Paga Expands Direct Debit for Businesses Beyond Its Network

In Short

Paga is expanding Direct Debit access so businesses using Paga Engine can collect recurring payments from accounts outside Paga’s network.

What Happened

Paga said it is expanding its Direct Debit access for businesses on Paga Engine, its payments infrastructure business.

Direct Debit is a way to collect recurring payments directly from a customer’s bank account, for example a monthly subscription.

Paga said the change will allow businesses to collect recurring payments from customers who bank with other Nigerian financial institutions.

The company said the move is part of its strategy to expand beyond consumer payments and become a financial infrastructure provider for other businesses. TechCabal previously reported that Paga was positioning Paga Engine to commercialise nearly two decades of payment technology it developed to support its own operations.

Paga wants businesses to use its infrastructure instead of building their own payment systems.

Ramon Bello, general manager of Paga Engine, said: “At the core of our business is the infrastructure; everything we build, we build it into that infrastructure, and we’re extending that infrastructure for others to leverage.”

Bello added: “In Nigeria, for businesses to enjoy this sort of service (direct debit), they would have to leverage a card infrastructure. There’s really no scale for you to do it across multiple financial infrastructures, and that’s one of the things that we’re changing.”

Paga will compete with payment infrastructure providers such as Paystack, Flutterwave, and Zeeh Africa, which already offer automated bank account collections.

Why It Matters

For Nigerian businesses that rely on subscriptions or repeat billing, being able to collect directly from bank accounts outside a single network can widen their addressable customer base.

For Paga, the Direct Debit expansion supports its stated goal of selling payment infrastructure to other businesses, not only running consumer payment services.