Paga 2.0: A New Engine for Growth

This case follows Stanford GSB alumnus Tayo Oviosu, who founded Paga in 2009, and set out to digitize payments in Nigeria, where more than 90 percent of transactions were conducted in cash and over half the population was unbanked. By building a nationwide human agent network alongside a consumer wallet, Paga establishes early trust in digital money and scaled to tens of millions of transactions annually. However, between 2018 and 2025, severe macroeconomic headwinds—including COVID-19 disruptions and a dramatic depreciation of the Nigerian Naira—threaten the company’s growth trajectory and dollar-denominated valuation. International expansion efforts into Ethiopia and Mexico stalls amid the pandemic, forcing leadership to reconsider Paga’s strategic path.

In response, Paga launches “Paga 2.0,” pivoting from an agent-led, consumer-focused mobile money model to a platform-based infrastructure strategy centered on Paga Engine, an API-driven payments platform that enables enterprises, remittance providers, and digital platforms to embed regulated payment capabilities directly into their operations. This shift repositioned Paga as both a consumer fintech and a B2B payments infrastructure provider, diversifying revenue streams into transaction fees, SaaS subscriptions, and enterprise API integrations. By 2024, Paga had regained momentum with strong revenue growth and enterprise traction, even as Nigeria’s fintech ecosystem became increasingly competitive, with well-capitalized rivals such as Flutterwave, OPay, Moniepoint, and Paystack. The case places students at a strategic inflection point. Should Paga double down on its infrastructure-as-a-service model? How should it balance B2C and B2B priorities? Can it reduce exposure to currency volatility and attract global capital in a more risk-averse funding environment? And how might emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence shape the next phase of growth?