Merchant Capital
“Can a South African alternative lender become the default growth-capital OS for SMEs by embedding its merchant cash advance product inside major banks and BNPL networks?”
Founded in 2012 as a merchant cash advance provider for South African SMEs, Merchant Capital steadily attracted major institutional shareholders — Opus18 Capital Partners (2013), Rand Merchant Investment Holdings (2016), and Standard Bank (2018) — transforming from a fintech startup into a well-capitalised alternative lender. The company deepened its distribution strategy by embedding its MCA product through fintech BNPL partnerships (Payflex, PayJustNow), enabling merchants within those ecosystems to access working capital. By 2026 it had deployed over R17 billion to nearly 70,000 businesses, positioning itself as South Africa's leading alternative SME lender with repayments structured either as a split of card turnover or as daily/weekly debit orders.