Nigerian fintech company Paga processes about $1.5 billion in transactions every month, according to Tayo Oviosu, founder and Chief Executive Officer, highlighting the scale of the company’s operations more than a decade after it began commercial operations.
Oviosu disclosed the figure during an interview with School of Hard Knocks, which featured the Paga founder during its return to Nigeria.
He said Paga now has more than 200 employees and processes over $1.5 billion in monthly transaction volume. He also disclosed that the company is valued at hundreds of millions of dollars, while its highest annual revenue was about $60 million in today’s money.
The figures provide a snapshot of the scale Paga has achieved in Nigeria’s expanding digital payments and financial services market.
Oviosu said the company currently processes more than $1.5 billion monthly, reflecting the volume of financial activity moving through its platform.
The CEO, however, distinguished between transaction volume and company revenue, noting that the highest annual revenue recorded by the business was about $60 million.
Paga’s current valuation, he said, is in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
The distinction is important in understanding fintech businesses, where the value of transactions processed through a platform can be substantially larger than the revenue generated by the company.
Paga has recorded significant transaction growth since it began operations.
In April 2024, Oviosu disclosed that the company had processed N14 trillion in transactions during its first 15 years.
About 80 per cent of that transaction value was recorded in the five years preceding the disclosure, suggesting a sharp increase in activity as digital payments gained wider adoption.
At the time, Oviosu also said Paga had created about 1,000 direct jobs and more than 100,000 indirect jobs through its agent network across Nigeria.
Earlier, in January 2020, he disclosed that Paga processed more than $2 billion worth of transactions in 2019 across its markets. That brought cumulative transaction value to about $6.6 billion since commercial operations began in 2012, supported by more than 14.4 million customers.
Oviosu also highlighted Africa’s demographic profile as an opportunity for entrepreneurs building financial services businesses.
He pointed to the continent’s young population, saying about 60 per cent of Africa’s population is under 25.
According to him, the youthful demographic creates a significant potential market for financial products and services designed around the needs of a new generation of consumers.
Paga has positioned its business around digital payments and financial services, serving both banked and underserved consumers and businesses through its digital platform and agent network.
