Paystack Inc., the Stripe-owned Nigerian fintech, has taken a decisive step into Nigeria’s banking sector with the acquisition of Ladder Microfinance Bank. The move gives the decade-old payments company greater control over the funds flowing through its network and positions it to offer a broader suite of financial services to businesses and consumers alike.
The newly acquired entity, now known as Paystack Microfinance Bank (Paystack MFB), will initially focus on lending to businesses, with plans to expand into consumer banking. It will also offer banking-as-a-service (BaaS) solutions, enabling companies to build financial products and manage treasury operations more efficiently.
“After ten years of building payment infrastructure and going deep, we realised that businesses needed more than just getting paid to grow,” Paystack’s Chief Operating Officer, Amandine Lobelle said “We wanted to leverage the expertise that we have built over the last decade to continue to address some of the pain points businesses face.”
The acquisition marks a continuation of Paystack’s expansion into consumer-facing financial services, a journey that began last year with the launch of its consumer payments app, Zap. With the acquisition, Paystack now holds a regulatory licence to operate as a deposit-taking institution, opening the door to products traditionally reserved for banks.
Paystack MFB will operate as a sister company to Paystack’s existing payments business, running independently under the oversight of their American parent company. “The two entities will collaborate closely within the relevant regulatory framework but fundamentally have their own licences, governance, scope, products, and services,” Lobelle explained. This structure allows Paystack to test lending and deposit products while mitigating the regulatory exposure that comes with a full commercial banking licence.
Since the launch of Zap, Paystack has increasingly sought control over the money flowing through its network. The creation of Paystack MFB enables the company to offer tailor-made banking services to its existing network of 300,000 Nigerian businesses, enhancing margins and deepening its role in the financial ecosystem.
“By adding Paystack MFB to our family of brands, we’re finding the right balance through combining the rapid innovation of a tech-first platform with the stability of traditional banking,” Lobelle said.
The move also signals a structural shift for Paystack. Payments made the company a key player in Nigeria’s internet economy, but it remained dependent on partner banks for holding funds. With Paystack MFB, the company now moves into higher-margin areas of the financial stack, addressing pain points that small businesses experience most acutely.
Paystack MFB will face competition from a range of players, including traditional microfinance banks such as LAPO, Accion, and Baobab; digital-first lenders like Carbon and Fairmoney; and embedded finance platforms such as Moniepoint, OPay, PalmPay, and Kuda, all of which combine payments, deposits, and lending. Unlike these competitors, Paystack is approaching banking from the infrastructure layer up, rather than starting with consumer deposits.
Existing partnerships between Paystack’s payment business and commercial banks, including Titan Trust, will remain unaffected. “The payments business is one of partnership and reliability. We have dozens of partners today in Nigeria. That doesn’t change,” Lobelle said.
The launch of Paystack MFB follows regulatory challenges earlier in 2025, when Nigeria’s Central Bank fined Paystack ₦250 million ($190,000) over the Zap wallet. Lobelle confirmed that the fine did not influence discussions around Paystack MFB, and the company has since secured regulatory approval for Zap.
Paystack MFB will also operate independently of Brass, a business bank acquired by a Paystack-led consortium, further illustrating the company’s strategy of building multiple, complementary financial entities without merging operations.
“Brass has its own team and investors. It can benefit from the banking as a service offerings from Paystack MFB, but the two are independent,” Lobelle noted.
With the acquisition of Ladder Microfinance Bank, Paystack moves beyond payments, cementing its ambition to be a full-stack financial infrastructure provider and redefining how businesses interact with money in Nigeria.
