Paystack Acquires Microfinance Bank to Expand Financial Services for Businesses

After a decade building payment infrastructure in Nigeria, Paystack  has officially entered the banking sector through the acquisition of Ladder Microfinance Bank, now rebranded as Paystack Microfinance Bank (MFB). The move gives the fintech greater control over the funds it processes and enables it to extend lending and deposit services to businesses, complementing its existing payments ecosystem.

Paystack MFB will operate independently as a sister company to Paystack’s payments business, offering working capital loans, merchant cash advances, overdrafts, and term loans, as well as banking-as-a-service (BaaS) products for businesses building financial tools. The bank will leverage transactional data from Paystack’s payment network to underwrite loans more efficiently, allowing faster approvals and more precise risk management.

“After 10 years of building payment infrastructure and going deep, we realised that businesses needed more than just getting paid to grow. We wanted to leverage the expertise that we have built over the last decade to continue to address some of the pain points that businesses have.”

– Amandine Lobelle, COO, Paystack 

The move positions Paystack to compete with both traditional microfinance banks and digital-first lenders while offering a unique infrastructure-first approach, starting from payments and layering banking services atop it. By bringing deposits, lending, and treasury management in-house, Paystack strengthens its role in Nigeria’s financial stack and opens new revenue streams while addressing the $32 billion small business financing gap.