Redtech Ltd, the Lagos-headquartered payments company backed by Heirs Holdings, is setting its sights on pan-African expansion, with plans to enter 29 countries by 2027 and pursue mergers and acquisitions as part of its growth strategy.
The fintech, which operates primarily through its payments platform RedPay, recorded a breakout 2025 financial year, processing ₦30 trillion (approximately $20.6 billion) in transactions, more than double the ₦12 trillion ($8.2 billion) reported in 2024.
Chief Executive Officer Emmanuel Ojo confirmed that inorganic growth is firmly under consideration.
“It’s all on the table,” Ojo told Techpoint Africa when asked whether acquisitions could feature in Redtech’s expansion playbook.
The statement signals a shift in ambition for a company that only recently completed its first full year of operations but is already positioning itself as a continental infrastructure player.
What You Need to Know
Redtech’s core offering, RedPay, provides point-of-sale (POS) terminals, merchant collections, payment gateways and digital payment channels. Within its first full year, the company says it onboarded more than 35,000 merchants and deployed tens of thousands of POS devices nationwide.
The expansion push comes at a time when Nigeria’s POS and agency banking ecosystem is facing mounting pressures. Increased competition, tighter margins and regulatory recalibrations from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) have prompted several operators to diversify beyond basic cash-in, cash-out services.
POS penetration, which surged during Nigeria’s cash scarcity crisis in 2023, has since shown signs of plateauing. Yet Redtech appears to be betting on a hybrid model, serving both high-velocity, low-ticket merchants such as neighbourhood retailers and lower-frequency, high-value enterprise clients.
The company also collaborates with financial institutions to support deposit mobilisation, positioning itself as both a retail payments enabler and an enterprise infrastructure partner.
Banking on Agency Networks Amid Recapitalisation Drive
While some fintech players are pivoting away from agency banking due to shrinking margins, Ojo maintains that the model remains strategically important.
Nigeria’s banking sector is currently preparing to meet revised recapitalisation requirements set by the CBN, with a compliance deadline of 2026. In this context, agent networks provide banks with alternative channels for account opening, deposit mobilisation and last-mile financial services, particularly beyond traditional banking hours.
According to Ojo, this structural demand ensures continued relevance for well-integrated agent networks, even as the economics evolve.
Redtech’s differentiator, he argues, lies in its enterprise-grade integrations. By embedding deeper into the systems of large organisations and financial institutions, the company claims it can process high transaction volumes with minimal downtime, a critical metric in Nigeria’s payments ecosystem, where service interruptions can quickly erode merchant confidence.
Strengthening Ties with UBA and Expanding Westward
A key pillar of Redtech’s strategy is its partnership with United Bank for Africa (UBA), one of the continent’s largest banking groups.
The fintech acts as a systems integrator and infrastructure provider to UBA and has already implemented mobile banking solutions for the bank in five West African countries. It now plans to support UBA’s broader cross-border expansion across its African footprint.
Beyond Anglophone markets, Redtech has begun building mobile banking and payment infrastructure in several Francophone West African nations, including Benin, Burkina Faso, Senegal and Mali.
“We have developed mobile banking solutions in certain French-speaking countries — Burkina Faso, Senegal, Mali, and the Republic of Benin. The next phase will be moving between West and Central Africa, but what will really inform our decision for every move that we make is to ensure that we’ve established regulatory permits in either of those countries or strategic local partnerships,” Ojo said.
The emphasis on regulatory compliance and local partnerships underscores the complexities of scaling payments infrastructure across Africa, where licensing regimes, currency controls and interoperability frameworks vary widely by jurisdiction.
$100m Capital Raise Under Consideration
To fund its continental ambitions, Redtech is considering raising up to $100 million in private capital over the next two years. While a public listing remains off the table for now, the proposed capital raise would provide the firepower required for expansion, technology upgrades and potential acquisitions.
The company has also set aggressive operational targets. Within the next two years, it aims to process ₦100 trillion annually in transactions and deploy more than 100,000 POS terminals.
If achieved, those milestones would position Redtech among the most significant independent payments infrastructure players in Nigeria and potentially across parts of sub-Saharan Africa.
Continental Ambition in a Competitive Landscape
Africa’s fintech sector has matured rapidly over the past decade, moving from consumer-facing wallet solutions to deeper infrastructure plays that power banks, merchants and governments.
Redtech’s strategy reflects this shift. Rather than competing solely in the crowded consumer payments arena, the company is attempting to straddle retail agency banking and enterprise-grade financial infrastructure — a model that could provide resilience in an increasingly competitive market.
With acquisitions now openly under consideration and a nine-figure capital raise on the horizon, Redtech’s next chapter will test whether its early momentum can translate into sustained continental scale.
If successful, the Lagos-based fintech could become one of the next generation of African payments firms to evolve from domestic disruptor to regional infrastructure backbone.
Talking Points
Redtech’s ambition to expand into 29 African countries by 2027 signals a company thinking beyond domestic dominance and positioning itself as continental infrastructure. That level of scale, especially so early in its lifecycle, reflects bold confidence backed by strong transaction growth.
At Techparley, we see Redtech’s hybrid strategy, straddling agency banking and enterprise infrastructure as a calculated hedge in a tightening market. While margins in agent banking are narrowing, its relevance remains strong, particularly as banks race to meet recapitalisation requirements ahead of the CBN’s 2026 deadline.
Its enterprise tilt could prove to be the real differentiator. In a crowded field of consumer-focused fintechs, deeper systems integration with banks and large organisations offers stickier revenue streams and higher transaction stability. Infrastructure players often outlast purely front-end payment brands.
The strengthening relationship with UBA and expansion into Francophone West Africa also reflects strategic positioning. Cross-border banking infrastructure remains fragmented across the continent, and firms that can bridge Anglophone and Francophone markets stand to gain a competitive advantage.
If executed well, Redtech could evolve from a fast-growing Nigerian fintech into a backbone infrastructure provider across multiple African markets. The next two years will determine whether its rapid growth translates into sustainable continental scale or stretches the organisation too thin.
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