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Paga CEO Tayo Oviosu has said the fintech company generates about $1.5 billion in monthly transaction volume, while revealing that the business is valued in hundreds of millions of dollars.
Oviosu made the disclosure during an interview with School of Hard Knocks, which returned to Nigeria to feature the Paga founder.
According to Oviosu, Paga has about 200 employees and processes about $1.5 billion every month.He also disclosed that the most he has personally made in a single year was $60 million.
The comments offer a look into the scale of Paga’s operations and the economics of building a financial technology business in Africa.
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What he is saying
According to Oviosu in the video recording as seen on X,
” Paga today has over 200 employees, and we are processing over $1.5 billion every month.It’s hard to say in exact numbers but my company is worth hundreds of millions of dollars. In revenue for the company we made about $60 million in one year, he said.”
Oviosu also spoke about why he believes Africa presents an opportunity for entrepreneurs building financial services companies.
He pointed to the continent’s young population, arguing that Africa’s demographics create a large potential market for financial products and services.
According to Oviosu, about 60% of Africa’s population is under the age of 25. He said the continent’s youthful population makes Africa an important market for companies developing financial services for a new generation of consumers.
The Paga CEO has previously positioned the company around expanding access to digital financial services, particularly for consumers and businesses operating outside traditional banking channels.
Get up to speed
Paga had recorded strong growth in transaction volumes since it began commercial operations, processing trillions of naira through its platform over the years.
In April 2024, Nairametrics reported that Paga had processed N14 trillion worth of transactions in its first 15 years, according to founder and CEO Tayo Oviosu.
Oviosu disclosed the figure at an event marking the company’s 15th anniversary in Lagos. He noted that about 80% of the transactions had been recorded in the preceding five years.
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, Oviosu had disclosed that Paga processed more than $2 billion worth of transactions in 2019 across its markets.
The figure brought Paga’s cumulative transaction value to about $6.6 billion since it began commercial operations in 2012, according to Oviosu.
He said the 2019 transactions had been supported by more than 14.4 million customers using the platform.
Paga had built its business around digital payments and financial services, using its platform and agent network to serve banked and unbanked customers across Nigeria.
The latest comments by Oviosu provided a more recent picture of the scale of the business, with the Paga CEO saying during the School of Hard Knocks interview that the company generated about $1.5 billion monthly.
What you should know
Paga was founded by Oviosu in Nigeria and has built its business around digital payments and financial services.
The company operates in a market where mobile money, digital payments and fintech services have expanded as consumers and businesses increasingly adopt electronic transactions.
Oviosu’s comments also highlight the distinction between the value of a private company and the amount of money flowing through its platform.
In September 2020, Paga Group redomiciled from Mauritius to the United Kingdom (UK). The group is the holding company for its operations in Nigeria, México, Ethiopia, and the UK. The company took the decision due to bureaucratic challenges it faced in 2019.
