The financial infrastructure company has launched Bitnob Enterprise, a non-custodial infrastructure platform designed to banks, fintechs, treasury teams and other institutions build digital asset products while maintaining control of their custody architecture, governance and risk-management systems.

The new platform allows organisations to access Bitnob’s wallet, payment, treasury, settlement, and blockchain infrastructure without transferring custody of assets to the company.

Bitnob launched publicly in 2021 as a consumer Bitcoin app. Over time, the infrastructure built to power its own products attracted growing interest from businesses, leading the company to increasingly focus on wallets-as-a-service, payments, stablecoin settlement, collections, payouts, and card infrastructure. Today, more than $4.5 billion has moved through its infrastructure.

As adoption grew, Bitnob saw customer needs split. Some wanted a managed platform that removed operational complexity and accelerated time to market. Others wanted to own the parts of the business that define them, such as custody, key management, risk, and governance. Bitnob Enterprise was built for the second group.

“The next generation of financial institutions won’t outsource the things that define them, including how assets are secured, how risk is managed, how their customers are served,” said Bernard Parah, Founder and CEO of Bitnob. “Enterprise gives them the infrastructure layer underneath Bitnob without asking them to give up control.”

Enterprise supports non-custodial deployment, including external key management through HSMs, AWS KMS, and third-party signing systems.

Customers run their own treasury controls, approval workflows, transaction policies, compliance and security frameworks while leveraging Bitnob for wallets, blockchain connectivity, treasury operations, stablecoin settlement, and embedded financial services.

The platform is built for banks, regulated financial institutions, fintechs, treasury teams, and developers building infrastructure-intensive financial products.

For organisations entering the market, Enterprise is a path to launch digital asset products without spending years building blockchain infrastructure internally. For larger institutions, it is a way to add digital asset capabilities to existing compliance and operational environments while keeping control of customer relationships and internal governance.

Alongside Enterprise, Bitnob is introducing major upgrades to Bitnob Business, its managed platform first launched in 2022. The updated platform adds enhanced stablecoin swap capabilities including USDT-to-USDC conversion, off-ramp coverage across more than 110 countries, and a growing base of on-ramp coverage.

Together, the two products offer two ways into the same infrastructure: a managed platform for businesses that prioritise simplicity and speed, and an infrastructure layer for organisations that prioritise ownership and control.

The launch comes as businesses increasingly adopt stablecoin infrastructure for treasury, cross-border payments, and supplier settlement, and as institutions look to participate without compromising their existing governance, security, and operational requirements.

Bitnob Business and Bitnob Enterprise are available free beginning today. For more information, visit website or schedule a call with the sales team

About Bitnob

Founded in 2020, Bitnob is a financial infrastructure company helping businesses build, move, and manage money globally.

Through APIs and managed infrastructure, Bitnob powers wallets-as-a-service, payments, treasury operations, stablecoin settlement, card programs, collections, payouts, and embedded financial services for businesses across global markets.

Both companies signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Friday, April 17, 2026, at Credit Direct’s headquarters in Lagos. 

The agreement allows customers to pay 20% of a vivo smartphone’s price upfront, then spread the remaining balance over six months. Credit Direct will provide the financing.

The two firms say the plan targets a long-standing issue in the Nigerian market, where people want smartphones, but many cannot afford to pay in full at once.

Nigeria has about 120 million smartphone users. Still, a large share of the population lacks access to a device. With more than 40% of Nigerians still not using smartphones, the cost is the limitation.

Under the partnership, customers will also be able to access vivo devices through more than 600 retail stores across 25 states. Both companies are targeting sales of over 200,000 devices in the first year.

Credit Direct, a subsidiary of FCMB Group Plc, said the arrangement fits into its consumer lending model, which focuses on extending credit to people outside traditional banking systems.

The company’s managing director and chief executive, Chukwuma Nwanze, said the partnership brings together financing and mobile technology in a practical way.

“Nigeria has millions of smartphone users, but the gap between those who are connected and those who are not remains wide, and the primary reason for that gap is access to capital. This partnership addresses that directly,” he said.

“vivo has built a strong mobile product over the years, and Credit Direct has been providing financing to people who have been shut out of the formal financial system for years. What this partnership does is bring those two realities together. People who need smartphones but cannot afford to buy one outright can now do so through a payment plan that does not strain their monthly income.”

He further stated that the mission has always been to make financial solutions a universal opportunity, and this is exactly what this looks like. “I am genuinely excited about what we can achieve together.” Chukwuma Nwanze, MD/CEO, Credit Direct said.

vivo Nigeria said the agreement strengthens its goal to expand access in a highly competitive market.

“We chose Credit Direct because they are the clear leaders in consumer financing in Nigeria, and they operate with a level of professionalism that gave us confidence. Instalment-based device purchasing was something we had explored before, but it did not come together at the time. 

“With Credit Direct’s backing and infrastructure, we are confident this will be different. This is a partnership we believe in.” Toni Liu, CEO, vivo Nigeria.

Nigeria’s smartphone financing space has been growing as device prices become more expensive for many buyers. Similar models have appeared across the industry, including initiatives linked to Transsion brands such as Tecno and Infinix, as well as Samsung Nigeria, which works with financial institutions to offer instalment payments.

Analysts say these financing options are becoming more important as mobile internet use expands. Nigeria’s digital economy was valued at about $18 billion in 2025, and access to affordable devices is seen as paramount to further growth in e-commerce, fintech, and online services.

Market observers also expect instalment-based purchases to bring millions of new users into the smartphone ecosystem over the next few years, as companies compete to reduce the upfront cost barrier.

The panel, moderated by Olumatoyin Abioye, fintech product lead, featured Musty Mustapha, co-founder and managing director of Kuda MFB, and Rosemary Aimankhu, chief commercial officer of MoMo PSB.

“Every decision you make in a business has its implications, and it has its cost,” Mustapha said. 

“When you operate with the mindset of growing at all costs, regardless of whether you are really adding value to people’s lives, you are only solving for today and neglecting what could happen in the future.” 

He stressed that African users are digitally aware but operate in low-trust environments, meaning fintechs must design products that build value, not rely on incentives for user acquisition.

Aimankhu reiterated this point, noting the need to understand the context of users. “When we have the context of who those billion users are, we can actually create the value that is speaking about. It’s very, very important,” she said. 

She added that operational weaknesses are usually the first to fail as companies scale, highlighting the importance of preparing systems for growth from the outset.

Mustapha explained that the early months of a fintech’s life often leave operations underdeveloped because priorities focus on product and software development. 

“Anything or any area of a business you are not giving 100% attention to is the area that will cause problems as you scale,” he said. 

He recommended building flexibility into growth strategies and adjusting priorities over time, from customer acquisition to compliance, and eventually revenue.

On the question of trust, Aimankhu said reliability is indispensable. “You are available when I want, I can close my eyes and say, when I make this transfer, the person at the other end is going to get it. If the person does not get it, I begin to doubt,” she said. 

Mustapha added that infrastructure beyond fintechs’ control, like roads, electricity, and identity systems, is a limiting factor, and businesses must plan with redundancy to mitigate these constraints.

The panel also explored which fintech models will dominate mass adoption. Aimankhu predicted embedded finance would prevail for low-end smartphone users, noting the importance of affordable, reliable services for everyday payments. 

Mustapha highlighted the competitive advantage of combining fintech agility, telco distribution, and strong balance sheets from traditional banks.

The challenges startups avoid acknowledging has always been an issue to be addressed, and Mustapha stressed that assumptions about average users are common. 

“A lot of us still continue to have this conception of what an average user is. What they want is just that you create political trust,” he said. 

Aimankhu further added that leveraging local community networks is essential to gaining customer trust.

The discussion ended on balancing tough decisions between staff and customers. While Aimankhu said, “The customer is the reason why we’re here. You can reorganise internally to reposition that staff, but never prioritise your staff over your customer.” 

Mustapha, on the other hand, noted that a business should avoid ever having to make such a choice, maintaining both staff and customer support to keep operations stable.

Reaching the next billion users in Africa is not simply about rapid growth, but creating value, building trust, and preparing operationally for unpredictable scale.

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.

Venture capital into African tech started to decline after 2022, forcing founders to ask if it was better to sell to consumers who can’t spend, or sell tools to the businesses that still can.

The economics of a difficult choice

I used to think consumer-first was the fast lane, but not anymore. Today, more costs of customer-acquisition, shrinking disposable incomes and selective VC chequebooks mean the logic of “growth at all costs” is a gift very few Nigerian founders can afford.

Recent industry reviews show venture capital flows into African tech softened over the years, with total African tech VC around $2.2 billion in 2024, a pullback in deals and more picky investing. Funders are backing fewer startups and favouring those with clear unit economics. 

So founders face a practical choice to keep focusing on individual consumer startups, and highly expensive attention, or pivot to B2B, embedded finance and infrastructure, where unit economics are clearer and customers (businesses) have repeatable budgets.

The B2C problem: why many consumer startups are burning out

Consumer startups in Nigeria are facing three structural challenges at once:

1. Higher customer-acquisition costs (CAC). Because everyone’s vying for clicks and impressions, the cost of customer acquisition has ballooned. Digital ad marketplaces are commoditised and pricey; getting someone’s first purchase now costs far more than it did in 2019–21. Benchmarks show CAC increasing across channels as competition for attention also increases. When you’re paying heavily just to get someone to try your app, your ROI horizon stretches uncomfortably long.
2. Squeezed spending power. Inflation has battered households. Nigeria’s headline inflation eased to 18.02% in September 2025, down from 20.12% in August, the sixth straight month of deceleration. But even at 18%, people are prioritising food, rent, transport, discretionary spends suffer.
3. Funding winter and selective capital. In tough times, VCs favour capital efficiency over growth stories. The IFC reports that venture funding across Africa has shifted toward startups with stronger unit economics and clearer paths to cashflow. 

So consumers have to prove real retention, strong margins and defensibility.

Why B2B (and embedded-finance) looks safer right now

If B2C is the high-variance play, B2B is the steady hand. Here’s why:

• Lower CAC per dollar of revenue. Selling to a business usually requires a longer sales process, but the ticket sizes are higher and the lifetime value is more predictable. When the numbers line up, monthly recurring revenue (MRR) beats one-off consumer spend every time.
• Clearer ROI for customers. Businesses pay for cost savings, compliance, productivity profits or revenue enablement. Those returns are easier to quantify, so you can price accordingly.
• Embedded finance & infrastructure scale. When you integrate payments, credit, or financial tools into business workflows, you capture value across transactions. Fintech firms embedding services into merchant flows or enterprise stacks are winning in this period.
• Reduced churn risk. Consumers abandon services quickly when times are hard. Businesses, even the informal ones, and especially those tied into operations, tend to stick unless value disappears.

In short, B2B gives you fewer customers, but each one is more likely to stick and to pay.

Hybrid doesn’t mean compromise: the smartest founders don’t treat this as binary

It’s not B2C or B2B, it’s how smart founders mix them.

The most resilient startups are those that:

• Build an infrastructure layer (payments, logistics, procurement) that serves businesses, and then expose consumer-facing products on top; or
• Start as B2C but quickly develop monetisable B2B channels (merchant tools, analytics, advertising for retailers); or
• Market directly to small businesses (MSMEs) that both buy and sell to consumers, a customer group with recurring cash flow. That’s monetising through cross-sell, e.g. merchant tools, data analytics, credit, even if the front door is consumer-facing.

In Nigeria, the informal economy, shops, kiosks, and traders, accounts for a huge share of activity. Moniepoint’s Informal Economy Report shows that 85% of informal businesses are sole proprietorships and only 40% employ labour; they buy goods via transfers and remain cash-heavy but represent concentrated purchasing power in local markets. 

Startups that serve these businesses indirectly serve consumers, while enjoying steadier revenues.

The founder’s checklist: questions you should ask now

If I were advising a founder deciding between consumer startups (B2C) or B2B today, I’d insist on answers to these:

• Can you prove payback in less than 12 months without heavy subsidy? If not, think twice about continuing consumer-first growth spend. If your cost to acquire a user is more than their lifetime value, you have a problem.
• Does your customer have a predictable spend line you can influence? Businesses that buy monthly or seasonally are better customers than an unstable consumer base.
• Is your product infrastructure-led? If others can replicate your consumer UI, you’ll be permanently on the defensive. The more you embed into workflows (payments, data, finance), the stickier your products become.
• Can you monetise through multiple channels? Can you diversify your revenue streams? Merchant fees, data services, and B2B subscriptions diversify risk. Don’t depend only on subscriptions or single product lines.

If you can’t answer them confidently, you risk building a house on sinking sand. In this market, metrics (downloads, DAU) are not a strategy.

Practical plays that work (examples and tactics)

Here are tactics I’ve seen succeed in Nigeria and across Africa:

• Merchant-first payments: Begin with payments or checkout solutions for small businesses, then layer credit, procurement, and analytics on top.
• Vertical SaaS + embedded payments: If you serve a vertical (e.g., agri-traders, clinics), embed payments, insurance and credit inside the software. You capture more of the value chain.
• Cost-reduction products: Logistics optimisation, energy-efficiency tools, inventory finance including products that reduce OPEX for clients are easier to sell in tight times.
• Anchor clients, then scale: Land a few enterprise contracts to validate your model, then expand horizontally.

These are high-leverage moves. They may require more sales tactics early, but bring more reward over time.

Where I’d put my chips now

If I were placing chips today, I’d lean into B2B and hybrid models while keeping a careful consumer startups arm alive for brand depth. The consumer market is fractured, loyalty is weak, attention is expensive, and regressions are common.

But businesses will always need tools, margin relief, and financial products. If you build what they can’t easily do without, you win.

So yes, B2C (consumer startups) is very much alive, but in this season of limitations, B2B is safer. And the hybrids? They’re the ones who will tell who thrives next.

You don’t open a bank app, you don’t think about the transfer, you just pay, and move on. This simplicity is no accident but a part of a global transition where financial services are no longer exclusive to banks but are now built into everyday platforms.

By 2030, embedded finance is projected to generate more than $7 trillion globally, a value greater than the entire traditional banking sector today. That scale shows it is not a passing trend, but a structural transformation in how money moves.

What Exactly is Embedded Finance?

At its core, embedded finance means integrating financial services such as payments, lending, insurance, or even investment, into non-financial products. Think of it as financial “plug-ins” that sit inside platforms we already use.

It explains why you can:

• pay seamlessly on Uber without opening a separate app,
• access a small loan at checkout on Jumia,
• or insure your device as part of an online purchase.

Unlike traditional finance, where transactions are separate, embedded finance blends money and service into one smooth experience.

Why Now?

Several forces are making this model more urgent:

• The cashless policy: In Nigeria, government policy and banking reforms are pushing more people into digital payments.
• The rise of APIs: Platforms like Flutterwave, Paystack, and Mono have made it simple for non-fintech businesses to plug in financial features.
• Changing customer behaviour: Today’s consumers expect transactions to be quick, seamless, and invisible.

In short, finance is no longer a back-end activity. It has become the glue holding digital ecosystems together.

Global and Local Case Studies

Across the world, companies that didn’t start as financial institutions are quietly becoming one:

• Uber made cashless rides a global standard by embedding payments.
• Shopify lends directly to its merchants through Shopify Capital, turning e-commerce into finance.
• Amazon used one-click payments and Buy-Now-Pay-Later to strengthen customer loyalty.

In Africa, the trend is even more visible:

• OPay evolved from a wallet into a financial lifeline for millions of small businesses.
• JumiaPay provides credit and seamless payments right inside the marketplace.
• MTN MoMo started with airtime top-ups and now powers transfers, savings, and merchant payments across multiple countries.

None of these began as banks, but today they are central to financial lives.

Opportunities and Risks

For startups, embedded finance is not simply a feature, but a growth strategy. It provides new revenue streams, strengthens customer loyalty, and helps reach people who remain underserved by banks.

But the transition comes with challenges:

• Heavy reliance on technology and connectivity,
• Regulatory grey zones where the rules are still being written,
• Growing cybersecurity risks as more apps handle financial data,
• The constant need to earn and maintain user trust.

Handled well, these risks are manageable. Ignored, they can sabotage both startups and customers.

The future points towards financial services that disappear into the background. Traditional banks may become infrastructure providers, while everyday platforms handle customer interactions. 

E-commerce sites could compete both on price and on who offers the best credit at checkout. Insurance might be offered instantly during purchases. Gig workers may no longer wait days for their earnings.

Finance, in other words, will be everywhere, but rarely noticed.

The ability to pay a bike rider with a tap, borrow working capital directly from a digital marketplace, or access health insurance bundled into a subscription service are all made possible through embedded finance.

At a time when inflation is squeezing incomes and traditional banking feels distant for many, these services provide both opportunity and relief. But they also require safeguards, because when money becomes invisible, people need to know it is still secure.

Embedded finance is not about replacing banks, but about reimagining how financial access fits into daily life. For startups, it has become the secret weapon for growth and customer retention. For consumers, it promises convenience and inclusion, though it carries its own risks.

The question is not whether embedded finance will grow, that is already happening, but how it will bolster the future of money for both businesses and individuals.

In recent years, non-bank providers have been integrating financial services into various products and services. This enables merchants that have these embedded financial services to interact with their customers in new ways.

Recall Nigeria’s recent cashless experiment? The main problem was not because the country wanted to go cashless, rather, people were unable to pay for goods and services. Yet, embedded finance could have solved this.

There were stories for instance in the poultry industry where thousands of farmers were said to have disposed of their eggs simply because they were dependent on cash. Maybe not individually but the value chain in which they operated was cash dependent. But what if one of the many big players had introduced embedded finance in that value chain?

The European Merchant Bank notes that embedded finance has the opportunity to truly change the financial sector forever, reaching a $138 billion value by 2026.

Other estimates value this market in the trillions of dollars over the next decade, and Nigeria can also tap into these potentials in driving a cashless economy.

Here are three possibilities with embedded finance:

1. Embedded payments

Embedded payments refers to the integration of payments capabilities within an app or a platform that was not primarily designed to offer financial service. What it does is that when users need to make payments within that ecosystem, they need not go outside of it before money can be exchanged.

So, imagine in the midst of all the commotion from Nigeria’s cashless experience, if more organisations providing goods or services had embedded payments, there would have been less worry for Nigerians desperate to find cash.

From such platforms, payments could have served a wide range of reasons, depending on what segment of the economy they were serving.

Examples abound in western markets from Starbucks, Uber, Amazon, Google and even WhatsApp which has a payments service.

Having some of such platforms locally, would have provided reputable intermediaries trusted by people expecting to get paid. For emphasis, while the fear of fake transfers remained an obstacle for some people, receiving payment via WhatsApp (for instance), which they already trust and use daily, would have been easier to adopt.

2. Embedded credit

This works both ways. On one hand, it can enable businesses to extend credit to their customers, allowing them to transact without the need for cash. On the other hand, it can be particularly useful for small businesses, which are already mostly starved of credit, to get access to lending that can keep them afloat when they do not have cash to operate.

What happens when you operate in an industry where vendors are bent on collecting cash before they supply you inputs? This happens a lot, beyond the urban, cosmopolitan areas of Nigeria, where cash still reigns.

In other instances, those coming to buy from you, after you have sourced inputs and produced a thousand eggs, usually only bring cash. However, since their retail side customers did not have access to cash during the cashless period, it means they also didn’t have money to buy from you. As simple as this may sound, it led to the collapse of many businesses.

A solution to both sides of this chaos could have been embedded credit. If enterprises had adopted one platform or the other, which allowed them to embed credit products into their business platforms, they could have been able to allow their consumers to apply for, acquire and repay loans within the platform. They could also have secured credit for their business, maybe in the form of inputs to keep their businesses afloat during the cashless period.

The best part is that they need not invest in custom made technology. These could in fact, be done at, say, cooperative or association levels, and not borne by individuals.

3. Embedded banking

Imagine paying your Uber driver after a trip, but doing so from your wallet in the Uber App. The driver gets this money but does not need to move it to their ‘regular bank account’. Why? Because the ride-hailing app has a feature for a savings account.

This would mean whatever transactions they needed to do from a bank account could now take place from that same Uber app where they picked a customer, got paid and can in turn pay for anything they need.

The payments and credit feature earlier discussed, as well as everything else you can think of in a bank setting, can take place from this facility. This may sound foreign, but an ecosystem like this is possible in Nigeria. It in fact, depicts what could be a perfectly cashless environment. It could even go as far as issuing debit cards, which are linked to that account for them to pay for whatever they somehow can’t do from the app.

Embedded finance can deliver a win-win situation to both businesses that embrace them as well as their customers. The ease of access and low cost to entry is likely to make it viable across social demographics in a place like Nigeria.