Government
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Segun Agbaje, the group president of Guaranty Trust Holding Company Plc (GTCO), among Nigeria’s biggest monetary services groups, informed experts in 2020 that the group was coming for the payments area. 6 years later on, GTCO’s numbers reveal that payments have actually ended up being a company in their own right– one that earns money, generates consumers, and serves merchants.
Through Habari Pay Ltd, GTCO’s payments organization, the group has actually developed a payments facilities service throughout changing and processing. Through GTWorld and Pay-with-Transfer, it is processing significantly big volumes of consumer deals.
On the surface area, GTCO’s very first half of 2026 numbers were not especially outstanding. Gross revenues increased by 3.25%, revenue after tax decreased by 7.76%, while its cost-to-income ratio stayed low at 31.50%.
Below this is a bank pressing more of its consumers’ monetary activity online and significantly sitting in between clients, merchants, banks, and payment rails.
When fintechs went into the marketplace, they won consumers by paying quicker and more trustworthy, while constructing big merchant networks around Point of Sale (PoS) terminals. That assisted improve Nigeria’s payments landscape, with the nation processing more than 1.2 quadrillion ($902.19 billion) worth of deals in 2025, according to the Reserve Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
GTCO’s H1 2026 numbers reveal that banks are now investing greatly in the very same facilities and client behaviour.
Here are 5 numbers that reveal where GTCO’s payments technique is heading.
Government GTCO is moving closer to the deal
Consumer
GTWorld/ Pay-with-Transfer
Experience Layer
Habari Pay/ Switching & Processing
Facilities Layer
Merchant
BANK
EXPERIENCE
FACILITIES
1.2Q+
Nigeria’s payment system · 2025
This is the marketplace GTCO is moving deeper into.
The Banking Headline
On the surface area, this does not appear like a payments story.
Look more detailed.
Government 1. 7.81 billion ($5.87 million): Payments is a revenue engine
HabariPay, GTCO’s payments company, stays little relative to its banking franchise, however it is growing much quicker. It is the most lucrative bank-led fintech in the nation.
In H1 2026, HabariPay created 7.81 billion ($5.87 million) in revenue after tax, practically double the 4.02 billion ($3.02 million) tape-recorded in H1 2025. Its operating earnings increased 87.16% year-on-year to 9.44 billion ($7.09 million), while payment worth processed through its changing and processing organization increased by 136.5%.
HabariPay released in June 2022 to target SMEs and sellers, providing PoS, USSD, web entrances, virtual accounts, and changing services through Squad.
In H1 2026, it reported payment worth throughout changing, airtime vending and global payments for Habari.
“Strong deal development throughout changing, airtime vending and global payments shows deepening community adoption, wider client usage cases and increasing cross-border activity,” GTCO stated.
Habari’s changing and processing worth has actually grown by 662.04% to 74.72 trillion ($56.17 billion) considering that H1 2024. Since the 9 months ending September 2025, Access Holdings’ Hydrogen reported a translation worth of 60.4 trillion ($45.41 billion).
In 2025, Habari informed TechCabal that its changing and processing licence enables it to power Point-of-Sale terminals, a brand-new line of work for it.
Airtime vending, the sale of mobile airtime through digital payment channels, is up 88.69%. This development accompanies the short-lived suspension of telecom business from using airtime and information credit advances in H1, a disturbance that struck telco-led fintech companies. MTN Nigeria’s fintech earnings, for instance, fell by 72.4% throughout the duration.
International payments increased by 3,890.67% over the very same duration. International payments have actually gained from the stabilisation of the forex marketwhich has actually enabled banks to raise limitations on global deals. The bank raised worldwide deal limitations from $6,000 to $20,000 quarterly in H1 2026.
In August, GTCO increased its quarterly worldwide payments restrict to $40,000which need to equate into greater volumes by year-end.
GTCO’s payments service covers numerous deal channels, producing profits from merchant payments, changing, transfers, airtime, global payments, and other services. GTCO makes little costs on the deal its procedures, with income building up as payment volumes grow.
“Revenue development was supported by increasing deal activity, more comprehensive merchant and customer adoption and broadening value-added services, while scalable facilities and disciplined execution continued to support strong PBT development,” GTCO stated.
HabariPay’s cost-to-income ratio stood at 17.3%, while return usually possessions and equity increased to 75.3% and 78.2%respectively, from 44.8% and 49.6% in H1 2024.
GTCO never ever actually developed HabariPay as another top quality customer fintech completing for downloads, however concentrated on making it a payments facilities organization connected to a big banking group.
Government 2. 26.70 trillion ($20.07 billion): GTWorld is ending up being more than a banking app
GTWorld, GTCO’s individual banking app, crossed 3 million active users in October 2025 and is growing at a month-on-month rate of 12%. In H1 2026, it processed 337.4 million deals, up 15.82% year-on-year, while deal worth increased by 22.1%.
E-business earnings, which catches income from the group’s digital banking channels, grew by 47.36% throughout the duration.
For GTCO, the development of GTWorld offers the group a growing digital circulation channel through which it can move more banking services online while increasing the volume of deals it processes. Because sense, GTWorld is ending up being an essential bridge in between GTCO’s banking service and its more comprehensive payments aspirations.
GTCO kept in mind that it is raising GTWorld into a totally fledged monetary services app with “the go-live of Account Opening and Linking, Subscription, and Redemption for GTFunds Managers. This turning point made Banking, Pensions, and Investments perfectly available within a single integrated App.”
Consumers can now access banking, pensions, and financial investments through the exact same digital user interface. Rather of constructing different digital journeys for each company inside the group, GTCO is utilizing one consumer user interface to disperse banking, payments, and financial investment items.
The app is for that reason ending up being less of a digital variation of a bank branch and more of a circulation layer throughout the group.
Government 3. 1.11 trillion ($834.52 million): Pay-with-Transfer is altering how GTCO’s clients pay
GTCO’s Pay-with-Transfer function taped among the fastest rates of development in its payments organization.
In between H1 2025 and H1 2026, deal worth increased from 70.05 billion ($52.67 million) to 1.11 trillion ($834.52 million), while volume increased by 1,587.39%.
“Pay-with-Transfer worths continued to increase, showing strong user adoption driven by speed and benefit, placing it amongst the fastest-growing payment approaches,” the bank stated
The development is occurring as some older payment channels decrease. Card use visited 13.31%, while USSD deals decreased by 15.29%.
“Card payments stay essential, although client activity is significantly moving towards options such as Pay-with-Transfer,” the bank stated.
Cards have actually traditionally been among the most noticeable pieces of Nigeria’s digital payments facilities, however immediate transfers are progressively ending up being reputable for daily deals.
In 2025, Moniepoint stated transfers represented 39% of payments for casual organizations it surveyed, compared to 51% for money and 9% for cards.
For GTCO, Pay-with-Transfer development implies it is catching more of its clients’ payment journey through its channels.
Government 4. 1.50 trillion: GTCO is severe about its PoS company
At the end of 2025, GTCO dedicated to releasing 200,000 PoS terminals across the country and increasing the worth of deals processed through its terminals significantly in 2026.
H1 numbers reveal that it is making considerable development.
PoS deal volume increased 299% year-on-year to 50.3 million deals in H1 2026, while deal worth increased 369% to 1.50 trillion ($1.13 billion).
“Increased merchant adoption and greater deal activity drove strong development in POS volumes,” GTCO stated.
The loan provider did not divulge the number of terminals it has actually released, however the development in deal volume and worth indicate a broadening merchant network.
GTCO’s target is much bigger. Its 2026 PoS strategy targets 1 trillion ($751.82 million) in regular monthly overall payment worth by deepening its reach amongst SMEs, corporates, fintech platforms, and organizations through ingrained financing items and closer combination with the GTCO community.
At its present H1 average of approximately 250 billion ($187.96 million) each month, business is processing about a quarter of that target, revealing both the scale of GTCO’s aspiration and the quantity of development still needed to reach it.
PoS terminals are among Nigeria’s essential monetary circulation channels, serving countless small companies. PoS deals totaled up to 59.3 trillion ($44.58 billion) in Q1 2026.
Since March 2025, there were more than 5.90 million active PoS terminals in Nigeria, with fintechs still holding a considerable position in the market. Moniepoint states it has more than one million active terminals processing over 10 trillion ($7.52 billion) in deals monthly. OPay states more than one million companies depend upon its merchant services.
Nigeria’s banks are now pursuing this payment channel more strongly. GTCO has gotten rid of processing costs on all its PoS terminals, making merchant acquisition a tactical concern instead of just a source of deal profits.
Government 5. 31.09 billion ($23.37 million): Technology costs is slowing
After years of increasing innovation financial investment, GTCO’s technology-related expenditures decreased by 17.66% year-on-year in H1 2026.
It is the lending institution’s most affordable half-year technology-related expenditure given that H1 2023, when it invested 17.02 billion ($12.79 million).
In between H1 2021 and H1 2025, GTCO’s innovation costs increased more than fivefold. In 2024 alone, innovation costs increased by 48.4% to 88 billion ($66.16 million). The H1 2026 decrease might imply a shift in its tech financial investments.
After years of structure digital facilities, GTCO might now be moving from broadening its innovation stack to drawing out more worth from the facilities it has actually currently constructed, with the numbers recommending that the facilities is being utilized at higher scale.
When Agbaje laid out GTCO’s payment aspirations in 2020, he indicated Paystack as a business operating in the area the group wished to get in. In 2024, Paystack stated services sent out and gotten more than 1 trillion ($751.82 million) through its platform in July alone. Upgraded figures are not readily available, however that year the payments business stated 66% of deals on its platform were taking place through bank transfers.
GTCO’s payment platform is still some range from the scale of Nigeria’s greatest fintechs. OPay processed $358 billion in gross deal worth in 2025 and tape-recorded $72.47 million in net revenue. Moniepoint processed 412 trillion ($309.75 billion) in deal worth.
The numbers recommend that Agbaje’s 2020 payments aspiration is no longer simply a method on paper. GTCO is progressively developing a payments service around its banking franchise’s facilities, consumers, and deal circulations– and the space in between that aspiration and its present service is starting to narrow.
Keep in mind: currency exchange rate utilized: 1,330.11/$
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