Nigeria: Commercial Intelligence (M&A, Investment & Product)

Commercial Intelligence (M&A, Investment & Product)

The trailing-12-month commercial cluster captures fintech consolidation into banking. Flutterwave acquired Nigerian open-banking startup Mono in an all-stock transaction reportedly valued between US$25m and US$40m; exact terms were not publicly disclosed; the deal completed in December 2025 and was made public in January 2026, with the rationale of consolidating open-banking and data-aggregation capability ahead of banking-licence expansion. Flutterwave then secured a Nigerian national microfinance banking licence — via the Mono acquisition — in April 2026, after crossing US$40bn in lifetime payments, allowing it to hold customer deposits and issue loans directly; this moves Flutterwave from payments-processor to deposit-taking bank, changing its safeguarding and prudential posture. Paystack — Stripe-owned and valued at around US$500m — acquired Ladder Microfinance Bank in January 2026 (value not publicly disclosed), rebranding it Paystack Microfinance Bank to offer business lending beyond its payments licence; a second major fintech acquiring a microfinance bank confirms consolidation-into-banking as a structural trend rather than a one-off.