Paystack’s transformation continues, but this time it is taking a more deliberate, strategic shape. The Nigerian fintech, which was acquired by Stripe in 2020 for $200 million, has now reorganized under a newly formed holding company called The Stack Group (TSG). This marks a major shift in how the company positions itself for growth — not merely as a payments processor, but as a broader technology group with multiple consumer and financial services brands.
Under the new structure, TSG will house Paystack’s core merchant payments business alongside its consumer-focused app Zap, the newly launched Paystack Microfinance Bank (MFB), and a venture studio aimed at incubating new technology products.
But the most notable change is the ownership model. Although Paystack remains a Stripe subsidiary, TSG introduces a shared ownership structure involving Stripe, Paystack CEO Shola Akinlade, and Paystack employees known as Stacks.
“This model rewards the people building the company, while also maintaining the global backing of one of the leading payments companies,” said Amandine Lobelle, TSG’s chief operating officer, who declined to disclose the cap table breakdown.
The restructuring arrives at a pivotal moment: Paystack has achieved group-wide profitability and positive cash flow, with payment volumes growing more than 12x since the Stripe acquisition.
“TSG signals a larger scope of ambition for us and sets the tone for the next decade of our company,” Akinlade said.
From Payments Processor to Multi-Brand Technology Group
The move reflects a broader strategic shift that has been underway for the past year. Paystack began as a payments company focused on helping businesses accept online payments. But with the launch of Zap and Paystack MFB, it has gradually expanded into consumer payments and banking, seeking deeper control over the funds it processes and building new revenue sources.
TSG formalizes this expansion by separating Paystack’s core merchant payments business from its new verticals, allowing each unit to pursue its own strategy without compromising the original business model.
Paystack can remain a pure merchant payments platform, while Zap and Paystack MFB pursue their own growth trajectories — without confusing merchants, regulators, or partners.
“What we realised is that we’re evolving from being a single-product company to a multi-brand technology group,” Lobelle said. “That means moving from payments alone to multiple brands and multiple types of technology, more of a group or conglomerate structure.”
A Structure Built for Scale and Regulatory Clarity
The holding company model also simplifies compliance and risk management, particularly as the group expands into consumer banking and financial services. Each business unit will face different regulatory standards, and TSG allows for those responsibilities to be separated cleanly across entities.
In practical terms, this means a regulatory setback in one unit — such as a fine or compliance issue — would not automatically affect the other companies under the group.
Paystack’s Journey: From Startup to Major African Fintech
Paystack began in 2016 as a low-cost alternative to existing Nigerian payment processors. It quickly gained prominence after becoming the first Nigerian startup accepted into Y Combinator, and later achieved one of the largest exits in Nigerian tech history when Stripe acquired it in 2020.
Since then, Paystack has expanded across five African countries and built a payments infrastructure that now processes trillions of naira monthly.
A decade after its founding, Paystack’s profitability has given it the financial stability to experiment beyond its core business — leading to initiatives like Paystack MFB, Zap, and TSG Labs, the group’s venture studio focused on emerging technologies.
“We’re not moving away from financial technology,” Lobelle said. “We’re expanding our scope. Emerging technologies could include AI or stablecoins. The mandate is to solve both fintech and non-fintech problems that are critical to Africa’s digital future and development.”
Autonomy, Governance, and Expansion
TSG will not impose a single leadership structure across its subsidiaries. Instead, each business will be allowed to build its own leadership based on its maturity and operational needs.
“The Stack Group is designed to let each business operate with the level of autonomy and leadership it needs to succeed, while benefiting from shared governance, culture, and long-term direction at the group level,” Lobelle said.
The group will also maintain separate boards for each subsidiary — a governance structure consistent with regulatory best practices.
TSG joins a growing list of Nigerian fintechs — including Moniepoint and Interswitch — that have adopted holding company structures to manage multi-business ecosystems. These companies have used the model to expand quickly, launch new ventures, and contain risk without damaging core brands.
Competition and the Road Ahead
Paystack’s expansion into consumer payments and banking places it in markets already dominated by well-funded incumbents with years of consumer trust. Yet, the company insists it is not intimidated.
“You can think of competition as a finite game, us versus another player, or as an infinite game, where it’s us versus our ambition,” Lobelle said. “We operate with the mindset of an infinite game.”
However, the challenges are real. Scaling consumer-facing financial products requires extensive offline distribution networks — an area where Paystack has limited experience. Paystack Terminal, for example, did not replicate the success of its online payments business.
Still, the new structure may help Paystack focus on what it does best while allowing the group to experiment and innovate across new verticals.
“Having worked with thousands of businesses across the continent since 2016, it’s clear there are significant opportunities to support African companies beyond payments,” Akinlade said. “TSG gives us the structure to tackle those challenges more directly.”