E-Financial
Paga to Further Accelerate Growth with $10M Series B2 Investment
Paga, the leading mobile money company in Nigeria has announced that it has closed a $10 million growth financing led by the Global Innovation Fund.
Also participating in the round were existing investors Goodwell (managed by Alitheia Capital), Adlevo Capital, Omidyar Network and Unreasonable Capital. This new financing brings the total Paga has raised since inception in 2009 to $35 million.
The company commenced commercial operations in August 2012 and recently revealed that since then it has served 9 million customers and created over 10,000 jobs through its 17,000 agents who hire staff to run their stores.
“GIF is proud to lead Paga’s Series B2 round,” said Alix Peterson Zwane, GIF’s CEO. “Paga’s mission of helping people ‘make life possible” aligns with our core mission of supporting entrepreneurs and innovators that seek to improve the lives of those living on less than $5 per day. I am pleased that GIF will help enable Paga’s next phase.”
Nigeria is one of the fastest growing emerging markets in the world, and the biggest economy in Africa with $405 billion GDP.
Nigeria currently has a population of 186 million but is expected to become the 3rd largest country in the world (behind India and China) by 2050 with 411 million people. In Nigeria today, over 100 million adults find it difficult to transfer or leverage money for basic human needs.
This problem is one that exists even for those that are banked, and is something Paga’s team is passionate about solving.
The growth financing announced today will enable Paga further scale its business in Nigeria to drive the growth of Paga’s mobile wallet and agent network, and explore expansion opportunities in other markets where similar problems exist.
“Our belief in Paga as an effective platform to drive financial inclusion is unwavering,” says ‘Tokunboh Ishmael, Managing Partner at Alitheia Capital, “Paga has shown solid progress, and alongside other investments in our portfolio has played a huge role in our ability to demonstrate that enabling access to essential services for the broad population has both significant financial and developmental impact.”
Paga’s massive transformative purpose is “To make it simple for one billion people to access and use money.” With a nationwide network of 17,000 agents and more than 9 million users accessing funds in Nigeria, Paga is making strides by enabling efficient digital payments and building successful societies.
This has translated to over 57 million transactions processed worth approximately $3.6 billion, a business that is profitable and growing at 110% compounded annual growth rate (2016-2018).
“At Paga, we are building an ecosystem that enables people to digitally send and receive money, and creating simple financial access for everyone,” explains Tayo Oviosu, “We do not seek to be a bank, but rather to partner with banks and financial institutions in the markets we operate.
“We are proud to welcome the Global Innovation Fund as a partner on our journey. We were attracted to them because of their global focus, network to help us achieve our ambition and a clear alignment of values.
“It is also fantastic that our existing investors remain committed to our strategy and are demonstrating that by their additional investments.”
Paga’s mission is strengthened by the recent release of Paga’s new money transfer app that will drive use of the Paga wallet for person-to-person transfers and in-store payments.
In a country where digital financial services still leave much to be desired, Paga is staking a claim at being the Venmo of Nigeria. With cash still being king in emerging markets, and the general unreliability of POS services coupled with the sparsely located Banks and ATM’s, the company has created a viable solution for ease of payments: a simple app that allows you to send money to or request money from anyone only using their phone number or email address and a digital wallet to which you can link any debit card or bank account. In this sense, Paga is acting as a facilitator to provide a swift and reliable payment gateway for your already existing financial accounts.
This reinforces the idea that Paga is seeking to be the reliable access point to all relevant financial services for all people.
The core ethos of the Paga brand is “Making Life Possible”, so the decision to provide free money transfers was driven by the underlying desire to solve basic human needs and to ease the pain of not only person to person payments but payments for small to medium businesses, especially those trading through social media channels.
According to the 2018 Global Entrepreneurship Index, Nigeria ranks 12th in Africa for entrepreneurship, even with its uniquely challenging environment.
The high unemployment rate forces its citizens to be creative in order to thrive, and cultural barriers which sometimes prevent access to education and traditional workspaces means that a higher percentage of these entrepreneurs are female.
The company, which prides itself in aiding economic empowerment for less advantaged citizens, particularly in empowering women, notes that women are some of the highest performing agents.
Paga also prides itself on providing opportunities for small businesses to grow and create even more employment opportunities for others.
Nigeria is not the final frontier – Paga has already noted an important trend: the problem they are solving also exists in other markets. The platform is scalable and multi-currency, and the company has already begun considering opportunities in large countries such as Ethiopia, Mexico and the Philippines.
The growing tech ecosystem in Africa is garnering international notice, as evidenced by Mark Zuckerberg’s visit to Lagos and the opening of the Facebook tech hub; not too far from Paga’s office in an area that has been dubbed “Yabacon Valley”, and the exportation of African tech can be a big driver for the economy.
Debt Management Office (DMO) said the federal government spent N3.14 trillion on servicing its domestic debt in the first quarter of 2026.
The office disclosed the data in its latest domestic debt service report for Q1 2026.
The figure comprises N2.97 trillion in interest payments and N169.68 billion in principal repayments.
The agency said in January, the government spent N741.82 billion on domestic debt service, while the figure rose to N967.67 billion in February.
Debt service increased further to N1.43 trillion in March, bringing the total for the quarter to N3.14 trillion.
The March figure was 47.7 percent higher than the N967.67 billion recorded in February and 92.7 percent above the N741.82 billion spent in January.
Also, the debt office said interest payments accounted for about 94.6 percent of total domestic debt service during the quarter.
The DMO said treasury bills accounted for the largest share of interest payments at N1 trillion, while interest on federal government bonds stood at N1.96 trillion.
The agency said the government also paid N4.24 billion in interest on FGN savings bonds during the period.
The DMO said the principal component of the debt service comprised N169.68 billion in repayments on local-denominated promissory notes.
Overall, the government’s domestic debt service rose sharply through the quarter, with March accounting for almost half of the N3.14 trillion spent between January and March.
Nigeria’s public debt increased by 0.01 percent to N159.35 trillion in the Q1 of 2026.
Interswitch Group, an integrated digital payments and commerce company, together with global banking software provider, Temenos have reassured the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) of their commitment to advancing the modernisation of Nigeria’s financial services sector.
Interswitch and Temenos had earlier in June announced a strategic partnership across Africa which would see Interswitch leverage Temenos solutions – across core banking, digital banking, payments, wealth management and financial crime mitigation – to provide cloud-hosted and on-premises managed services to banks and financial institutions across Africa.
This will enable institutions to progressively transform their banking platform and evolve to more customer-centric business models. The service will initially support key African markets including Nigeria, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya and others.
The recent regulatory visit to CBN headquarters in Abuja, was led by the Founder and Group Chief Executive Officer of Interswitch, Mitchell Elegbe, and Managing Director for the Middle East and Africa (MEA) at Temenos, Santhosh Rao, as part of the ongoing efforts by both organisations to deepen collaboration with Central Banks across the African region on the future of digital banking infrastructure across Nigeria and key African markets.
Discussions centred on the strategic partnership between Interswitch and Temenos, and how it will enable Nigerian financial institutions to progressively modernise their core banking platforms and transition to more customer-centric business models.
The two organisations also explored opportunities to work with the CBN in charting new frontiers in Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) innovation, leveraging resilient financial networks and decentralised application platforms to support the issuance and management of CBDCs.
Commenting on the visit, Elegbesaid: “Our partnership as Interswitch with Temenos and our continued engagement with the Central Bank of Nigeria reflect a shared commitment to building banking infrastructure that is resilient, inclusive, and ready for the next phase of Africa’s financial evolution.
We are proud to be at the table as these conversations shape the future of digital banking technology and innovation across key Africa markets…”
The Bank of Industry, through BOI Financing SPV Plc, has opened subscriptions for its inaugural Series 1 Fixed Rate Bond worth up to N250bn under its $1bn multi-currency instruments programme, seeking to raise long-term capital to finance businesses across Nigeria’s priority sectors.
The offer, which opened on 5 August and closes on 11 August, is being arranged by Chapel Hill Denham as the lead issuing house. The five-year bond is priced within a yield range of 17.35 per cent to 17.50 per cent and will be listed on the FMDQ Securities Exchange.
According to the offer document, proceeds from the issuance will be deployed to finance eligible businesses and projects across sectors, including agriculture and food processing, healthcare, engineering and technology, renewable energy, petrochemicals, oil and gas, creative industries and solid minerals, in line with BOI’s development finance mandate.
The lender said the financing is expected to improve access to medium and long-term funding for Nigerian enterprises, expand productive capacity, create and preserve jobs, deepen local value addition, support import substitution, boost exports and strengthen domestic value chains.
BOI, Nigeria’s foremost development finance institution, said it has provided funding to more than one million businesses across the country and disbursed over N1.27tn between 2023 and 2025. The institution operates across 34 states and the Federal Capital Territory and is jointly owned by the Ministry of Finance Incorporated and the Central Bank of Nigeria.
The bank also highlighted its financial performance, reporting a 36 per cent compound annual growth rate in gross earnings between 2021 and 2025.
Interest income rose 64 per cent to N884bn in 2025 from N538bn in the previous year, while its capital adequacy ratio stood at 39 per cent, nearly four times the regulatory minimum of 10 per cent. Its non-performing loan ratio was 1.7 per cent, below the CBN’s prudential limit of five per cent.
The bond has been assigned AAA ratings by Agusto & Co. and Intelligence Africa, reflecting the issuer’s strong capitalization, profitability, liquidity and ownership structure.
The issuance is open to institutional and qualified investors with a minimum subscription of N5m and additional investments in multiples of N1m. Interest will be paid semi-annually at a fixed rate, while principal repayment will begin in the third year through equal semi-annual amortised instalments until maturity in 2031.
The bond is also exempt from tax, making it an attractive investment option for investors seeking stable returns amid expectations of declining interest rates.
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