Stripe-backed Nigerian fintech, Paystack, has taken a decisive step beyond payments with the acquisition of Ladder Microfinance Bank, signalling its formal entry into regulated banking and lending.
The deal, which will see the bank rebranded as Paystack Microfinance Bank (Paystack MFB), gives the fintech a microfinance banking licence, enabling it to legally hold customer deposits and issue loans — activities previously outside the scope of its payments-only licence. The newly acquired bank will operate as a separate, fully regulated entity within the Paystack group, under the oversight of Nigeria’s financial regulators.
With this move, Paystack is positioning itself not just as a payments processor, but as a broader financial services provider with deeper control over how money is stored, moved, and deployed within the economy.
According to Paystack’s Chief Operating Officer, Amadine Lobelle, the microfinance bank will initially focus on business lending, leveraging Paystack’s extensive transaction data from hundreds of thousands of merchants across Nigeria. Over time, the company plans to expand into consumer lending and a wider range of financial services.
In addition to lending, Paystack MFB is expected to provide banking-as-a-service (BaaS) infrastructure. This will allow startups and businesses building financial products — including embedded finance solutions, treasury platforms, and digital wallets — to plug into regulated banking capabilities without needing to secure licences of their own.
For nearly a decade, Paystack has been a critical payments backbone for Nigerian businesses, from small merchants to large enterprises. However, like most payment processors, it relied on partner banks to hold customer funds. By owning a microfinance bank, Paystack gains tighter control over cash flows, greater visibility into customer behaviour, and the ability to design credit products informed by real transaction data rather than traditional credit scoring alone.
This is particularly significant in Nigeria, where access to credit remains a major challenge. Small and medium-sized enterprises face an estimated ₦13 trillion credit gap, according to industry estimates. Paystack’s data-driven lending approach could help unlock financing for businesses that have historically been underserved by traditional banks.
The acquisition places Paystack in more direct competition with a growing field of fintech lenders and digital banks, including Carbon, Fairmoney, Moniepoint, OPay, PalmPay, and Kuda, many of which already offer loans alongside payments and savings products.
It also reflects a broader shift within Africa’s fintech ecosystem, where companies are increasingly opting for ownership over partnerships to accelerate growth and reduce dependency on legacy banks. The move mirrors recent industry trends, such as Flutterwave’s acquisition of fintech infrastructure provider Mono, and underscores the strategic value fintechs place on controlling critical parts of the financial stack.
Paystack’s ambitions have been evident for some time. Its earlier foray into consumer-facing products, including the launch of Zap, hinted at plans beyond merchant payments. The acquisition of a microfinance bank now confirms that the company is building toward a more integrated financial services model.
As competition intensifies and regulators take a closer look at fintech operations, Paystack’s entry into regulated banking could reshape how payments companies evolve in Nigeria — from facilitators of transactions to full participants in credit creation and financial intermediation.
For Nigeria’s fintech landscape, the deal marks another milestone in the convergence of payments, banking, and lending — and signals that Paystack is aiming to be a central player in the next phase of the country’s digital financial transformation.
