Paystack CEO Says Next Growth Phase Goes Beyond Payments

In Short

Paystack says it wants to do more than help merchants accept payments.

What Happened

Paystack said it will look beyond payment acceptance to address more of businesses’ financial needs as it enters its second decade. Shola Akinlade, Paystack’s co-founder and chief executive, shared this at Moonshot 2026 in Lagos.

Akinlade said Paystack’s payments infrastructure, meaning the behind-the-scenes systems that move money from customers to businesses, has supported companies across other sectors. He argued that Paystack’s next phase will build on the same idea, enabling entrepreneurs to concentrate on their products.

The discussion also traced Paystack’s development from helping Nigerian merchants collect payments online to becoming a broader financial services group with operations across several African markets.

“I feel very qualified to talk about ambition because a lot of my ambitions over the last 10 years have been realised,” Akinlade said. “If you know anything about the Paystack story, we had a simple ambition to build to help merchants accept payments in Nigeria and then probably Africa.”

Akinlade used PiggyVest as an example of how Paystack’s infrastructure enabled businesses beyond Paystack’s original ambitions. He recalled that PiggyVest’s founders approached Paystack with an idea to automatically debit users’ accounts so they could save money regularly. Akinlade said Paystack already had the infrastructure to support that idea, even though building a savings business was not its own ambition.

Why It Matters

Paystack’s comments suggest it is positioning its infrastructure as a platform other businesses can build on. If Paystack expands into more business financial needs, it could shape how African startups design products that rely on payments and account debits.