Paga, Nigeria’s mobile payment platform, is mulling expansion to other markets after successfully dominating the most populous African nation with 72 million transactions worth about $4.6 billion since being founded in 2009, and opening its doors for commercial operations in 2012.
The company, founded to solve Nigeria’s ‘use of cash’ and inability to make payments efficiently, is arguably one of the fastest growing fintech companies in the world with over 20,000 agents across Nigeria, and has been named one of the top 15 Fintech companies to watch out for in 2019.
Speaking at a press conference to celebrate the company’s 10th anniversary on Wednesday, Tayo Oviosu, founder/CEO of Paga, said the company had grown enough to expand into other markets both in Africa and other parts of the world, saying, “Right now, we are focused on Mexico and Ethiopia as our next growth markets, and will be leveraging our multi-currency and multi-lingual platform to capture those markets.”
Jay Alaraba, co-founder/director, business development, Paga, said, “already, there is a global view that Paga has, with the fact that we support a whole lot of international companies in Nigeria. With our international remittances, we are already everywhere in the world.”
Nigeria, with over 200 million people and 90 percent of transactions done in cash, is Paga’s first market.
“Though the company started in April 2009, we took our services to market in August 2012. It took us 25 months to get our license from the Central Bank of Nigeria, and then another 7 months to close our Series A financing.
“A lot has happened since then: The trailblazing team of 4 has grown to a team 460 and counting. Paga has served over 12 million customers and processed over 72 million transactions worth $4.6 billion. The company has also raised $34.7 million since its inception, attracting investors such as Tim Draper, one of the earliest internet investors, Flourish, a venture of the Omidyar Group, and the Global Innovation Fund, amongst others,” Oviosu said.
Speaking on a possible threat of the new Payment Service Banking (PSB) licenses for telecommunications operators and other companies interested to fintech companies like Paga, Oviosu said, “I think it is a fallacy to think that because MTN has over 60million mobile subscribers, then they will immediately have 60million customers for payment services.
“If we look at India, where the PSB license originated, Airtel applied, and so did other telcos, but the largest player by far is PayTM, a third party independent player that existed with a mobile money license before PSB. Agent network gets you access to customer base, it’s not the same network that sells airtime.”
Since its commercial launch in August 2012, Paga has developed into a sophisticated omni-channel payments platform offering users a safe and convenient way to send and receive money, and pay their bills. Customers are able to use Paga on any mobile phone by dialing *242# on any network, Paga’s mobile app or website, or through any Paga agent. The innovative wallet allows users to link multiple bank cards and also fund the wallet directly in order to access funds from one world-class secure location.
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