Paga Wants To Be The Bank For The African Diaspora In America

When Tayo Oviosu founded Paga in Lagos back in 2009, his mission was to give Nigerians an easier way to move money. At the time, sending or receiving cash often meant long queues, unreliable services, and hefty fees.

Fast forward to today, and Paga has grown into one of Africa’s largest fintechs, processing more than 124 million transactions worth USD 5.6 B in 2024 across consumer wallets, merchant payments, agent services, and remittances. Now, Oviosu and his team are taking its banking solution global, with United States being the recent destination.

The company has launched a U.S. service designed for the African diaspora, beginning with Nigerians, the largest African immigrant group in America.

Officially domiciled in the U.K., Nigeria has always been its home base and one of its biggest market.

More than 700,000 Nigerians live in the U.S., and the wider diaspora sends around USD 21 B back home each year. Paga wants to capture a slice of that flow, but it isn’t just pitching cheaper remittances, it is pitching an full banking solution.

Through a partnership with Oklahoma-based Regent Bank, Paga is offering FDIC-insured U.S. accounts that can be opened with little more than a valid ID and address.

While it has long supported inbound international remittances into Nigeria through partnerships with operators like Western Union and MoneyGram, Paga itself never ran an outbound remittance service.

The U.S. launch is the first time it is stepping directly into full diaspora banking, positioning itself not just as a receiver of money, but as the financial hub for Africans abroad.

Each account comes with physical and virtual Visa debit cards that work with Apple Pay, Google Pay, Robinhood, Venmo, and other apps. Users can spend, save, invest, and send money without juggling multiple platforms. Oviosu describes it as “one wallet for two worlds.”

That positioning matters. For many African immigrants, banking in the U.S. is still a hurdle. Black households face an unbanked rate of 10.6%, compared to 1.9% for white households. Opening an account can mean battling paperwork, minimum balance rules, or outright exclusion. By lowering those barriers, Paga hopes to tap into a market that is both underserved and financially powerful.

But the company is stepping into a crowded ring. African fintechs like Flutterwave, Chipper Cash, and Moove have already expanded into the U.S., mainly as remittance services dicing up the same diaspora market. But Paga is betting that a full-fledged banking approach, not just money transfers, will set it apart.

Where most competitors are optimized for one-way flows, Paga wants plans to become the everyday account diaspora Africans use for provide an account for bills, savings, and investments.

The timing couldn’t be better. Remittances already play a critical role in Nigeria’s economy, surpassing oil revenue in 2024. And the long-term potential is massive. Africa’s cross-border payments market is expected to triple to USD 1 T by 2035, fueled by digital wallets, mobile money adoption, and growing migration. Whoever wins the trust of the diaspora today could end up controlling the rails of African finance tomorrow.

Paga has the pedigree to make a credible run. The company is backed by heavyweight investors like former Goldman Sachs Asset Management chairman Jim O’Neill, and it has built one of the strongest agent networks in Nigeria.

Paga also has scale on its side. In 2024, it processed more than 124 million transactions worth USD 5.6 B. Its agent-led distribution has given millions of Nigerians a first taste of digital finance, and its ecosystem now spans consumer wallets, SME solutions, and B2B infrastructure.

Oviosu has made it clear that this launch is just the beginning. Regent Bank is the first of several U.S. partners, with more deals in the works to ensure nationwide coverage. Over the next five years, he says, the goal is to scale Paga across the African diaspora globally, and possibly list the company in New York. “We’re not building a remittance company,” he emphasizes. “We’re building a bank.”

It’s an ambitious claim, but one that resonates with the reality of diaspora life. For many Nigerians abroad, money is never just money, it’s school fees, hospital bills, family celebrations, and investments in a future back home. Behind the USD 21 B figure are millions of small, everyday transactions that tie people to two places at once. Paga is betting that if it can make those flows seamless, it won’t just win customers; it will win loyalty.

Whether it succeeds will depend on execution, and on whether its holistic model really does outshine simpler, faster competitors. But one thing is clear: the battle for the diaspora is no longer about remittances alone. It’s about who can build a financial system that feels built for Africans everywhere.