Despite a challenging year 2024 marked by slowing funding, tightening regulations, and a difficult macroeconomic landscape, Nigeria’s fintech industry continued to expand last year, growing by an impressive 70% year-over-year (YoY), according to a new research by industry experts.
The 2025 edition of the Nigeria Fintech Map, produced by Segun Adeyemi and Precious Ehiwario of Nigerian fintech startup Anchor, alongside tech entrepreneur Florence Dairo, provides a comprehensive snapshot of the Nigerian fintech sector as of early 2025, mapping out the fintech companies operating in the country and their verticals.
According to this year’s edition, Nigeria was home to more than 430 fintech companies as of February 2025, marking a remarkable increase from the 255 companies mapped in January 2024. The report categorizes these companies into 12 verticals, with the largest being business payments and cross-border transactions; credit infrastructure and digital lending; and spend management, buy now, pay later (BNPL) and merchant solutions; with 56, 54, and 53 companies, respectively.
One of the fastest-growing verticals in 2024 was cryptocurrency and Web3.0, which saw significant expansion, reaching 32 players by early 2025. Players in this vertical included global crypto trading platforms Binance and Coinbase, as well as local leader Busha.
Major fintech developments in Nigeria last year
Nigeria’s booming fintech industry was fueled by several key developments throughout 2024.
In particular, the crypto and blockchain sector benefited from a number of favorable regulatory changes. In December 2023, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) lifted its ban on banks serving crypto companies, setting the stage for rapid growth for the industry.
Building on this development, in June 2024, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of Nigeria introduced the Accelerated Regulation Incubation Program (ARIP), requiring all virtual asset service providers (VASPs) to register and undergo an assessment before full approval. In September 2024, two local cryptocurrency exchanges, Quidax and Busha, were granted approval by the SEC, representing a crucial step towards bringing crypto under formal oversight and enhancing the sector’s legitimacy.
In recent years, Nigeria has emerged as a global leader in crypto adoption. Last year, the country ranked second overall on Chainalysis’ Global Adoption Index, receiving approximately US$59 billion in cryptocurrency value between July 2023 and June 2024.
2024 also marked significant milestones for local startups Anchor, Moniepoint, and Brass. Anchor, an embedded finance startup, hit NGN 1 trillion (US$652 million) in processed transactions across more than 1.5 million transactions, serving more than 400 businesses.
Launched in 2021, Anchor provides application programming interfaces (APIs), dashboards and tools that help developers easily embed and build banking products. This includes APIs for creating bank accounts, funds transfers, savings products, issuing cards and offering loans.
Moniepoint, meanwhile, secured a significant US$110 million Series C in October, tripling its valuation to hit the billion-dollar mark. The round was followed three months later with a strategic investment from Visa to expand its services for African businesses.
Founded in 2015, Moniepoint provides banking and payment services to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), aiming to bridge the financial services gap for small businesses. In 2023, the startup processed 5.2 billion transactions, with a total transaction value exceeding US$150 billion. The figure represents a 205% increase from 2022, underscoring its impressive growth.
Moniepoint is also a prominent player in Nigeria’s agent banking space, boasting over 300,000 point-of-sale (POS) agents.
Another significant fintech deal in 2024 was the acquisition of Nigeria-headquartered Brass by a consortium led by fintech heavyweight Paystack. Founded in 2020, Brass is a digital bank that provides SMEs with a suite of products and tools designed to help them grow.
Nigeria: a leading fintech hub in Africa
Nigeria, Africa’s biggest economy, leads the continent’s fintech market, accounting for 28% of all African fintech companies, according to a 2024 report by the European Investment Bank.
The country is also a prime hub in Africa for venture capital (VC) funding. Between 2020 and H1 2024, Nigeria attracted the highest share of fintech investments in African fintech companies, attracting roughly 36% of total fintech equity funding, according to a 2023 report by the Boston Consulting group and Elevandi.
However, the fintech landscape has faced growing challenges over the past two years, including rising living costs, decelerating gross domestic product (GDP) growth, high interest rates, and tightening global financial conditions.
These macroeconomic pressures have contributed to a downturn in fintech funding. Between 2022 and 2023, fintech investment across Africa contracted by 37%. That trend continued in 2024, with funding in the first half of the year down by 51% compared to the same period in 2023, dropping from US$864 million to US$419 million.
Despite these challenges, the African financial services sector, encompassing traditional institutions and fintech companies, continues to show strong growth, maintaining an average annual revenue growth of 8% from 2018 to 2023, according to McKinsey. Growth is projected to accelerate to nearly 10% per year between 2023 and 2028.
The global consultancy expects fintech revenues to reach up to US$47 billion by 2028, representing about a five-fold increase from its value of US$10 billion in 2023. Achieving this growth would require fintech penetration across the continent to reach 15%, similar to the current penetration rate in Kenya, one of the pioneering global leader in digital payments and mobile wallets.
Currently, fintech penetration in Africa is between 5% to 6% of the market, compared to 6% and 16% in more developed markets such as Germany and the US.
Featured image credit: edited from freepik
