Equity payments director Eva Ngigi-Sarwari dies in China

Eva Ngigi-Sarwari, Group Director for Payments at Equity Group, has died while on a work trip to China. She was 45.

Her death was confirmed on Tuesday by colleagues at Finserve Africa, Equity Group’s fintech subsidiary. No cause of death has been announced, and Equity Group had not issued a public statement at the time of writing.

Ngigi-Sarwari joined Equity in January 2025, taking responsibility for the group’s payments and international banking business. Her remit covered working capital and cash management solutions for governments, supranational and multilateral bodies, development institutions and corporate clients, alongside the digital financial infrastructure supporting cross-border money movement.

She arrived at Equity from Visa, where she had served since September 2020 as country manager for Kenya, Somalia and South Sudan.

Two decades in transaction banking

Ngigi-Sarwari spent more than twenty years in digital financial services and transaction banking in the region.

She began her career at the Co-operative Bank of Kenya, where she worked for about five years on customer relationships and experience, before moving to CfC Stanbic Holdings, now Stanbic Holdings, where she spent roughly two years managing the sale of transaction products and services.

In 2012 she joined Standard Chartered Kenya. Over seven years she rose to become Head of Transaction Banking in the bank’s commercial banking division. In January 2020 she was appointed project lead at SC Ventures, Standard Chartered’s innovation and venture-building arm, a role she held until her move to Visa later that year.

She held a Bachelor of Business Management in marketing from Moi University, awarded in 2004, and an MBA from the University of Nairobi, awarded in 2010. She completed the Oxford Fintech Programme at the Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, in 2019, and a postgraduate diploma in digital business from the Emeritus Institute of Management in 2020.

In March 2026 she was featured in Just Ivy Africa’s “Women Who Move Money” series, which profiled her work on financial infrastructure and financial inclusion across the region.

A career spanning the shift to digital payments

Ngigi-Sarwari’s career tracked the transformation of payments in East Africa, moving from relationship and transaction banking at traditional institutions, through the card and network layer at Visa, to the payments business of the region’s largest bank by customer numbers.

At each stage her work sat at the point where banking infrastructure meets the businesses and institutions that depend on it moving money reliably across borders.

She was a mother of three.

Funeral and memorial arrangements have not been announced