As we head to his workplace on a scorching Friday morning in Lagos, Tayo Oviosu, the CEO of Paga, likens himself to a duck—calm on the floor however paddling furiously beneath. A few days from once we meet, his fintech startup will flip 16. Paga is his life’s work and in addition the primary phrase his son ever mentioned.

What began as an company banking platform in 2009 has advanced into an ecosystem of three companies: Paga Engine, a digital infrastructure platform for corporations to embed funds and monetary providers into their merchandise; Paga, a consumer-focused fintech just like Money App; and Doroki, a retail administration platform designed to serve small and medium-sized companies. 

“We’ve advanced considerably for the reason that pandemic,” Oviosu advised TechCabal. “ Individuals nonetheless consider Paga primarily as an agent community, however we’ve grown right into a world-class, extremely scalable, multi-currency, digital funds and monetary providers engine.” 

In 2024, Paga’s ecosystem processed 124 million transactions value ₦8.7 trillion ($5.6 billion), over 30% of its all-time transaction quantity and 40% of its complete processing worth. This 12 months, the corporate is averaging over ₦1 trillion ($653 million) in month-to-month transaction quantity.

Most of those transactions are pushed by Paga Engine, the infrastructure that permits companies to leverage Paga’s wallets, on the spot funds, and assortment providers. Meta, Cleva, Lemfi, and Omnibiz are a number of the over 200 companies at the moment counting on Paga Engine. 

“As a result of we will maintain funds, when cash is distributed to a type of wallets from any financial institution, the recipient will get it in below three seconds. No T+1, no T+2 settlement delays,” Oviosu mentioned.

Why construct an ecosystem? 

Oviosu noticed the necessity to construct Paga’s ecosystem after listening to different founders describe challenges Paga had already solved internally.

“Three years in the past, we determined that to make it easy for a billion folks to entry and use cash, we must open up all our infrastructure to different third events and allow them to construct on that infrastructure,” he mentioned. 

Whereas constructing a monetary ecosystem is difficult and capital-intensive, requiring important funding in licensing, staffing, and know-how, it gives fintechs one of the best path to controlling transactions by decreasing exterior interference and rising their margins. 

When a buyer outlets with a enterprise utilizing Doroki and pays from their Paga account, the cash stays inside Paga’s ecosystem, leading to decrease transaction prices and a smoother, quicker fee expertise for the client.

“The primary massive lesson is that every part takes longer than you anticipate, particularly when creating one thing fully new,” Oviosu mentioned, reflecting on his classes from constructing Paga’s ecosystem. “Convincing folks to pay from their telephones took years. There’s all the time a behaviour change required, which takes time. Resilience and perception in your mission are important as a result of the stress of working right here is critical.”

That resilience has paid off for Paga’s client enterprise, which targets the “mid to upper-end market” and is rising nearly 200% in lively customers and income yearly. Relatively than competing for Nigeria’s mass market—largely dominated by OPay, PalmPay, and Moniepoint—Paga is positioning itself alongside neobanks like Sparkle, specializing in extra prosperous customers.

An ecosystem additionally offers a buffer when regulators take surprising actions. In April 2024, Nigerian regulators banned 5 fintechs, together with Paga, from onboarding new clients for six weeks. By establishing Doroki as a standalone enterprise, Paga reduces its reliance on any single income stream, serving to to safeguard the corporate towards future regulatory disruptions.

These days, Paga has revamped its know-your-customer (KYC) course of, relying closely on Nigeria’s nationwide identification quantity (NIN) and financial institution verification quantity (BVN) and a face match utilizing liveliness checks from Smile ID, which Ovious mentioned reduce fraud dramatically.  The fintech additionally verifies BVN and blacklists dangerous actors utilizing an industry-wide fraud listing. 

What does the long run maintain for Paga? 

Constructing on its current progress, Paga plans to increase its client enterprise into one other market in Q2 2025. The holding firm can also be elevating capital after attaining web earnings profitability in 2024.  

“We’re elevating capital to drive progress as a result of we’re not but in a spot the place our profitability can drive all the expansion we would like,” mentioned Oviosu, a former vice chairman at Travant Capital Companions, a non-public fairness fund. “We’re cautious about progress in any respect prices; we choose disciplined progress.” 

Final 12 months, Oviosu advised TechCabal that he would like an acquisition over an IPO. It’s an opinion he nonetheless holds immediately, however he sees Paga finishing a big personal fairness deal earlier than a full exit. 

“I nonetheless lean towards a strategic acquisition as a result of it usually aligns higher with long-term technique and reduces short-term public scrutiny. However proper now, our precedence is scaling,” he mentioned.