Amanze Chinonye
Nigerian fintech company Paystack has restructured its operations under a newly created holding company, The Stack Group (TSG), marking a strategic expansion beyond payment processing after achieving group-wide profitability, Prime Business Africa reports.
Paystack, which was acquired by US-based payments giant Stripe in a landmark $200 million deal in 2020, said the new structure reflects its evolution from a single-product payments company into a multi-brand financial and technology group.
Under TSG, the company’s businesses are now organised as separate entities, including its core merchant payments platform, consumer payments app Zap, Paystack Microfinance Bank (MFB), and a venture studio, TSG Labs, focused on building new products using emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence.
Join our WhatsApp ChannelWhile Stripe’s acquisition made Paystack a wholly owned subsidiary, the introduction of TSG comes with a revised ownership model. The holding company is jointly owned by Paystack co-founder and chief executive officer Shola Akinlade, Stripe, and Paystack employees, known internally as “Stacks,” although the company declined to disclose the ownership breakdown.
“The beauty of this model is that it rewards the people who are building the company, while also maintaining the global backing of one of the world’s leading payments companies through our foundational partnership with Stripe,” said Amandine Lobelle, chief operating officer of The Stack Group.
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The restructuring coincides with Paystack achieving group-wide profitability and sustained positive monthly cash flow after growing payment volumes by more than twelvefold since the Stripe acquisition. Akinlade said the creation of TSG “signals a larger scope of ambition and sets the tone for the next decade” of the company.
Over the past year, Paystack has gradually expanded beyond processing payments for businesses, with the launch of Zap and the establishment of Paystack MFB, as it seeks greater control over transaction flows and new revenue streams.
The holding company structure formalises this shift by separating Paystack’s merchant payments business from its newer verticals, allowing each unit to pursue independent growth strategies without diluting focus from Paystack’s core payments franchise, which remains the group’s primary revenue engine.
Industry observers say the structure also allows Zap and Paystack MFB to compete in Nigeria’s crowded consumer finance and banking markets without confusing merchants, regulators, or partners, while still benefiting from Paystack’s brand goodwill. Lobelle noted that the company had reached a point where it was “evolving from being a single-product company to a multi-brand technology group,” requiring a more flexible organisational framework.
The holding company model is also expected to simplify regulatory oversight, as payments, banking, and consumer financial services carry different risk profiles and compliance obligations. By housing these businesses under a holdco, licences, risk exposure, and regulatory responsibilities can be separated by business line and geography, reducing the likelihood of regulatory issues in one unit affecting others.
Founded in 2016, Paystack rose quickly as a cheaper and more developer-friendly alternative to Nigeria’s legacy payment processors. It became the first Nigerian startup accepted into Y Combinator, before delivering one of Africa’s largest technology exits with its sale to Stripe just four years later. Today, the company operates in seven African countries and processes trillions of naira in monthly transactions.
A decade after its launch, Paystack’s profitability has strengthened its balance sheet, enabling it to experiment beyond payments without undermining its core unit economics.
This has led to initiatives such as Paystack MFB, Zap, and TSG Labs. Lobelle said the venture studio would not move the company away from financial technology but rather expand its scope to include emerging areas such as AI and stablecoins, aimed at solving problems critical to Africa’s digital future.
Despite entering consumer payments and banking markets dominated by well-funded incumbents, Paystack says it is not deterred by competition. Lobelle described the company’s approach as an “infinite game,” focused less on rivals and more on long-term ambition and merchant needs.
Analysts note that scaling consumer-facing financial products requires deep offline distribution networks, an area where Paystack’s experience remains limited. However, by splitting its operations into distinct entities under TSG, the company may be better positioned to sharpen focus across its businesses, while longer-term innovation efforts incubated within TSG Labs could open new revenue streams.
Reflecting on the transition, Akinlade said that after working with thousands of businesses across Africa since 2016, it had become clear that there were significant opportunities to support companies beyond payments, adding that TSG provides the structure to pursue those opportunities more directly.
Amanze Chinonye is a Staff Correspondent at Prime Business Africa, a rising star in the literary world, weaving captivating stories that transport readers to the vibrant landscapes of Nigeria and the rest of Africa. With a unique voice that blends with the newspaper's tradition and style, Chinonye's writing is a masterful exploration of the human condition, delving into themes of identity, culture, and social justice. Through her words, Chinonye paints vivid portraits of everyday African life, from the bustling markets of Nigeria's Lagos to the quiet villages of South Africa's countryside . With a keen eye for detail and a deep understanding of the complexities of Nigerian society, Chinonye's writing is both a testament to the country's rich cultural heritage and a powerful call to action for a brighter future. As a writer, Chinonye is a true storyteller, using her dexterity to educate, inspire, and uplift readers around the world.
