When Onafriq introduced it used to be shutting down Baxi, its Nigerian agent banking industry, on October 16, it marked the end of a five-year expansion effort that started when the corporate received one among Nigeria’s biggest impartial agent banking networks. However months sooner than saying the closure, the pan-African bills corporation were negotiating a sale of Baxi.
The proposed sale, which lined all the company banking operation lively most effective in Nigeria, remained unresolved as of July, in line with Onafriq’s audited financial statements filed in the UK.
Within the observation saying Baxi’s closure, the corporate cited inflation, naira depreciation, emerging running prices, shrinking margins, and expansion in choice fee strategies equivalent to account-to-account (A2A) transfers, which weakened offline bills. It mentioned the economics of operating an offline agent community had change into unsustainable.
Onafriq’s observation didn’t point out the possible purchaser or the standing of the negotiations. As of July 29, when the accounts have been authorized, negotiations have been nonetheless ongoing, and Onafriq mentioned it might no longer reliably estimate the construction, timing, or monetary have an effect on of a sale.
“All through 2026, Onafrıq Nigeria Bills Restricted entered right into a non-binding memorandum of phrases with a buyer in appreciate of the proposed divestment of the company industry,” the corporate said in the financial statements. “The proposed transaction contemplates the sale of 100% of the company industry and similar operations, matter to the phrases and stipulations to be agreed between the events in a definitive asset acquire settlement.”
By way of then, the industry had already suffered a pointy monetary decline. Onafriq’s company products and services earnings fell 56% to $13.4 million in 2024, from $30.4 million the former 12 months. The corporate additionally wrote off the rest $4.56 million in goodwill tied to its Nigerian bills industry, reflecting a decline within the price it anticipated to get better from the funding.
The tried sale reversed the tactic that introduced Onafriq into Nigeria. The corporate had received Baxi to glue a limiteless community of cash-based brokers to its pan-African bills infrastructure.
5 years later, it used to be searching for an acquirer to take over that community. By way of October, it used to be telling Baxi’s brokers—over 460,000 as of 2025—to transport their price range somewhere else.
An unfinished sale
Baxi’s declining earnings used to be most effective a part of its monetary troubles. Even supposing Onafriq reduce company products and services prices from $17 million in 2023 to $8.7 million in 2024, gross benefit fell even sooner, declining via 65% from $13.4 million to $4.7 million, according to its financial report.
The crowd’s company industry generated about $35 in gross benefit for each $100 in earnings in 2024, down from $44 the former 12 months. That left significantly much less cash to hide salaries, generation, and different running bills.
By the point Onafriq started negotiating a sale in 2026, its company products and services generated considerably much less gross benefit than they did two years previous. The industry additionally operated company-owned point-of-sale (PoS) terminals and equipped non permanent credit score to brokers whose pockets balances have been operating low.
Consistent with Onafriq, brokers generally had one to seven days to pay off the loans, with rates of interest starting from 2.5% to 7% for every mortgage. The corporate funded the credit score from its personal sources, assessed brokers’ creditworthiness, and picked up repayments and controlled defaults.
In July 2026, Onafriq mentioned its Nigerian subsidiary, Onafriq Nigeria Bills Restricted, owed ₦13.8 billion ($10.4 million) to Zenith Financial institution, a Nigerian tier-1 lender, and ₦6.1 billion ($4.6 million) to Stanbic IBTC Financial institution, a mid-tier financial institution, in exceptional overdrafts, bringing the entire to ₦19.9 billion ($15 million), its filings showed.
“We entered Nigeria with conviction and dedication, however didn’t reach the end result we set out for,” Dare Okoudjou, Onafriq’s founder and leader government officer, said in the statement saying Baxi’s shutdown in Nigeria.
The economics in the back of Baxi’s retreat
Onafriq had already begun writing down the worth of its Nigerian bills industry sooner than Baxi’s shutdown. It wrote off $2.4 million in goodwill in 2023 and the rest $4.56 million in 2024, according to its filings.
Goodwill is the additional price recorded when an organization buys a industry, past the worth of its identifiable internet property. The write-offs intended Onafriq not anticipated the industry’s long run profits to justify that additional price.
Alternatively, different portions of Onafriq’s group-wide industry have been acting higher. Income from cash switch charges grew via 20% to $43.9 million in 2024. The crowd’s card rate earnings additionally jumped 22%.
The contrasting efficiency is helping provide an explanation for why Onafriq retained its bills community and card-issuing products and services whilst ultimate Baxi. But, Nigeria’s wider PoS marketplace offered a extra difficult image.
Consistent with the Nigeria Inter-Financial institution Agreement Gadget (NIBSS), the rustic’s bills transfer, PoS transactions’ price rose 79% to ₦18.78 trillion ($14.1 billion) within the first quarter of 2026. The choice of deployed PoS terminals had greater than doubled, from 2.45 million on the finish of 2023 to five.56 million on the finish of 2024.
However the expansion in transaction price hid a far slower building up within the choice of bills. In 2024, NIBSS data showed PoS transaction volumes rose via simply 8%, from 1.4 billion to at least one.5 billion, whilst deployed terminals larger via 127%.
The choice of terminals used to be increasing a lot sooner than the transactions passing thru them. For agent banking suppliers, extra units available in the market intended higher festival for patrons, with out a corresponding building up within the choice of transactions from which they may earn commissions.
Deployed PoS terminals
5.56 million
Terminals deployed national via year-end
THE NETWORK
5.56m
Every sq. represents roughly
50,000 deployed terminals.
Squares are a scaled representation.
Annual PoS transactions
1.5 billion
Transactions processed national
all through the 12 months
TRANSACTION VOLUME
1.5bn
0
1.6bn transactions
The bar makes use of the similar scale for
each years, making the somewhat
small alternate visual.
THE IMPLIED TRANSACTIONS PER TERMINAL
270
annual transactions in step with
year-end deployed terminal
−53%
alternate from 2023 to 2024
In 2024, Nigeria recorded kind of
270 annual PoS transactions for
each terminal deployed at year-end,
when put next with about 571 in 2023.
In the meantime, Baxi’s economics have been deteriorating
Onafriq’s reported company products and services figures
display what took place to the industry as
Nigeria’s wider PoS community expanded.
Those are organization company products and services figures,
no longer a measure of transactions in step with Baxi agent.
Company products and services earnings
$13.4m
Down 56% from 2023
Company products and services gross benefit
$4.7m
Down 65% from 2023
What the numbers counsel:
Nigeria’s PoS community used to be increasing some distance
sooner than the choice of transactions
flowing thru it. This is constant
with intensifying festival for
transaction job, whilst Onafriq’s
company earnings and gross benefit declined.
It does no longer determine that the nationwide
development brought about Baxi’s losses or shutdown.
Pageant used to be additionally coming from a lot greater operators. Moniepoint, one among Baxi’s competitors, already had over 800,000 PoS terminals in Nigeria on the finish of 2024. By way of 2026, the quantity had grown to over one million active PoS terminals within the nation.
The Nigerian fintech unicorn mentioned it served over six million businesses in 2025, underscoring the size of the networks Baxi used to be competing towards, which made its industry exhausting to justify.
From growth to go out
Onafriq entered Nigeria’s agent banking marketplace in October 2021, when the corporate, then referred to as MFS Africa, announced its acquisition of Capricorn Virtual Restricted, the corporate in the back of Baxi. The deal used to be finished in March 2022 after receiving the Central Financial institution of Nigeria’s (CBN) approval.
On the time, Baxi had greater than 90,000 brokers offering coins withdrawals, transfers, and invoice bills. The community processed over $1.6 billion in transactions in 2021, making it one among Nigeria’s biggest impartial agent banking networks.
The purchase used to be supposed to glue Baxi’s bodily distribution community to MFS Africa’s cross-border bills infrastructure. In June 2022, the corporate additionally secured debt financing from Stanbic IBTC Financial institution to strengthen Baxi’s growth.
5 years later, Onafriq is dismantling that technique. Following the shutdown, it mentioned it had transferred Baxi’s brokers to some other important financial institution and given them 30 days to transport their price range to a important financial institution in their selection.
Onafriq will proceed running in Nigeria thru its bills community and card-issuing products and services, however with out the agent banking industry it received to determine a foothold within the nation’s offline bills marketplace.
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