Paystack has reorganised its business under a new holding company called The Stack Group (TSG), marking a clear shift toward more structured growth beyond payments.
The new group brings together Paystack’s core payments business, its consumer payments app Zap, Paystack Microfinance Bank, and a venture studio under one umbrella. The move signals Paystack’s intention to build a broader financial services ecosystem while keeping its core business focused and strong.
Although Stripe’s $200 million acquisition made Paystack a wholly owned subsidiary, TSG introduces a different ownership structure. The holding company is jointly owned by Paystack’s co-founder and CEO Shola Akinlade, Stripe, and Paystack employees, known internally as Stacks.
According to Amandine Lobelle, Chief Operating Officer of TSG, the model is designed to reward the people actively building the company while preserving the strategic support that comes with Stripe’s global reach. She declined to disclose the exact ownership breakdown.
The launch of TSG comes at a strong moment for the company. Paystack recently achieved group-wide profitability and now records positive monthly cash flow, after growing its payment volumes more than twelvefold since the Stripe acquisition. Akinlade described the restructuring as a signal of bigger ambitions, saying it sets the tone for the company’s next decade.
The reorganisation formalises a transition that has been unfolding over the past year. With the introduction of Zap and Paystack Microfinance Bank, Paystack has steadily expanded from serving businesses alone to offering consumer payment and banking services. This shift gives the company greater control over the movement of funds and opens up new revenue streams.
By separating its merchant payments business from newer ventures, TSG allows each unit to grow independently. The newer products can now compete more effectively in Nigeria’s crowded financial services market, while Paystack’s core payments business remains the group’s primary revenue driver.
The new structure allows Paystack to remain focused on its core role as a merchant payments company, while newer businesses like Zap and Paystack Microfinance Bank follow independent roadmaps without creating confusion for merchants, regulators, or partners. At the same time, they still benefit from the credibility Paystack has built over the years.
According to TSG’s Chief Operating Officer, Amandine Lobelle, the shift reflects Paystack’s evolution from a single-product company into a multi-brand technology group. The holding company model also makes regulatory oversight easier, separating payments, banking, and consumer products, each with different risk and compliance requirements.
Paystack, founded in 2016, rose quickly as a low-cost alternative to existing payment processors and became one of Nigeria’s most successful startups after its $200 million acquisition by Stripe. After a decade of growth, expanding into five African countries and processing trillions of naira in payments monthly, the company’s profitability has given it room to experiment beyond payments.
Those experiments now include Zap, Paystack MFB, and a venture studio under The Stack Group, created to explore new products and emerging technologies. Each business will operate with its own leadership and autonomy, supported by shared governance at the group level.
By adopting a holding company structure, Paystack joins other Nigerian tech firms that have reorganised to support multiple businesses under one roof, a move that sharpens focus, reduces risk, and creates room for long-term expansion beyond a single flagship product.
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