Employees joined a video call with senior executives on Wednesday, March 25, where many learned their roles had been terminated. The cuts affected several departments, according to people familiar with the process and internal documents.

In a response sent on Friday, a company spokesperson said: “Kuda is evolving how the organisation is structured to support the next phase of our growth and scale. This is not a decision driven by financial pressure, but part of the natural evolution of a company at our stage, aligning with industry benchmarks.”

Executives told staff the decision was not tied to individual performance. Instead, they said it followed a strategic review that looked at long-term priorities and how the company compares with others in the sector.

“As part of this process, some roles across the business have been impacted. We know this is difficult, and these were not decisions we took lightly,” the spokesperson added.

“We are supporting those affected with enhanced severance packages and practical transition support, while staying focused on serving our customers and continuing our long-term growth.”

Inside the company, the announcement did not land smoothly, as some employees found it difficult to join the initial call after the meeting link failed.

When it finally started, executives confirmed the layoffs without much detail, leaving questions about how decisions were made.

One internal document sent to affected staff read: “Following a strategic review of future operational priorities, industry benchmarking, and long-term direction, the Company has identified the need to restructure and reorganise certain departments.”

The impact affected some teams more. Nineteen out of forty employees in the marketing unit were affected, according to two people who said they were part of the process.

Kuda has offered severance packages that differ by role and length of service. Some employees expect payouts of up to seven months’ salary and the company is also proposing an enhanced exit option tied to a settlement agreement.

Part of the notice states: “The enhanced severance payment would be conditional upon you entering into a legally binding settlement agreement… [and] agree not to bring any claims.”

The layoffs come at a time when the company’s financial position has been improving. Losses dropped from $35.11 million in 2023 to $5.83 million in 2024. Revenue from its Nigerian unit nearly doubled to ₦21.2 billion, while operating costs fell.

At the same time, activity on the platform has grown. Kuda processed transactions worth ₦14.3 trillion in 2025, more than in its first five years combined. It also issued ₦16.4 billion in overdrafts, a 43% increase over the previous quarter.

Even so, the environment for fintech firms has changed. Funding into African fintech dropped by more than half in 2024 compared with the peak years of 2021 and 2022.

Investors now want clear profit, not just rapid customer growth. Kuda’s $20 million raise in 2024, at a $500 million valuation, shows that change in direction.

Across the industry, others are making similar moves. Companies such as OPay and Moniepoint have adjusted their teams in recent months, while Flutterwave has faced regulatory issues in key markets.

At the same time, oversight from the Central Bank of Nigeria and foreign exchange limitations continue to weigh on margins.

Kuda, which has about seven million customers, is also dealing with stronger competition from traditional banks expanding their digital services.

As it stands, Kuda Bank says the restructuring is about positioning for growth. Inside the business, however, the sudden nature of the cuts has left many employees trying to make sense of what comes next.

The post Kuda Cuts Jobs in Restructuring Despite Revenue Growth in 2026 appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

The announcement came at a press briefing in Lagos, where the bank formally unveiled its new campaign and demonstrated live transfers to other banks without fees.

Tunde Kuponiyi, Smartcash’s managing director and chief executive officer, said the bank’s focus is financial inclusion and access.

“There are seven global objectives that were adopted by the United Nations,” he said. “A very important aspect of this goal is financial inclusion.”

He linked the bank’s strategy to the Central Bank of Nigeria’s target to expand inclusion across the country. According to him, when more Nigerians are brought into the financial system, small businesses can access funds, grow and create jobs.

Kuponiyi said Smartcash obtained its payment service bank licence in 2022 and began operations the same year. Since then, he said, the bank has built products around affordability and access.

“We are making banking affordable, accessible and available to everyone,” he said.

The most interesting offer is zero charges on transfers and bill payments. Kuponiyi stated: “You’re not going to be charged anything on your money, be it P2P transfer, be it bill payment, you won’t get charged at all.”

He added that customers will also benefit from a savings product that pays 15% interest per annum, compounded daily. “We drop your interest in your account on a daily basis,” he said. “Irrespective of the number of times you withdraw we pay you interest. We don’t penalise you.”

Head of Legal, Ada Ubah, said the campaign is aimed at expanding awareness and deepening access.

“Through this campaign, we aim to increase awareness, expand access, and reinforce our commitment to bridging the financial gap across communities,” she said.

During the demonstration, funds were transferred from the Smartcash app to another Nigerian bank account, with receipt and free charges confirmed.

The bank has removed transfer fees, SMS alert charges and other transaction expenses, which it described as limitations to access. However, it clarified that stamp duty on transfers above N10,000 still applies because it is a statutory charge payable to the government.

On onboarding, the bank explained that customers can sign up using any mobile number, not only Airtel lines. After downloading the app, users verify their identity through their National Identification Number or Bank Verification Number, complete a facial capture and set a four-digit PIN. The phone number then serves as the account number.

For Airtel users, Smartcash also introduced a 10% instant cashback on airtime and data purchases made through the app.

Kuponiyi addressed issues about failed transactions and platform reliability. “Once a transaction fails, we have what we call auto reversal,” he said. “When transactions fail, we auto-reverse such transactions into the customer’s account.”

He added that customers can contact the bank’s care line through 939 for support.

Speaking about coverage, the bank said it leverages the nationwide footprint of its parent company, Airtel Nigeria, to reach all 774 local government areas. Customers can access services through agents across the country.

On remittances, Smartcash confirmed it has partnerships that allow inbound international transfers directly into customers’ wallets, though it did not disclose partner names.

The bank’s customer base has reached almost three million, counting users who have transacted within the last 30 days as active.

Explaining how the zero-charge model will be sustained, Kuponiyi said the bank operates within the traditional banking model of taking deposits and deploying them, but declined to provide detailed revenue breakdowns.

For now, Smartcash stresses that the zero-charge policy will continue. “It’s going to go on for as long as the objective behind it is met,” he said.

The post Smartcash PSB Launches Zero-Charge Transfers, Offers 15% Daily Interest on Savings appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

Registered organisations can now complete the process via the Kuda Business app, providing their CAC documents and trustee information, and have accounts activated within minutes.

For many of Nigeria’s thousands of NGOs and religious institutions, slow, branch-dependent banking has long hindered the management of donations, grants, and operational expenses. 

The Kuda update promises to simplify these processes, enabling organisations to focus more on their mission and less on administrative bottlenecks.

11 Game-Changing Fintechs Making Cross-Border Payments Faster, Cheaper in 2026

“NGOs and religious organisations are responsible for managing funds that directly impact communities, yet they are often forced to operate with outdated banking processes,” said Nosa Oyegun, SVP Business Banking at Kuda. 

“By enabling incorporated trustees to open Kuda Business accounts entirely online quickly, we’re giving these organisations access to the same modern financial tools built by Kuda that other businesses already use, so they spend less time doing admin work.”

This also allows users to handle incoming donations and grants, make payments, monitor transactions in real time, generate professional account statements for audits, and grant controlled access to trustees, treasurers, and administrators, all within a single app. 

The signup process is designed to meet regulatory standards while reducing manual reviews, speeding up account activation, and improving information accuracy.

The timing of the update coincides with reforms in Nigeria’s financial sector. The Central Bank of Nigeria’s cashless policy imposes charges on high-volume cash withdrawals, affecting organisations that handle large donations. Digital banking solutions like Kuda’s now offer a practical way to avoid these expenses.

In addition, regulatory changes in 2025, including recognition of digital assets under the Investment and Securities Act (ISA) 2025, have strengthened the legal framework for fintechs to safely provide services to sensitive sectors. 

However, despite Nigeria’s position as Africa’s fintech leader, with over 430 fintech firms, millions of organisations are still excluded from digital finance due to infrastructural gaps and low financial literacy. Kuda’s move directly addresses this gap for NGOs and religious groups.

Nonetheless, economic stress, policy resets, and reforms in trade and banking policies have made digital-first, transparent financial tools more essential.

Focusing on incorporated trustees, Kuda is now launching an accounts solution for NGOs and religious organisations seeking speed, efficiency, and compliance in the dynamic regulatory and economic environment.

The post Kuda Launches Instant Digital Accounts for NGOs, Religious Groups in Nigeria appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

The acquisition gives the fintech, owned by Stripe, direct control over deposits and lending, areas where small businesses usually face challenges.

The newly formed Paystack Microfinance Bank (Paystack MFB) will start by lending to businesses before gradually offering services to consumers. It will also provide banking-as-a-service (BaaS) products to companies developing financial solutions and treasury tools. 

“After 10 years of building payment infrastructure and going deep, we realised that businesses needed more than just getting paid to grow,” Paystack COO Amandine Lobelle said. “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.”

Paystack MFB will operate independently alongside Paystack’s payments arm under the oversight of their US parent company. The two entities will collaborate within regulatory boundaries but maintain separate licences, governance, and product offerings. 

This structure allows Paystack to experiment with deposits and loans without taking on the costs or regulations of a full commercial banking licence.

The acquisition comes after Paystack’s consumer-facing initiatives, including the launch of the Zap payments app, and positions the company to tap into Nigeria’s $32 billion small business financing gap. 

In processing payments for over 300,000 businesses monthly, Paystack now has the data and infrastructure to offer loans, overdrafts, and merchant cash advances using live revenue flows rather than traditional financial statements.

“By having consistently high uptime, and making Paystack MFB the fastest, most dependable way to move money in and out of their account or to access it,” Lobelle said, outlining the strategy to make Paystack the primary bank account for businesses.

This approach sets Paystack apart from competitors. Digital-first banks like Kuda built deposits first, then layered in lending. Paystack starts from the infrastructure layer, using payment data to underwrite loans and optimise risk models. 

It will compete with traditional microfinance banks such as LAPO, Accion, and Baobab, as well as embedded-finance players including Moniepoint, OPay, PalmPay, and Kuda.

Despite the expansion, partnerships with commercial banks like Titan Trust for payment processing remain unchanged. Paystack MFB also operates independently of Brass, another business banking venture backed by Paystack-led investors. 

“Brass has its own team, investors. Just like any other financial services platform in Nigeria, Brass would be able to benefit from the banking-as-a-service services from Paystack MFB, but the two are independent,” Lobelle said.

In April 2025, the Central Bank of Nigeria fined Paystack ₦250 million ($190,000) for operating Zap as a wallet without approval. Regulatory clearance for Zap and now Paystack MFB emphasises the company’s compliance and points to trust from regulators in fintechs that meet standards.

Paystack’s strategy is to leverage its decade-long payments expertise to control more of the financial stack, address the SME funding gap, and build a bank that can scale with Nigeria’s internet economy. 

“By adding Paystack MFB to our family of brands, we’re finding the right balance through combining the rapid innovation of a tech-first platform with the stability of traditional banking,” Lobelle said.

The post Paystack Enters Nigerian Banking with Ladder Microfinance Bank Acquisition appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

Earlier this year, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) revealed that financial fraud surged by 45% in the past year, with 70% of losses linked to digital platforms such as mobile apps, unregulated fintechs, and virtual asset schemes. 

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has also said that Nigeria could be among the countries to lose part of the $10.5 trillion the world stands to forfeit to cybercrime by 2025, with more than 2,300 cases reported every single day.

So, while we are celebrating progress, more people using apps to pay bills, more traders moving money with a tap of the phone, the other situation is that cybercrime is growing just as fast, if not faster. And it is not just the numbers that are frightening; it is the fact that we are unprepared for the scale of the problem.

Nigeria’s digital economy is expanding at a pace few imagined a decade ago. From mobile banking to online trading platforms, the transition to digital is bolstering how people and businesses move money. But then, there is the high cost that we can no longer ignore, and this is the surge in cybercrime.

The Banking Sector’s Burden

In this tussle, every new defence banks create seems to attract a smarter counterattack from fraudsters.

The surge in cyberattacks has left banks with little choice but to commit more resources to security systems, monitoring tools, and compliance processes. CBN’s fraud data has made it clear that the costs of inaction are higher than the costs of investment.

But this creates a dilemma. Every new layer of authentication, every delay in transaction verification, while essential for safety, can frustrate customers. And as banks invest more, cybercriminals adapt faster, deploying equally advanced tactics to breach these systems. What we are witnessing is an arms race, one that is expensive, relentless, and unavoidable.

Ponzi Schemes and Digital Traps

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has repeatedly warned about virtual asset frauds and Ponzi-style investment schemes. In 2024 alone, over 30 such schemes were flagged by regulators. Many exploited the language of digital currencies and blockchain to lure small investors. 

The damage goes beyond the immediate victims; it destroys trust in the entire financial system. When the public starts to doubt that digital platforms are safe, adoption slows, and genuine businesses suffer.

This is beyond a tussle between banks and hackers, but between regulators and shadowy schemes feeding off public trust.

Why Nigeria is at Risk

Cybercrime thrives where opportunity meets weakness, and Nigeria provides both. Digital adoption is rapid, but cybersecurity awareness among users is low. Enforcement of existing regulations is patchy, and the frameworks themselves usually lag behind the pace of innovation. 

At the same time, a troubling reality is that unemployment is feeding into the cybercrime economy. For many young people, fraud, whether through phishing scams or so-called “Yahoo Yahoo”, is seen as a viable path to survival.

The True Cost of Digital Growth

The impact of unchecked cybercrime runs deeper than balance sheets:

• Financial cost: Billions lost yearly, alongside increased budgets for cybersecurity infrastructure.
• Trust cost: Users lose trust in digital channels, sabotaging the cashless economy drive.
• Policy cost: Regulators try to meet up, introducing rushed directives that may repress innovation.
• Opportunity cost: Investors may think twice about putting money into Nigeria’s fintech ecosystem if risks appear unmanageable.

These layers of cost collectively threaten to slow down the momentum Nigeria has built in digital scale.

Countries like India and Kenya have confronted similar challenges. India’s digital public infrastructure includes stronger user authentication protocols, while Kenya has leaned on regulatory sandboxes to test fintech innovations under supervision. 

These examples show that progress and protection can go hand in hand. Nigeria does not lack capacity, but what is missing is a coordinated, enforced, and forward-looking cybersecurity strategy.

To contain the threat, several steps are urgent:

1. Regulatory enforcement: CBN, NITDA, and SEC must demand minimum cybersecurity standards for all digital service providers.
2. Public education: Cybersecurity literacy campaigns are as important as financial literacy. Users must recognise threats before they click.
3. Shared intelligence: Banks, telcos, fintechs, and regulators should collaborate on real-time data sharing about fraud attempts.
4. Investment in talent: Nigeria needs to build its pool of cybersecurity experts and make it a career path worth pursuing.

We cannot celebrate digital progress while ignoring the holes in the foundation. Every fraudulent transfer, every compromised account, chips away at public trust in Nigeria’s digital resilience. 

The question is not whether cybercrime will continue — it will. The real question is whether Nigeria is prepared to pay the price of protecting its digital economy, or whether the cost of inaction will outweigh the progress we have worked so hard to achieve. These and more are steps in the right direction that could help overcome Nigeria’s cybersecurity challenge. 

The post Banks vs Hackers: Nigeria’s Expensive Cybersecurity Tussle appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

This expansion includes a revamped market strategy and new key appointment: Managing Director for Nigeria at BPC, a seasoned expert who will bolster BPC’s local team, reflecting a commitment to delivering secure, innovative digital payment while driving innovation and growth in Africa’s largest markets and most dynamic economies.

To spearhead its operations in Nigeria, BPC welcomes Dapo Adeosun as managing director, Nigeria. A seasoned Banking and Payments expert with 30 years of experience, Adeosun has played key roles in leading institutions such as First Bank, Access Bank, UBA, and NIBSS (A National Central Switch).

During his 12-year experience at NIBSS, he was the divisional head of the business development directorate and the academy and worked closely with industry stakeholders across the ecosystem to advance Nigeria’s payment systems and infrastructure both locally and internationally.

“At NIBSS, I witnessed firsthand the challenges that are in front of Nigeria’s financial sector—from ensuring secure, efficient services to finding future-proof, easily scalable solutions to bridge the financial inclusion gap,” says Adeosun.

“BPC brings globally certified tools and AI-driven fraud prevention mechanisms that can drastically reduce transaction failures, enhance security, and optimise financial operations for banks and payment providers.”

Dapo Adeosun adds, “Legacy systems have long hindered banks from reaching their full potential, often preventing them from serving unbanked communities with modern financial solutions. With BPC’s SmartVista, we are changing that landscape—offering banks the flexibility, security, and scalability needed to thrive in today’s digital economy.”

Nigeria’s digital payment ecosystem experienced noticeable growth in 2023–2024, with digital transactions rising from ₦600 trillion to ₦1.08 quadrillion, an 80% surge that reflects the expanding reach of digital financial services.

Monthly payment values consistently climbed past the ₦100 trillion mark in the latter part of 2024, boosted by widespread adoption of POS, which now dominates 92.8% of combined POS-ATM transactions, a complete reversal from 2016 figures.

Despite this growth, the sector faces substantial challenges, such as large segments of the population remain unbanked or underbanked, and fraud incidents have soared fivefold to ₦52 billion in early 2024, prompting the Central Bank of Nigeria to intensify efforts on digitalisation, cybersecurity, and payment safety.

Recognising these market dynamics – the need for modern and safe payment mechanisms, BPC has positioned its next-generation SmartVista platform at the forefront of payment modernisation and Innovations in Nigeria. SmartVista provides:

• Flexible end-to-end digital payment solutions, including card and merchant management, e-wallets, mobile banking, agent banking, and SoftPOS technology for a mobile-first economy.
• Advanced fraud management capabilities and prevention tools powered by AI-driven Fraud Management with Link Analysis and Case Management, helping financial institutions combat transaction fraud effectively. Already, several Tier 1 financial institutions in Nigeria leverage SmartVista’s multi-layered fraud management solutions, highlighting its effectiveness in defending against modern fraud.
• Scalable and flexible microservices based architecture that bridges the gap between legacy banking systems and next-generation financial services, ensuring seamless transactions for businesses and consumers alike.

As Nigeria advances its digital agenda, BPC remains dedicated to equipping financial institutions, payment providers, and government agencies with technology that drives efficiency, security, and financial inclusion.

The technology modular architecture and holistic approach allows financial institutions to centralise diverse third-party services, smoothing operational discrepancies and speeding time-to-market for new offerings.

“Our goal is to provide cutting-edge solutions that support Nigeria’s financial ecosystem from powering complete digital financial ecosystems to enhancing non-financial sectors through enablement of marketplaces and digitalisation of government services,” says Dapo Adeosun.

“With SmartVista, we’re not just offering payment solutions—Our goal is to advance Nigeria’s nationwide digital agenda and we’re building a future-ready digital economy.”

The post BPC Expands Operations in Nigeria, Appoints Dapo Adeosun as MD appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.