LAGOS, Sept 1 – Paystack acquired Nigerian card-issuing fintech Allawee in 2025 in a deal that was not publicly announced, and Allawee will now close its business and personal account services from December 1, 2026, according to emails sent to its customers.
Allawee said its technology now operates within Paystack and warned customers that payments sent to their Allawee account numbers from December 1 will fail. Its cards will also stop working, regardless of the expiry date printed on them.
Customers have until November 30 to withdraw their balances, provide new bank details to people who pay them and update saved Allawee card details linked to subscriptions. The company said remaining funds would not expire or be forfeited, but customers would need to email Paystack MFB to request a manual payout.
Paystack and Allawee declined to comment on the acquisition or the reasons behind the shutdown.
The move makes Allawee the second fintech brand Paystack has acquired and folded into its operations this year. In June, Paystack folded business banking startup Brass into its microfinance bank. It also acquired Ladder Microfinance Bank in January, giving the payments company a banking licence, and reorganised under a new holding company.
Founded in 2022 by Ikenna Enenwali and Oreofe Olurin, Allawee changed its business model twice before focusing on card infrastructure. It initially launched as a credit card lender, then moved into credit-risk software before developing systems that allowed banks and fintechs to issue and manage cards.
By May 2025, Allawee was issuing cards for Piggyvest, Nomba and Carbon through a platform that reduced the time needed to launch card programmes from months to weeks. It also provided business accounts through a partnership with Providus Bank and issued a Mastercard credit card for federal civil servants and National Youth Service Corps members.
Those services are now being divided between Paystack’s businesses. Customers using Allawee business accounts are being directed to Paystack MFB, while individual users are being directed to Zap, Paystack’s consumer transfer app.
Balances, account numbers, transaction histories and verification records will not be transferred, meaning customers must open new accounts.
The acquisition appears to give Paystack access to card infrastructure that could otherwise take one to two years to build. With its own banking licence, Paystack’s microfinance bank can now provide services that overlapped with Allawee’s Providus-backed accounts.
The consolidation reflects a wider shift in Nigeria’s fintech market. After the funding boom between 2020 and 2022, tighter capital and increased regulatory scrutiny have pushed companies towards consolidation, making acquisitions a faster way to obtain existing technology and infrastructure.
In January, Flutterwave also acquired open banking startup Mono to strengthen its account-to-account payments, financial data and verification capabilities.
