HabariPay, the fintech arm of Guaranty Trust Holding Company (GTCO), has increased its profit 12-fold in three years, reaching a record ₦4.02 billion ($2.70 million) in H1 2025 from ₦322.9 million ($217,094) in H1 2022, according to GTCO’s six-month financial statements.
The growth makes it Nigeria’s most profitable bank-backed fintech, surpassing Access Bank’s Hydrogen ₦283 million ($190,268) profit in Q1 2025 and Stanbic IBTC’s Zest, which lost ₦389 million ($261,535) in H1.
Despite HabariPay’s growth, it remains a small player compared to its parent’s ₦449 billion ($301.88 million) profit, accounting for only 0. 89% of this figure. In the wider fintech market, HabariPay also lags behind giants such as Flutterwave, Paystack, OPay, PalmPay, and Moniepoint.
Although many of these companies do not publicly disclose their figures, revenue estimates for 2023 from the Financial Times indicate Palmpay earned around $63.90 million and Moniepoint about $264.51 million.
GTCO launched Habari in 2018 as a super-app before pivoting in 2022 to HabariPay, a dedicated fintech subsidiary providing digital payments. Its flagship platform, Squad, combines a payment gateway, e-commerce tools, and a PoS business.
The fintech processes payments through virtual accounts, USSD, card, and bank transfers for merchants, along with switching services for account-to-account bank transfers and card transactions.
It currently earns revenue from net commissions on merchant transactions and sales margins on bill payments, such as airtime vending and bulk SMS.
Operating income has surged more than 10 times to ₦5.05 billion ($3.39 million) since H1 2022 (from ₦447.86 million/$301,108), while operating expenses have risen 13 times to ₦1.03 billion ($692,497) from ₦70.64 million ($47,493) in the same period. As of June 2025, it had a cash balance of ₦2.18 billion ($1.47 million).
In March, CEO Eduofon Japhet noted that despite the company’s growth, it must scale further to solidify its position within GTCO’s portfolio. She told that the company’s multiple payments and switching licences will enable it to focus on expanding POS terminal services for merchants and ensuring that mobile transfers are as seamless as card payments.
“Transfers will always be the future of the continent, and we’re looking at different ways of making transfer payments feel more like card payments,” she said at the time.
During its April investor call, Segun Agbaje, GTCO’s Group CEO, disclosed plans to increase PoS terminal deployments to grow Squad’s reach in 2025.
Note: exchange rate used: ₦1,487.37/$
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