Updated / Thursday, 15 Oct 2020 15:24
Payments company Stripe, founded by Irish brothers Patrick and John Collison, has agreed a deal to buy Africa-based Paystack.
Technology firm Paystack facilitates businesses of all sizes to collect payments from around the world.
Over 60,000 businesses in Nigeria and Ghana use Paystack to securely collect online and offline payments, launch new business models, and deepen customer relationships.
Lagos-based Paystack already processes more than half of all online transactions in Nigeria, and plans to expand to more countries in Africa.
The African internet economy is growing quickly, with the volume of online commerce increasing by 21% on an annual basis – 75% faster than the global average.
But while Africa represents 17% of the world’s population today, it represents only 2% of its online commerce.
Stripe and Paystack have been working closely together for some time and in 2018, Stripe led Paystack’s Series A funding round.
Matt Henderson, Stripe’s business lead in EMEA, said today’s deal will give Paystack resources to develop new products, support more businesses and consolidate the hyper-fragmented African payments market.
Under the terms of the deal, Paystack will continue to operate independently, growing their operations in Africa and adding more international payment methods.
Over time, it will contribute to expanding Stripe’s Global Payments and Treasury Network (GPTN), a programmable infrastructure for global money movement that spans 42 countries
Shola Akinlade, CEO and co-founder of Paystack, said the company 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,” he added.