By Adedapo Adesanya
Nigeria’s payments company, Paystack, has announced the expansion of its operations to South Africa, as it begins to launch its foothold in other markets.
The company, which powers businesses with its payments API, started its expansion with a six-month pilot phase which coincided with its Stripe’s acquisition. Last year, the company was acquired by Stripe for $200 million for its African expansion.
During the pilot phase, the company explained that it has worked with different businesses and has grown a local team to handle on-the-ground operations, including a variety of different types such as tech startups, e-commerce organisations, and freelance developers.
Speaking on the expansion, Mr Shola Akinlade, Paystack CEO said, “South Africa is one of the continent’s most important markets, and our launch here is a significant milestone in our mission to accelerate commerce across Africa.
“We’re excited to continue building the financial infrastructure that empowers ambitious businesses in Africa, helps them scale and connects them to global markets.”
The head of product expansion, Ms Khadijah Abu, added that “for many businesses in South Africa, we know that accepting payments online can be cumbersome.
“Our pilot in South Africa was hyper-focused on removing barriers to entry, eliminating tedious paperwork, providing world-class API documentation to developers, and making it a lot simpler for businesses to accept payments online.”
One of the businesses Paystack collaborated with was Cape Town agency Semantica Digital, which specialises in web development and online marketing.
Mr Dirk Tolken, CMO of Semantica provides a testament statement to the innovative product offering created by Paystack.
“With the fast-paced and ever-changing digital landscape in eCommerce development, we need service from our partners that we can rely on to maintain the good relationships we have with our clients. Paystack gives us that kind of service.”
At the same time, Paystack grew a small local team to handle local operations.
Founded in 2015 by Shola Akinlade and Ezra Olubi, Paystack helps businesses in Africa get paid by anyone, anywhere in the world. The company was actively present in Nigeria and Ghana before expanding to South Africa.
In 2018, Paystack raised an $8 million series A round led by Stripe. The funding was used for its Ghana expansion. Since expanding to Ghana, Paystack has grown and claims to power 50 per cent of all online payments in Nigeria with around 60,000 customers, including small businesses, larger corporates, fintech, educational institutions, and online betting companies.
