Paystack to join Stripe, accelerating online and offline commerce across Africa

By Pavithra R

Stripe, a provider of economic infrastructure for the internet, has announced that the FinTech has entered into an agreement to acquire Paystack, a Lagos based technology company making it easy for organizations of all sizes to collect global payments. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The African internet economy is witnessing quick expansion with online commerce growing 21% year-over-year, 75% faster than the global average. Today, more than 60,000 businesses in Nigeria and Ghana use Paystack to collect online and offline payments securely, launch new business models and deepen customer relationships. Paystack already processes more than half of the online transactions in Nigeria and has plans to expand across the continent and recently initiated a pilot with businesses in South Africa. The acquisition aims to help increase Africa’s online GDP.

Paystack is PCI DSS Level 1 Certified, the most stringent level of certification in the global payments industry, enabling companies to transact across Africa safely and securely.

“In just five years, Paystack has done what many companies could not achieve in decades. Their tech-first approach, values, and ambition greatly align with our own. This acquisition will give Paystack resources to develop new products, support more businesses and consolidate the hyper-fragmented African payments market. We can’t wait to see what they will build next and how their growth can turbocharge the African tech ecosystem,” said Matt Henderson, Stripe’s business lead in EMEA.

Both Stripe and Paystack have been working closely together for some time. In 2018, Stripe led Paystack’s Series A funding round and provided ongoing guidance as the company scaled rapidly. 

Paystack will continue to operate independently, bolstering their operations in Africa and adding more international payment methods. Stripe is planning to embed Paystack’s capabilities in the future into Stripe’s Global Payments and Treasury Network (GPTN), a programmable platform for global money movement that currently span 42 countries. 

“Paystack is a growth engine for modern businesses in Africa, and we couldn’t be more excited to join forces with Stripe, whose mission and values are so aligned with ours, to nurture transformative businesses on the continent. We believe deeply that with the right tools, African creators, developers, and entrepreneurs can do incredible things. Leveraging Stripe’s resources and deep expertise, we’re excited to accelerate our geographic expansion and introduce more payment channels, more value-added services, and deeper integrations with global platforms,” said Shola Akinlade, CEO and co-founder of Paystack.

Founded in 2010, Stripe is a technology company that builds economic infrastructure for the internet. Its customer base includes Wayfair, Peloton, Zoom, Instacart, Shopify, Instacart, Twilio, Westfield, Just Eat, to name a few.