On Tuesday, the Stripe-owned Nigerian fintech reorganised its businesses under a holding company structure called The Stack Group (TSG), a nod to what employees have long called themselves: “The Stacks.”
If this sounds familiar, it’s because it’s becoming the standard playbook. As fintechs grow large enough to operate multiple products with different regulatory and commercial needs, they increasingly adopt holding company structures that centralise control while allowing subsidiaries to scale independently.
Moniepoint Inc. operates as the holding company over Moniepoint Microfinance Bank and other units, while Interswitch Group sits above its payments, switching, and digital commerce businesses. More recently, Egypt’s Fawry, one of the continent’s most profitable fintechs, restructured into a holding company in 2025 as it expanded beyond payments.
The creation of The Stack Group followed Paystack’s acquisition of Ladder Microfinance Bank, which gave the fintech company a microfinance licence to operate Paystack MFB.
Why does a holdco structure matter? Operating a holdco allows the company’s businesses to run independently under The Stack Group (TSG) umbrella. Following its venture into consumer payments and microfinance, The Stack Group now controls Paystack (the fintech), Paystack MFB (its microfinance bank), Zap by Paystack (its consumer payments app), and a venture studio, TSG Labs.
Stripe still owns Paystack following its $200 million acquisition in 2020, but this new structure introduces shared ownership between Stripe, Paystack’s CEO, and existing Paystack employees.
Why is the company doing this? Over the past year, Paystack launched Zap and secured a microfinance banking licence. Banking, consumer payments, and investments come with very different regulatory and operational demands. A holding company allows each business to run its own race without tripping the others. If one unit gets fined or slowed by regulation, the rest keep moving.
By putting its businesses under TSG, Paystack can keep its core merchant payments engine focused, while giving newer bets like Zap, Paystack MFB, and TSG Labs the freedom to grow or even fail without dragging the entire company with them. This has worked for other payment companies, and it might just work for Paystack.
Restructuring into a holding company is a signal that Paystack The Stack Group is ushering a more mature phase of its business.
