Baxi, one of Nigeria’s largest super-agent networks, has been bought by MFS Africa, a pan-African payments business, to facilitate the latter’s growth into the nation.
Baxi, founded in 2014 by Degbola Abudu and Folu Majekodunmi, provides a cash-in/cash-out service as well as value-added services to the last mile through its network of over 90,000 agents.
MFS Africa, the largest pan-African digital payments centre, has purchased the firm, which has already processed over $1 billion in transactions this year. MFS Africa, which last year bought East African payments management company Beyonic, intends to make Baxi a significant node on its digital payment network, allowing clients to send and receive regional and international payments to and from Nigeria.
MFS Africa will expand into Nigeria for the first time, pending to permission by the Central Bank of Nigeria, after having a restricted presence in the nation due to the country’s tiny number of mobile wallets. MFS Africa will also extend Baxi’s offline SMEs offering to a limited number of markets within MFS Africa’s 320 million mobile wallets presence across more than 35 African nations.
“We’re thrilled to partner with the MFS Africa team to expand our service offering for individuals and SMEs. We believe that we’ve barely scratched the market’s potential. Only three per cent of Nigerian SMEs have access to credit products. By teaming up with MFS Africa, and with the strong support of our local commercial banking partners, we can offer more value-added products and services, such as cross-border payments, to support Nigerian SMEs in their growth,” said Degbola Abudu, Baxi chief executive officer (CEO).
“This deal is a pivotal step in our journey. By combining Baxi’s network of SMEs operating as agents with our pan-African network, we aim to take Nigeria’s SMEs to the rest of Africa and the world. Our expansion into Nigeria brings us one step closer in our mission of making borders matter less,” said Dare Okoudjou, MFS Africa’s founder and CEO.
