HabariPay’s cost efficiency powers GTBank’s ₦6.54bn fintech profit
Guaranty Trust Holding Company Plc’s HabariPay is mirroring its parent’s obsession with cost control, operating at just 30.69% of its income, compared to Hydrogen’s (Access Holdings) 78.66% and Zest’s (Stanbic IBTC) 78.23% in the first nine months of 2025. This is as bank-backed fintechs made a combined ₦7.91 billion ($5.43 million) profit in the period, their strongest collective showing since banks entered the fintech race, according to their financial results. It is a sign of maturity from fintechs whose parent companies have been accused of being too slow, too rigid, and too distracted to compete with the speed and reliability of the likes of OPay, PalmPay, and Moniepoint. The gains were driven by cost efficiency, rising transaction volumes and values, and deeper uptakes among merchants, corporates, and everyday users increasingly leaning on bank-backed digital channels. It is also the first time all three fintech subsidiaries are profitable in the same period, with Zest flipping from losses to its first-ever profit in Q3. For years, fintechs like OPay and PalmPay set the pace with speed, cheap transfers, and reliability as traditional banks struggled. Now, backed by deep customer bases, settlement networks, and improving infrastructure, bank-owned fintechs are beginning to close the gap. The Efficiency Gap How much profit did bank-fintechs make, and how much did it cost them to make it? Total Profit Cost to Run Showing net profit in Billions (₦) for 9 Months. HabariPay GTCO ₦6.54bn Hydrogen Access Holdings ₦0.83bn Zest Stanbic IBTC ₦0.54bn HabariPay is dominating profit, accounting for 82% of the total earnings among the three major bank-led fintechs. Source: 9M 2025 Company Financial Statements TECHCABAL Hydrogen’s profit slump Hydrogen posted ₦833 million ($571,832.61) in profit, down 42.63% year-on-year. Operating income increased by 0.95% to ₦5.74 billion ($3.94 million), while operating expenses rose 6.64% to ₦4.52 billion ($3.10 million). Launched in September 2022, Hydrogen started out as a backend payments and infrastructure provider serving fintechs, banks, and telcos. It turned profitable in Q4 2023. Hydrogen is currently processing more transactions than ever. Transaction value is up 127.93% to ₦60.4 trillion ($41.46 billion) as of September 2025. It has leveraged the introduction of the Hydrogen Payment Gateway, a payment solution that allows businesses to accept any form of online payments, in 2024, alongside improvements across switching, merchant collections, and card security, to deepen its uptake. According to its investor’s presentation for September 2025, its market share for switching is up to 14%, and over 20,000 merchants depend on it. Zest posts first-ever profit Stanbic IBTC’s Zest posted its first-ever profit in Q3, ₦543 million ($372,755.23), a full reversal from the ₦1.89 billion ($1.29 million) loss a year earlier. Operating expenses have climbed to ₦2.12 billion ($1.46 million) in Q3, a 6.53% increase from what it spent in 2024. In H1 2025, Zest posted a loss after tax of ₦389 million ($267,038.28), a decline from ₦945 million ($648,717.67) a year earlier, as it shed losses. Revenue grew fourteenfold to ₦874 million ($599,978.03) in H1 2025. While Zest has shed its losses, its cost base still leaves a lot to be desired. Get The Best African Tech Newsletters In Your Inbox Select your country Nigeria Ghana Kenya South Africa Egypt Morocco Tunisia Algeria Libya Sudan Ethiopia Somalia Djibouti Eritrea Uganda Tanzania Rwanda Burundi Democratic Republic of the Congo Republic of the Congo Central African Republic Chad Cameroon Gabon Equatorial Guinea São Tomé and Príncipe Angola Zambia Zimbabwe Botswana Namibia Lesotho Eswatini Mozambique Madagascar Mauritius Seychelles Comoros Cape Verde Guinea-Bissau Senegal The Gambia Guinea Sierra Leone Liberia Côte d’Ivoire Burkina Faso Mali Niger Benin Togo Other Select your gender Male Female Others TC Daily TC Events TC Scoop Subscribe HabariPay doubles profit HabariPay’s profit is up 115.51% to ₦6.54 billion ($4.49 million) as operating income surged 112.68% to ₦9.43 billion ($6.47 million). Even with operating expenses rising 171.61% to ₦2.89 billion ($1.98 million), it is still Nigeria’s most profitable bank-backed fintech. HabariPay’s growth is being powered by its Squad platform, which processes payments across virtual accounts, USSD, cards, and bank transfers while also earning from switching and bill payments. How banks got here The Central Bank of Nigeria’s 2010 directive mandating holding company structures opened the door for banks to build non-banking subsidiaries like payments, asset management, and pensions. GTCO launched HabariPay in June 2022 to target SMEs and retailers offering PoS, USSD, web gateways, virtual accounts, and switching services through Squad. Access Holdings followed with Hydrogen in September 2022, targeting infrastructure, switching, and collections. Stanbic IBTC launched Zest in October 2023 to facilitate transfers and offer a unified dashboard that integrates cards, bank transfers, mobile money, and QR codes. Future bets Bank-backed fintechs are leaning heavily on their parent companies’ vast user bases, a built-in advantage as digital payments continue to grow. “Our payments subsidiary remains one of the most strategic growth engines in the Group,” said Segun Agbaje, group CEO of GTCO, in its interim report for 2025. “Transaction volumes and values across our digital platforms have grown significantly, driven by increased adoption from merchants, corporates, and retail users.” GTCO is scaling Habari’s payment ecosystem through strategic partnerships and deeper technology integration, enabling better API connectivity, in-app payments, and cross-platform interoperability that positions its flagship product, Squad, as a trusted payment processor and core engine for digital commerce. “Our ambition is to power the financial interactions of the future—connecting consumers and businesses across sectors in ways that are simple, intuitive, and inclusive,” Agbaje added. Access is positioning Hydrogen for continental expansion. “While Nigeria is our launchpad, Hydrogen has pan-African ambitions,” Roosevelt Ogbonna, CEO of Access Bank, told investors in April. Stanbic is pouring money into Zest. Its investment is up at least 85.8% since December. That funding is helping it strengthen its infrastructure and expand its payments network. Zest is positioning itself to become the payments partner for businesses, offering a single dashboard that integrates cards, bank transfers, mobile money, and QR codes. Bank-backed fintechs are having their strongest financial year yet, but they still lack the cultural
Read MoreAdeyemi Adegbayi on how he picks and invests up to $2 million in climate tech startups
Adeyemi Adegbayi, a senior investment associate at the $40 million Catalyst Fund, first knew that venture capital was the career for him after an old schoolmate, who could build almost anything, could not build at scale because of a lack of funding. Adegbayi’s frustration at the time was that investors did not know how to find the right startups. That frustration became his first, clumsy attempt at solving the problem: Adegbayi launched a structured pitch competition, a pipeline machine in disguise. The goal was simple: find very early founders, help them sharpen their value propositions, and then put them in front of investors. But the more he worked with founders, the more he realised his initial hypothesis was only half-true. The issue wasn’t just that investors couldn’t find startups; there were also far more entrepreneurs than the ecosystem was built to support, and many of them needed hands-on help long before they were “VC ready”. Realising this, he entered tech through financial services at ARM, where his day job was figuring out how technology could make traditional businesses run better. Tinkering with small ventures on the side while learning how institutional finance works from the inside eventually set up the tension he would later resolve in VC: how to use capital and software to make real businesses more efficient. Leaving ARM, Yemi, as he likes to be called, told himself he would give a role at the $154 million fund TLcom a 12-month trial. If it didn’t feel right after a year, he would pivot, get a master’s in computer science and disappear into a more technical career. Instead, “from the first days, it just felt right.” His first transaction, Pula’s Series A, locked that in. TLcom’s Philippe Griffiths on his firm’s year, founder pitfalls, and the hardest part of VC The deal showed him that you could design business models that scale access to things that simply don’t exist for most people in emerging markets: crop insurance, real safety nets, and reliable risk transfer. It also gave him a mental model for how VC behaves differently depending on where it operates. In our conversation, Adegbayi talks about two non-negotiables for his investment thesis: a large commercial opportunity and clear, traceable impact. He’s not romantic about it; he’s sceptical that the classic VC fund structure even fits Africa perfectly, and he has no interest in doing philanthropy in disguise. But he’s convinced that pursuing returns without caring who gets hurt will produce extractive models that leave people worse off, and that chasing “impact” without a viable business underneath simply doesn’t scale. Five years on from that one-year test at TLcom, he now works at Catalyst Fund, a firm that marries his two non-negotiables. The firm’s initial investment is around $200,000 and it can invest in subsequent rounds up to Series A for portfolio startups. “We can invest up to about $2 million in winners across multiple rounds,” Adegbayi told TechCabal. Catalyst plans to invest in 40 pre-seed businesses and then double down into winners as they scale. The firm has already invested in more than twenty businesses and still has the dry powder to back 10 more startups. For this week’s Ask an Investor, I spoke to Adegbayi about climate tech investing, his firm’s thesis and support to founders, the ignored sector he thinks every investor should be looking at, and what founders should be doing after investment. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Can you give me an example of the ideal company that represents your thesis? In an African context, and not necessarily a portfolio company. I’ll touch maybe three companies, and it’s easier to touch three because I don’t think there’s a perfect fit yet. An important piece of Pula’s thinking at the point where I worked at TLcom—when I came in to work on this deal—was finding the best way to sell insurance to African farmers. The answer to that was bundling, because insurance just doesn’t sell already. In scenarios where they’re not bundled, let’s find the people who need farmers to have insurance the most and get those people to pay for the services, because the farmers just may not. That’s one solution, I think hits the nail on the head. Another, which I’ve seen more in East Africa, is M-KOPA and their approach. They’ve figured out how larger asset financing—more like mid-value asset financing—should work on the continent where a lot of people are focused on microloans. Microloans are great, but you need to start pushing higher up for credit to get to a point where it makes sense, and then also find alternative ways to make this worth it. The final one, and this is fairly new in the portfolio. They’re called Swap. This is a Nigerian company. For the first time in forever, in Nigeria, power is at cost, and this has led to shifts I didn’t think were possible. For the longest part of my life, there was a low willingness to retrofit—people were sceptical about adjusting what was in their engines. Now, there are a bunch of people with different types of vehicles that are running on CNG. What Swap is doing is they found a model that works for tricycles, and these are everyday people who are constantly squeezed. There’s a direct impact on the keke riders. One is they have vehicles that are more affordable to operate; cleaner vehicles; easier to operate; less hassle from a maintenance perspective, and less hassle from an “is there going to be fuel?” perspective. You look at all of these: your costs are going lower, your ability to earn is improved, and the quality of your life improves. These are three very different opportunities in three different verticals that say, “This is what the pinnacle of my thesis looks like in solution.” There’s a strong impact, but the impact is baked into the business. It’s not, “Okay, I’m going to have to shave off part of my margins
Read MoreBluworks, Egyptian HR automation startup, raises $1 million for regional expansion
Bluworks, an Egyptian HR-tech startup that digitises workforce management for businesses employing frontline workers, has raised $1 million in seed funding to accelerate its growth across Egypt and expand into the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) markets. The round was led by Enza Capital, A15, and Beltone Venture Capital, with participation from Acasia Ventures alongside strategic angel investors. This follows the company’s pre-seed round of the same amount in April 2024, led by Khawarizmi Ventures with participation from Camel Ventures, Acasia Ventures and other angel investors, to support the automation of its workforce management platform. The company said the new capital will be used to deepen its presence in Egypt, expand its reach among small and medium-sized businesses, forge strategic partnerships, and regional expansion across the MENA region. It added that this next phase of its growth will focus on strengthening its product capabilities and platform with the integration of advanced analytics and AI as an infrastructure layer for frontline labour management. Founded in 2022 by Hussein Wahdan, Farah Osman, and Nour Ahmadein, Bluworks aims to digitise the full lifecycle of frontline workers, a segment of labour that is often excluded by traditional HR systems that mostly serve office-based and formal salaried employees. Wahdan said the company is addressing long-standing gaps in how frontline workers who handle essential operational tasks, including informal workers and shift-based employees, are scheduled, tracked, and paid. He said the platform has seen adoption among logistics, retail, food and beverages, and manufacturing businesses. “This investment marks a pivotal step for Bluworks,” said Wahdan, CEO. “We’ve proven the strength of our model in Egypt, and now we’re ready to scale faster — both by deepening our presence locally and by exploring regional opportunities.” Across Egypt and broader MENA, frontline workers make up more than 60% of the labour force, yet management processes in the sector remain fragmented and inefficient due to the outdated systems. Many businesses still rely on paper logs, manual timekeeping, or outdated software, leading to payroll disputes, operational inefficiencies, and high turnover. Bluworks is betting to replace these legacy processes with a unified digital platform that handles employee scheduling, attendance tracking, payroll processing and disbursement, and compliance aligned with Egyptian regulations. Its core value proposition is simplifying workforce operations for businesses while giving workers more transparency and control over how they are managed. Wahdan said the company earns revenue through subscription-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) plans, along with a monthly fee for each employee managed on the platform. The per-employee fee ranges from $1 to $1.6 per user per month, depending on the company’s size and plan.. He added that it considers Fawry HR, Mawared HR, and Excel as its competitors. “Our mission remains unchanged: to give companies the tools to manage their workforce more efficiently while creating better outcomes for employees,” Wahdan said. Abdelrahman Hassan, Principal at Enza Capital, described frontline labour as the “backbone of African economies” that has long been underserved by technology. He said digitising this segment represents a major opportunity to unlock productivity and drive financial inclusion across Egypt and MENA.
Read MoreDay 1-1000 of Regxta: The daughter who rebuilt her mother’s kolo digitally
“Banking the unbanked” has moved from being a fintech slogan to a phrase that fintechs throw around for YC funding and press releases. But for Rukayat Bello, CEO and co-founder of Regxta, ‘banking the unbanked’ is more than a slogan; it’s her life’s mission. Day 1: The mother who didn’t believe in banks Rukayat Bello’s mother built a thriving food business without ever visiting a bank. She was what financial inclusion experts call “unbanked”, what her daughter would later call “financially excluded.” “My mom does not believe in anything that has to do with banking,” Bello explains. “She loved the kolo so much.” The fire that destroyed Bello’s mother’s shop started in the house next door. Both buildings were connected. When the house went up in flames, it took everything with it. For Bello’s mother, it meant starting over after a year’s worth of savings, January through November, scorched in one night. Bello tried to help. She told her mother to go to a popular microfinance bank and apply for a loan, just ₦100,000 to restart the business. Her mother had never borrowed before, so surely they’d approve the loan. They didn’t. The bank told her to find 29 other people to form a group. They all needed to save together for three months before any loan could be disbursed. Her mother started gathering people, but when they showed up at the bank, the excuses started. “This person does not have a utility bill. This one does not have an ID card,” Bello recalls. “They were giving flimsy excuses.” Her mother tried another bank. Same story. Different impossible conditions. Back and forth, back and forth. Eventually, she stopped trying. Family and friends scraped together what they could—₦500 here, ₦1,000 there. It wasn’t enough to restock rice. So Bello’s mother, who once ran a thriving food business, made do with selling pepper and corn in front of the house. Bello told her mother she’d defer her university admission. Her mother refused. She took on more work like washing clothes for other people, anything to keep her children in school. That image of her mother, broken but still fighting, excluded from a financial system that should have helped her, stayed with long after she graduated. By the time Bello finished her youth service (NYSC), she’d saved over ₦300,000. She also had a boyfriend and both were planning to get married. She was saving toward an elaborate wedding. Then one day, her boyfriend came over. They were discussing wedding plans when something inside her shifted. She thought about starting a business. She sat with the idea for a day. What kind of business? Then she remembered her mother. The kolo that burned. The loan applications that went nowhere. The 29-person group requirement. The utility bill her mother didn’t have. “I just remembered that there was a time my mom was not able to gather and get money,” Bello says. “And then she was not even the only one. A lot of people actually need money to support their businesses.” She went to her mother with a proposal: She’d cancel her wedding and use the budget to start a microfinance operation, giving loans to people like her mother, market women who couldn’t access formal banking services. Her mother resisted at first but eventually gave in. Bello and her husband, Afis Bello, pooled their resources together: ₦750,000. They called the operation The Bells Dynamic Option. On the first day of operations in 2018, her mother brought her 77 customers. They split that ₦750,000 among those 77 customers disbursing small amounts: ₦5,000-₦10,000 here, ₦15,000 there. The next day, people came back, some with repayments, others, asking for another loan. This was how the business began. Get The Best African Tech Newsletters In Your Inbox Select your country Nigeria Ghana Kenya South Africa Egypt Morocco Tunisia Algeria Libya Sudan Ethiopia Somalia Djibouti Eritrea Uganda Tanzania Rwanda Burundi Democratic Republic of the Congo Republic of the Congo Central African Republic Chad Cameroon Gabon Equatorial Guinea São Tomé and Príncipe Angola Zambia Zimbabwe Botswana Namibia Lesotho Eswatini Mozambique Madagascar Mauritius Seychelles Comoros Cape Verde Guinea-Bissau Senegal The Gambia Guinea Sierra Leone Liberia Côte d’Ivoire Burkina Faso Mali Niger Benin Togo Other Select your gender Male Female Others TC Daily TC Events TC Scoop Subscribe Day 500: Name changes and borrowed trust The Bells Dynamic Option didn’t look like a traditional microfinance bank, even though that’s technically what it was. It was a lean but efficient team, processing loans quickly and documenting their operations digitally. In 2021, three years in, they rebranded. The Bells Dynamic Option was a confusing name. “The name is not resonating with you giving loans to people,” advisors kept telling them. So they tried to register as ‘Register’. The Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) rejected it. Too generic. They needed documentation they didn’t have. So they tweaked it. Register became Regxta. R-E-G-X-T-A. “It was actually funny,” Bello admits. But the name stuck. As they grew, they hit a fundamental problem: the people they wanted to serve couldn’t operate smartphones. Most microfinance banks were moving toward mobile apps, assuming customers would download and manage everything themselves. Bello looked at her mother—at the 77 women her mother had brought on that first day—and knew that wouldn’t work. So they began recruiting agents. The agent model solved the smartphone gap. These were young people in the communities where customers lived. Regxta trained them for two weeks on how to open accounts, accept deposits, and process loan applications through Regxta’s mobile app. The agents became the bridge between technology and the market women who couldn’t use it themselves. The genius of the model wasn’t just the agents. It was the trust structure Regxta built underneath. If you wanted a loan from Regxta, you needed a guarantor, but not just any guarantor. It had to be someone who was already a Regxta customer. Someone in your community. Someone whose own loan depended on your repayment. “We do cross-guarantorship,” Bello explains. “Before
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How to move your WhatsApp chats from Android to iOS without losing them
What you will need: A stable internet connection (preferably a WiFi network), a fully charged Android device and iPhone, and a Type-C to iPhone cord (optional). I’ve been loyal to both Samsung and Apple for years. But earlier this year, when I tried switching from my Samsung to my iPhone, the process felt like rocket science. My biggest worry was losing years of WhatsApp chats. So, I tried moving my local backup from my Android to the iPhone. But when I was onboarding the WhatsApp account on my iPhone, the iOS did not recognise any backups available on the device. I considered online recommendations that shared unverified third-party apps, but I had concerns about data breaches with many of these apps. After reading through many articles, Reddit threads, and watching YouTube videos, I discovered a safe way to migrate your WhatsApp account from your Android to your iPhone. Here is how you can, too. Preparing for migration If you just purchased your iPhone and have yet to use it, this step is perfect for you because your iPhone will need to be formatted before migration. However, if you have already begun using your iPhone, you need to back up all your data to iCloud or a hard drive before formatting your iPhone. To do this: Go to the settings of your iPhone, and click ‘General’. Image Source: TechCabal Image Source: TechCabal Click, ‘Transfer or Reset iPhone’. Your iPhone will prompt you to ‘Get started’. When you click ‘Get Started’, back up your apps and data to your iCloud. Image Source: TechCabal Image Source: TechCabal Image Source: TechCabal Once your data is safely backed up, you can go ahead and click ‘Erase All Content and Settings.’ Setting up your iPhone Image Source: 9to5Mac This process helps you migrate all your data, including contacts, messages from your Android to your iPhone. However, if you are only interested in moving just your WhatsApp chat, you can indicate so during the migration process. Connect your Android device to a WiFi network: To avoid network interruptions during the migration process, put your Android device in Airplane mode. Then, go to your WiFi settings. If there are other available nearby WiFi networks that you have previously connected to, click on each WiFi connection and turn off ‘Auto connection’. Image Source: TechCabal This prevents your Android from switching connections during the transfer process To also prevent your screen display from turning off during the transfer process, go to your Android’s screen display settings and set the screen timeout settings to the maximum setting. You can reset this to your preference once the migration process is complete. Image Source: Lifewire Apple does not offer a way to achieve this during setup, so you will need to be on standby to tap your iPhone’s screen to avoid the display turning off during the data transfer. Download the Move to iOS app from the Play Store on your Android device: Once the app is downloaded, open the app on your Android device, and set it beside your iPhone. Begin the setup on your iPhone: Choose your preferred language and iPhone appearance. On the Quick Start screen, you will be asked if you want to set up without another device. Click ‘Set Up Without Another Device’. Image source: PCMag Set up your iPhone network: After this, connect to the same WiFi network that your Android is connected to. Then, you will be prompted to read through a Data and Privacy notice. When you have read through and understood. Click ‘Continue’. Continue setting up iPhone: Indicate who you are setting up the iPhone for. Once this is done, you can choose to set up your Face ID now or later, and then set up your passcode. Image Source: TechCabal After this, once the ‘Transfer Your Apps & Data’ screen comes up, click ‘From Android’. Image Source: Macworld Migrating your WhatsApp account Migrating your data can be done over a wireless connection or via a cable. If you have a Type-C to iPhone cable, you can connect both devices for the transfer. However, you will need to ensure both devices are fully charged for this. Open the Move to iOS app on your Android device: You will be shown a screen that says, ‘Move from Android’. Click continue. Image Source: MacRumors Terms of agreement: Once you have read, understood, and consented to the terms of agreement, the next screen will ask if you want to send app usage data to Apple. Indicate your preference. Enter one-time code: On your iPhone, you will be shown a screen that says, ‘Move to iOS’. Click ‘Continue’ on your iPhone. Your iPhone will display an authentication code. Input the code on your Android device. Image Source: TechCabal Your Android prompted you to ‘connect to the device’ (your iPhone) via a temporary WIFi network. Click connect. Transfer Data: Here, you migrate all your data to your iPhone from your Android, or just your WhatsApp chats. Toggle the data you want to migrate, and click ‘Continue’. Image source: Oscarmini/YT Note: If you are transferring your messages (SMSes), some messages might be lost or mixed up in other group chats. Your photo library might also be data-heavy to move, so you can consider migrating it later through Google Photos or Xender. Move chats to iOS: When you toggle ‘WhatsApp’ to move your WhatsApp data to your iPhone, a WhatsApp screen will pop up to continue the process. Follow the onscreen prompts. Image Source: XDA You can only move one WhatsApp account during this migration process, and this process solely works for regular WhatsApp accounts, not WhatsApp Business accounts. If you omit this step and move all of your other data from your Android device to your iPhone, excluding your WhatsApp data, you will not be able to move your WhatsApp data later. You will need to erase your iPhone data and restart the migration process. Once the WhatsApp import is complete, you will be redirected to the Move to iOS
Read MoreEverything to know about SASSA December payments
As the festive season approaches, the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) has released its December 2025 grant payment schedule, bringing payouts forward to help households prepare for holiday spending. But the agency is still tightening its system using technology to prevent fraud and ensure that social grants are paid to the correct individuals. SRD grant extended The Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant has been extended for another 14 months, now set to continue through March 2027, Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana announced the extension during his Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS) in Cape Town. Social Development Minister Sisisi Tolashe welcomed the decision, noting that the extension provides additional time to develop and refine proposals for a more permanent basic income grant. To ensure that the grant reaches only those who qualify, the government will tighten eligibility checks. Applications will be cross-verified against tax records, Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) data, and the national population register. SASSA has also addressed previous shortcomings in its SRD application system, implementing fixes aimed at making the process more efficient and reliable for beneficiaries. Grant payment dates for December 2025 Older Persons Grant – Tuesday, 2 December 2025 Disability Grant – Wednesday, 3 December 2025 Children’s Grants – Thursday, 4 December 2025 Sassa grant amounts: Old Age (60-74 years) and Disability grants – R2 315 Old Age (75+ years) Grant – R2 335 War Veterans Grant – R2 315 Care Dependency Grant – R2 315 Child Support Grant – R560 Foster Care Grant – R1 250 SRD Grant – R370 How to check your SASSA grant status After applying for a SASSA grant, beneficiaries often want to know whether their application has been approved and when payments will be made. Fortunately, SASSA offers several secure and convenient ways to check your status. Don’t forget to use the same ID number and contact details you provided when applying. 1. Online: Visit the official SASSA SRD website: https://srd.sassa.gov.za/sc19/status Enter your South African ID number and the mobile number used in your application. Submit the form to see whether your application is approved, pending, or declined. If approved, payment dates will also be displayed. 2. WhatsApp: Save SASSA’s WhatsApp number: 082 046 8553 Send a message and follow the prompts to provide your application ID and details. You will receive your grant status via chat. 3. SMS: Open your messaging app and send: STATUS <space> ID number to 32555 You will receive a reply with your current grant status. 4. Call or Visit in Person: Call SASSA toll-free at 080 060 1011 for assistance. Alternatively, visit your nearest SASSA office to check your status in person, including biometric queries if needed.
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Which savings app offers the best interest rates in Nigeria in 2025?
You’re probably familiar with the question, ‘savings or current?’ from a Point of Sales (POS) agent when you want to withdraw money. When you deposit your money in a savings account with a traditional bank, you are promised an accrued interest, averaging 8% per annum, depending on the bank. However, savings accounts with fintechs such as Cowrywise and Piggyvest, Kuda, Fairmoney, and PalmPay offer higher interest rates, ranging from 14% to 22% per annum. Regardless, every savings product (and loan product) comes with an interest rate—the percentage return set by the platform or asset you’re investing in. But beyond interest, each savings app has its own features and limitations, depending on your goals and lifestyle. Here are the Nigerian savings apps offering the best rates, and the key features to consider. Which fintechs have the best savings interest rates? Piggyvest Image source: PiggyVest Blog Founded in 2016, Piggyvest was the first West African savings app. Now a popular digital savings platform, here are the savings plans they offer and their rates. Safelock (Fixed Savings): Focus on disciplinary savings. Rates are determined by the locked duration (14%-20% for 10-365 days). While you can lock your funds for up to 1,000 days, interest on any Safelock over 365 days will be paid at maturity. Piggybank: Automatic daily, weekly or monthly savings with interest that accrues daily. Free withdrawals happen once every 90 days. Interest is at 17% per annum. Target Savings: Automated goal-based and core savings, typically 12% per annum. This plan can be private or public, which is done with others. Savings have a minimum duration of 30 days and cannot be accessed till maturity. However, if you break a target before the due date, you will pay a 1% fee and forfeit its accrued interest. HouseMoney: A semi-strict plan for saving towards a house, where you will only be allowed to move your funds from the account during the month the savings mature. Interest is 14% per annum. Withdrawal Policy: Strict quarterly free withdrawal dates apply to core savings, and interest forfeiture (such as 1%) for breaking Safelocks and Target Savings B. Cowrywise Image source: Cowrywise Cowrywise has plans driven by communities and social circles. Regular Savings/Life Goals: Goal-oriented savings with a minimum lock-in (e.g., 3 months). Rates are typically tied to underlying money market funds. Emergency funds have an interest rate of 13.27%, while the House Rent saving plan, Study plan (for tuition and study goals), and car plan (savings towards a vehicle) feature an interest rate of 13.85% Money Duo: This plan allows you to build wealth together with your partner. Football & Basketball circles: These plans are powered by real-life triggers, such as saving money whenever your team scores, with an average interest rate of 13.27% Withdrawal Policy: Stricter adherence to maturity dates on fixed plans; designed for maximum discipline and investment focus. C. Fairmoney Image source: Fairmoney The microfinance bank has held over ₦35 billion in savings for Nigerians. It offers a flexible savings plan and a fixed deposit plan. FairSave (Flexible Savings): Focus on high liquidity and reported competitive interest (17% per annum) FairLock (Fixed Deposits): One of the most competitive interest rates with up to 28% per annum. The plan is best for long-term savings. Integrated Banking: Seamless MFB operations (loans, accounts, etc.). Withdrawal Policy: High flexibility and daily interest accrual for FairSave, while FairLock fixed deposit will be withdrawn automatically to your FairSave balance upon maturity. D. Kuda Image source: JoinKuda/X Kuda offers a savings trigger called ‘Spend+Save’ where a percentage of your choice is saved automatically every time you spend. This has no interest rate. Save frequently pocket: You can save daily, weekly, or monthly and get up to 8% per annum. Fixed Savings: You can get up to 12% annual interest on Fixed Savings. Withdrawal Policy: If you withdraw from your fixed savings plan before maturity, the plan is automatically deleted, your ‘spend’ account is credited, and 10% of the accrued interest is deducted from your returns. E. PalmPay Image source: MarketForces Africa Cashbox/SmartEarn (Savings): Offers high interest for flexible savings products for up to 20% per annum for Cashbox, and 22% per annum for SmartEarn. Target Savings: Goal-based savings with a 12% interest rate per annum. You can customise your savings frequency and goal. Payout is upon maturity. Spend and Save: Palmpay’s spend and save feature automatically deducts a pre-decided amount (e.g, 10%, 50%, 70% or 100%) from every transaction to your savings account. Your savings also accrue a 20% interest rate. Withdrawal policy: With SmartEarn, you can have 24/7 instant withdrawals with no redemption fees. Choosing the right platform for your financial goals While fintechs typically offer higher returns than commercial banks, each platform has its benefits, depending on your goals or what you prioritise. 1. You can choose Piggyvest if you Need strong discipline: Your primary goal is to enforce savings discipline using tools like Safelock (fixed savings) and HouseMoney. Want low liquidity: You are comfortable with strict quarterly free withdrawal dates for your core savings (Piggybank/Target Savings). Seek competitive fixed rates: You want high interest rates in the 14% – 20% range and are prepared for a small interest forfeiture (e.g., 1%) for breaking the fixed plan early. Key differentiator: Core strength is providing tools that enforce strict, mandatory savings discipline (Safelock).* 2. You can choose Cowrywise if you Are highly goal-oriented: You want to save towards specific life goals (House Rent, Study, Car) or participate in community-driven or social savings circles. Prioritise an investment focus: You are willing to strictly adhere to the maturity dates of your plans. Key Differentiator: Focuses on social, community-driven savings and maximising returns through plans directly tied to underlying money market funds.* 3. You can choose Fairmoney if you Want high fixed returns: You are focused on long-term savings and want the highest potential interest rate available, up to 28% with their FairLock (Fixed Deposits). Need flexible high-yield savings: Alternatively, you require a highly liquid account (FairSave) that offers competitive
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Loan apps with the best interest rates for Nigerians in 2025
You were probably short on cash, payday is still some days or a week away, and you were beating yourself up for the jollof rice and ice cream you “splashed” your money on three days after getting paid— and at that moment, an ad popped up on your screen while watching YouTube. “Borrow ₦50,000 instantly! No collateral. Low interest rate. No paperwork.” Sounded like a lifesaver, right? Millions of Nigerians feel the same way with loan apps like Fairmoney, Carbon, and Renmoney, promising fast, low-interest loans. But here’s what the fine print doesn’t say: that “low 5% monthly interest rate” you saw on the ad is a marketing strategy, and the real cost becomes clear only after the full interest is calculated. How Nigerian loan apps calculate short-term interest rates and APR Short-term interest rates are the extra percentage you pay on the amount you borrow for between a few days and one month. For example, if you borrow ₦50,000 at a 10% monthly interest rate, you will pay ₦5000 interest, making your total repayment ₦55,000 for that month. APR shows the actual yearly cost of your loan, including all fees and charges. In simple terms, APR is calculated by dividing the total cost of the loan (interest + fees) by the loan amount, adjusting for the loan term, and then converting it to a yearly percentage. This means the longer your repayment cycle is, the higher your total loan interest. For instance, if you borrow ₦100,000 for 12 months at a 4% monthly interest rate, your loan calculation would be: The compound interest rate will make the APR 60.1%. Total amount to be repaid ₦160,103.22. Note: Some loan apps in Nigeria are also notorious for charging high interest rates on short-term loans that last 3-7 days. Loan apps interest rate comparison in Nigeria (2025 update) Loan app interest rates are not uniform; they offer different packages, products, and services. Let’s look into some popular loan apps in Nigeria and how much they really charge as interest rates. Fairmoney Fairmoney is one of Nigeria’s leading fintech lenders, offering loans within minutes with minimal paperwork and no collateral. Official monthly interest rate: Fairmoney charges between 2.5% to 30% per month, depending on your credit score and loan duration. Annual percentage rate: That translates to an APR ranging from 30% to 260%. User(s) experience: Ayomide* took a loan of ₦10,000 and repaid ₦14,500 after 30 days. Putting the total interest rate at 45%. Carbon Carbon (formerly Paylater) offers personal loans and rewards early payments with lower rates. Official monthly interest rate: Between 4.5% and 30% per month. The rate reduces as you build a repayment history. Annual percentage rate: Goes up to 195% per year for high-risk loans. User(s) experience: Sobur* took a loan of 19,500 with an interest of ₦4,485, making the total amount to be repaid ₦23,985 in 3 installments over 3 months. However, User H defaulted on his loan which has now increased to ₦34,370.59 after two years of default. OPay (Easemoni) Easemoni is a part of Opay’s ecosystem, which is financed by Blue Ridge Microfinance Bank. It is licensed by the Central Bank of Nigeria. Official monthly interest rate: The monthly interest rate ranges between 5% to 10% per month. Annual percentage rate: The APR ranges between 60% to 120% per year, depending on how long the loan lasts. User(s) experience: Temiloluwa* took a loan of ₦22,000 with an interest of ₦4,944, making the total repayment ₦26,944 after 28 days. Putting the interest rate at 22.42%. Temiloluwa* took another loan of ₦12,000 with an interest of ₦5,370, making his total repayment ₦17,370 in three installment payments with a 3-month timeframe. Putting the interest rate at 44.75%, and the monthly interest rate at 14.9%. PalmPay (Flexi) PalmPay offers credit through Flexi, a loan product provided by Blooms Microfinance. How PalmPay loans work Flexi cash: offers loans with daily interest rates ranging from 0.6% and 1.5%, depending on the loan amount. The loan period is from 7 days to 4 months. Flexi BNPL (buy now pay later): this allows users to make purchases within the app and pay later with 0% interest. User(s) experience: Moyo has a due loan of ₦16,000 with an interest of ₦2,352 and a service fee of ₦1,280 for a 21-day loan. After calculating, Moyo will pay a daily interest of 0.70% and a cumulative of 14.7%. When Alex tried to take a loan of ₦20,000 for 28 days, the interest on the loan was pegged at ₦5,520, bringing his total repayment to 25,520. After calculating, Alex will pay a daily interest of 0.98% and a cumulative of 27.6%. Conclusion Every “instant loan” comes with a price tag, and a 5-minute approval can turn into months of repayments and a debt profile that becomes hard to manage. To keep a low debt profile, look beyond marketing hype, correctly calculate your APR, compare lenders, don’t take a loan you can’t repay, and don’t engage in loan stacking. As a thumb rule, know that; the smartest borrowers are the ones who pause, calculate, and borrow with a feasible repayment plan. Lastly, loan app interest rates are not uniform; a lot of variables, such as loan amount, loan term, and credit history, affect the final interest rate.
Read MoreNigeria’s drug supply chain is broken. OneHealth thinks PillFinda can fix it
Nigeria’s pharmacies and health centres operate in a notoriously fragile pharmaceutical supply chain. Essential medicines regularly go out of stock, and retail pharmacies often depend on a patchwork of open-drug markets, middlemen, and informal distributors to replenish inventory. As a result, Nigeria’s unavailability of essential medicines at pharmacies sits at nearly 65%, one of the highest in Africa. At the same time, the continent’s online pharmacy and B2B drug-procurement sector is growing, valued at over $560 million in 2022. Players like DrugStoc, Remedial Health, and Pharmarun already anchor parts of this value chain. Yet Nigeria still lags behind its peers in digital procurement adoption, leaving space for newer entrants to propose alternatives to the long-standing distribution inefficiencies. OneHealth, a Lagos-based online pharmacy and health-tech company founded in 2019, is one of those entrants. The company runs a direct-to-consumer (D2C) online pharmacy offering prescription fulfillment, telehealth, and chronic care support. It claims to have served “tens of thousands” of customers across multiple Nigerian states, and has gradually expanded into healthtech products, including a medication subscription service and home diagnostics. Now, the company says it wants to tackle the deeper structural challenges that constrain its consumer business: the reliability and cost of medicines. Its new product, PillFinda, is a B2B procurement marketplace that aims to give pharmacies and hospital dispensaries access to real-time inventory data, coordinated logistics, and a structured channel for sourcing essential and hard-to-find drugs. “There have been difficulties where pharmacies struggle with drug procurement for their stocking, or maybe they just need drugs that are scarce or hard to find,” Babatunde Oguntona, PillFinda’s sales manager, told TechCabal. “Sometimes, they have to go to different manufacturers or multiple vendors to be able to restock. But with this solution, what we are trying to do is to ensure that access to medication end-to-end is being covered.” Nigeria’s existing procurement pathways make that ambition clear. Most pharmacies still rely on major open drug markets like Idumota in Lagos or Sabon Gari in Kano, where prices shift daily with FX swings, and quality control is inconsistent. Others depend on regional wholesalers who lack digital systems, forcing pharmacists to spend hours calling multiple suppliers. Most time-pressed pharmacies outsource sourcing to informal procurement agents, often at a markup. PillFinda attempts to simplify this process by allowing pharmacies to browse available stock, place orders digitally, request products, and track deliveries through OneHealth’s logistics arm, PillMova. “If you’re looking for a particular brand or product that you cannot find on the platform, you make a request and upload the name and exact picture, and we will source it for you,” Victoria Ifeonye, the platform’s product manager, explained. But the B2B drug-distribution market is already crowded and highly competitive. Get The Best African Tech Newsletters In Your Inbox Select your country Nigeria Ghana Kenya South Africa Egypt Morocco Tunisia Algeria Libya Sudan Ethiopia Somalia Djibouti Eritrea Uganda Tanzania Rwanda Burundi Democratic Republic of the Congo Republic of the Congo Central African Republic Chad Cameroon Gabon Equatorial Guinea São Tomé and Príncipe Angola Zambia Zimbabwe Botswana Namibia Lesotho Eswatini Mozambique Madagascar Mauritius Seychelles Comoros Cape Verde Guinea-Bissau Senegal The Gambia Guinea Sierra Leone Liberia Côte d’Ivoire Burkina Faso Mali Niger Benin Togo Other Select your gender Male Female Others TC Daily TC Events TC Scoop Subscribe DrugStoc, one of the sector’s strongest incumbents, runs a licenced supply-chain network for pharmacies and hospitals in Nigerian states; Remedial Health provides inventory, software, data and financing solutions to healthcare providers in Africa; and Pharmarun aggregates pharmacy inventories for consumers and businesses. These platforms rely heavily on licensed distributors and, in some cases, run their own micro-distribution hubs, offering competitive pricing through negotiated bulk agreements. Compared to these companies, PillFinda does not yet operate large-scale warehousing or a nationwide network of distribution hubs. Oguntona says the platform’s differentiation lies in tighter logistics integration and deeper data tracking. PillFinda can monitor buying patterns and predict when a pharmacy is likely to run out of fast-moving products. That data, he said, allows for proactive restocking: “We can understand their buying pattern, what they purchase often, and then suggest when it’s time to restock,” he said. Nigeria’s pharmaceutical market is price-sensitive due to foreign exchange and tax. To keep pharmacies financially afloat, PillFinda incorporates a credit system that allows pharmacies to buy now and pay later, within controlled, monitored limits. “We give pharmacies a credit system,” Oguntona said. “But we monitor their credit behaviour, so we don’t give beyond what they can handle. That helps us stay profitable while supporting them.” PillFinda’s pricing model sits on traditional wholesale margins. The platform buys from manufacturers and licenced distributors, applies a markup, and sells to pharmacies. But because drug prices in Nigeria fluctuate with foreign exchange and import costs, OneHealth says it adjusts prices frequently based on supplier costs. The company also expects to earn from its credit system, offering short-term financing to pharmacies but capping limits based on repayment behaviour to reduce risk. Yet, the platform faces the same obstacles that have constrained others in the sector: Logistics costs remain high nationwide, regulatory compliance is complex, and many small pharmacies are slow to adopt digital tools. “We work with the Pharmacy Council of Nigeria (PCN) as well to ensure that we are obviously complying with all the laws and rights of medication supplies,” Ifeonye said. That strategy helps keep product prices stable for pharmacies but also suggests PillFinda is still constrained by the same market realities as other platforms, particularly those without exclusive manufacturer partnerships or large warehouse capacity. Players with deeper supply-side leverage tend to shape pricing; others must react to it. “We currently have another challenge with price margins with competitors,” Ifeonye acknowledged. “ But how we are solving that is that we adjust pricing based on our supplier costs, because we look for cheaper suppliers that give us medication at a very affordable rate.” Despite these constraints, OneHealth views PillFinda as more than an extension of its consumer business. The company aims to
Read MoreIn a first, more Kenyans are on M-Pesa than on Safaricom’s mobile network
For the first time, more Safaricom customers now rely on its M-Pesa mobile money service than on its traditional mobile network, signalling a major shift in the company’s business model. In the six months to September (H1 FY26), Kenya’s biggest telco reported 37.9 million one-month active M-Pesa users, compared with 37.5 million mobile subscribers, per its latest investor presentation. Data service subscribers stood at 31.9 million. Its mobile money also generated more revenue than core telco services like calls, data, and text. The platform reported KES 88.1 billion ($676.9), driven by higher transaction volumes and a growing merchant network. That figure exceeds the total revenue from mobile data ($309.6 million), mobile voice ($305 million), and messaging ($42.2 million) over the same period. M-Pesa now accounts for 44% of total service revenues, pointing to the growing importance of the mobile money service to Safaricom. The telco has been expanding the backbone of its mobile money by introducing merchant solutions, insurance, and wealth management products. In the period, the number of businesses accepting M-Pesa payments rose to 2.4 million, covering SMEs across the country. Its agent network stood at 319,300 active agents; a footprint larger than that of all other financial-sector service providers in Kenya, including banks, combined. In the six months, the company reported a 52.1% rise in profit to KES 42.8 billion ($331 million), helped by M-PESA business and a reduction in losses from its Ethiopian unit. Total revenue rose 8.1% to KES 204.7 billion ($1.58 billion), supported by an 11.1% jump in service revenue to KES 199.9 billion ($1.54 billion). Mobile services grew 14% over the period. Calls to split M-Pesa Kenya’s National Treasury and the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) have been pushing Safaricom to spin off M-Pesa into a standalone subsidiary to give regulators more control. In August, the Treasury Secretary told Bloomberg that the plan to split Safaricom into three separate units—its core telecom business, a tower company, and the mobile money giant M-Pesa—was in motion, a move that could also involve the state selling part of its 35% stake in the company. However, Safaricom prefers a group reorganisation that keeps M-Pesa under the same corporate umbrella, arguing that a complete spin-off would only make sense if it adds value for shareholders and customers, not to meet regulatory demands. On November 12, Vodacom Group, which holds a 40% stake in Safaricom, ruled out splitting M-Pesa from the core business and listing it separately, despite pressure from Kenyan authorities.
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