R2,000 (about $122) to R1.5 million (about $91,000), and no collateral is required — the merchant does not have to put up property or other assets as security. Instead, the advance is repaid automatically from the merchant’s daily card sales, so repayments rise and fall with how busy the business is. A quiet week means smaller repayments; a busy week pays the advance down faster.

Merchants use the money for the everyday costs of running and growing a small business: buying stock, hiring staff, upgrading equipment or opening another branch. That is the point of the product — it is not a long-term loan for a big project, but short-term working capital to bridge the gap between paying for stock today and selling it tomorrow.

Since it launched in 2018, Yoco Capital has advanced more than R6.5 billion (about $395 million) to over 40,000 merchants, according to TechCabal and Africa Private Equity News. Until now, that lending was done with specialist credit providers. The new $100 million facility brings the funding in-house, which Yoco says will let it extend funding to more of its 200,000-plus merchants and control the terms itself.

Why debt, not equity?

One detail of the deal matters a lot for understanding it: this is debt, not equity. Yoco has not sold a stake in the company to raise this money. Instead, it has borrowed $100 million that it will lend on to its merchants.

That distinction matters for two reasons. First, Yoco’s existing shareholders are not diluted — nobody’s ownership shrinks because of the deal. Second, it shows how far the company has come. Lenders only provide a facility like this when they are confident the borrower can manage the risk. Victory Park Capital is a specialist in exactly this kind of lending, and its willingness to commit $100 million is a vote of confidence in Yoco’s data, its merchant base and its ability to collect repayments.

Debt also fits the business model. A cash advance is repaid over weeks or months from card sales, so the money comes back quickly and can be lent out again. A revolving facility like this one is designed for exactly that cycle: draw down, lend, collect, and draw down again.

Who is Victory Park Capital?

Victory Park Capital Advisors, known as VPC, is a Chicago-based alternative investment firm that specialises in private credit and asset-backed finance. It manages about $3.6 billion in assets and has invested more than $12 billion across 260 investments since 2007, according to Bloomberg.

VPC has backed specialist financing platforms before — it previously provided a separate $100 million facility to Billd, a construction finance provider in the United States — but the Yoco deal is aimed squarely at South African small businesses rather than American subcontractors.

For Yoco, a lender with that kind of track record brings more than money. VPC’s experience in asset-backed finance — lending against the future cash flows of a business — is directly relevant to a product that is repaid from daily card sales.

Why this matters for South Africa’s small businesses

The deal lands in a country where small businesses struggle to get finance. A 2025 report by FinFind and African Bank put South Africa’s small business financing gap at about R350 billion — the difference between what small firms need and what banks and other lenders actually provide. Traditional banks often want collateral, years of audited accounts and a long trading history before they will lend. Many of the businesses Yoco serves — a market trader, a township hair salon, a new café — cannot meet those requirements, even when their daily sales show they are doing well.

That is the gap Yoco Capital is trying to fill. Because Yoco can see a merchant’s real sales data, day by day, it can make a lending decision that a bank, looking only at paperwork, might not. A trader with strong card sales but no property to offer as security can still qualify. And because repayment comes straight out of card sales, the merchant does not face a fixed monthly bill in a slow month.

The model is not unique to South Africa — payment companies around the world, from Square in the United States to others in Europe and Latin America, have built similar products. But in South Africa, where small businesses employ a large share of the workforce and where access to finance is one of the most commonly cited barriers to growth, a $100 million facility aimed at this market is significant.

It is also a sign of how African fintech is maturing. A decade ago, the story of African fintech was mostly about mobile money and getting people their first bank account. Today, companies like Yoco are building the next layer: credit, software and financial tools for businesses that are already digital. The fact that a US private credit firm is willing to put $100 million behind that bet suggests international investors see the same opportunity.

What the deal does not do

It is worth being clear about what this announcement does not mean. It does not mean Yoco is now a bank, and it does not mean every Yoco merchant will suddenly be offered a cash advance. Advances are offered to merchants based on their sales data, and not every business will qualify. The facility’s cost and duration have not been disclosed, so it is not possible to say how much Yoco is paying for the money — and therefore how much margin it will make on the advances.

The $100 million is also a facility, not a lump sum handed over on day one. Yoco will draw on it as it makes advances, and the money will be recycled as merchants repay. The real test of the deal will be how quickly the money reaches merchants, how many of them take it up, and whether repayment rates hold up as the programme scales.

What happens next

Three things are worth watching in the months ahead.

How fast the money moves. Yoco says it plans to use the facility to extend Yoco Capital’s reach to more of its 200,000-plus merchants. The pace at which new merchants are offered advances will show how quickly the company can put the facility to work.

Whether the terms stay fair. Bringing lending in-house gives Yoco control over pricing. Small businesses and consumer groups will be watching whether that control means better rates for merchants, or simply better margins for Yoco.

Whether others follow. If Yoco’s in-house model works, other African payment companies may try the same thing — raising debt to fund their own lending rather than relying on bank partners. That would be a bigger shift in how small business finance works across the continent.

For now, though, the headline is simple: one of South Africa’s best-known fintech companies has raised $100 million to lend to the small businesses on its platform, and for the first time it will be doing that lending itself.

Frequently asked questions

What is Yoco?

Yoco is a South African fintech company founded in Cape Town in 2015. It provides card payment terminals, point-of-sale software and other digital tools to more than 200,000 small and independent businesses in South Africa.

What is the $100 million facility for?

The facility, provided by US firm Victory Park Capital Advisors, will fund Yoco Capital — Yoco’s service that gives cash advances to merchants using its payment platform. It is Yoco’s first direct debt facility.

How big are the cash advances?

Advances range from R2,000 (about $122) to R1.5 million (about $91,000). No collateral is required, and the advance is repaid automatically from the merchant’s daily card sales.

How much has Yoco Capital lent so far?

Since 2018, Yoco Capital has advanced more than R6.5 billion (about $395 million) to over 40,000 merchants, according to TechCabal and Africa Private Equity News. That lending was previously done with specialist credit providers.

What is Victory Park Capital?

Victory Park Capital Advisors is a Chicago-based private credit and asset-backed finance firm. It manages about $3.6 billion in assets and has invested more than $12 billion across 260 investments since 2007.

Why do small businesses in South Africa struggle to get finance?

A 2025 report by FinFind and African Bank put the country’s small business financing gap at about R350 billion. Traditional banks often require collateral and years of audited accounts, which many small firms cannot provide even when their sales are strong.

Conclusion

Yoco’s $100 million facility is a quiet but important milestone for African fintech. A company that began by putting card machines into the hands of market traders and hair salons is now raising serious money to lend to those same businesses — and doing it on its own terms, with its own funding, for the first time.

For the small businesses that use Yoco, the deal could mean faster access to the working capital they need to buy stock, hire staff and grow. For the wider industry, it is a test of whether payment data can do what traditional bank paperwork often cannot: show that a small business is worth lending to.

Whether that test is passed will depend on what happens next — how the money is priced, how many merchants it reaches, and how well they repay. But the bet itself, backed by $100 million of American private credit, is a clear sign of confidence in South Africa’s small businesses and in the fintech companies that serve them.

Sources

• BusinessTech (Bloomberg), “R1.6 billion win for South African fintech giant”, 9 November 2026: https://businesstech.co.za/news/business/883352/r1-6-billion-win-for-south-african-fintech-giant/
• TechCabal, “Yoco taps $100 million credit facility to scale merchant cash advances”, 9 November 2026: https://techcabal.com/2026/11/09/yoco-payments-data-merchant-lending/
• ABF Journal, “Yoco Secures $100MM Facility from Victory Park Capital”, 10 November 2026: https://www.abfjournal.com/yoco-secures-100mm-facility-from-victory-park-capital/
• Africa Private Equity News, “South Africa: Yoco secures $100m facility from Victory Park Capital”, 10 November 2026: https://www.africaprivateequitynews.com/p/south-africa-yoco-secures-100m-facility
• Business News South Africa, “Yoco secures $100m Victory Park Capital facility”, 10 November 2026: https://businessnewssouthafrica.co.za/markets-finance/yoco-100m-credit-facility-victory-park-capital-merchant-cash-advances/

This article is for general information and education only. It is not legal or financial advice.