Merchants Overtake Agents, As PalmPay Hits 1.1m Businesses

PalmPay, a digital bank in Nigeria, said the number of merchants on its platform has now surpassed banking agents on its platform, as the number of businesses hit 1.1 million.

The platform boasts 600,000 merchants and 500,000 banking agents as of September 2023. It is a significant leap from the coming which in June reported 500,000 agents and 300,000 merchants.

Chika Nwosu, CEO of PalmPay Nigeria disclosed this on Friday at the company’s 4th year anniversary in Lagos. According to the CEO, PalmPay saw its biggest numbers during the COVID-19 pandemic when many Nigerians resorted to online payment because bank branches were shut and ATMs were not giving dispensing cash regularly.

Another surge time for PalmPay was in January when the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) attempted to implement its naira redesign forcing a cash scarcity that nearly shut down the economy. It was during this scarcity that fintech companies like PalmPay emerged as a viable option to traditional banking. The company has so far recorded 30 million registered users and transaction volume has surged to 15 million daily.

The company now prides itself on being the fastest-growing fintech company in Nigeria, with 40 million consumers, or 1 in 5 Nigerians now using the platform via its app, agents, and merchants for money transfers.

“This remarkable achievement firmly establishes PalmPay as a trusted and reliable platform for conducting a wide range of financial transactions,” said Nwosu. “With our achievements, we fully embody our tagline – Finance Tat Fits Your Life. As we move forward, we are excited about the opportunities that lie ahead and are committed to fostering a future when financial services are accessible to all.”

Beyond embracing the app, each user makes up to 50 transactions per month on average. One of the company’s selling points is the ability to fast-track transactions. PalmPay said it has a 99.5 percent success rate in processing transactions within 10 seconds.