Paystack, the Nigerian payments company owned by Stripe, acquired Allawee, a Nigerian fintech that built card-issuing infrastructure, in a deal that was never publicly announced. The acquisition became public on 31 August 2026, when TechCabal reported two emails Allawee had sent to its customers saying its technology now operates within Paystack.
According to the emails, Paystack bought Allawee in 2025. Condia, which spoke to Allawee, reported that the deal closed in late 2025. Terms were not disclosed, and both Allawee and Paystack declined to comment to TechCabal.
Allawee's business and personal accounts will close on 1 December 2026. From that date, payments sent to Allawee account numbers will fail and its cards will stop working, whatever expiry date is printed on them. Customers have until 30 November to withdraw their money, give new bank details to anyone who pays them and replace saved Allawee cards on subscriptions.
What Allawee built
Ikenna Enenwali and Oreofe Olurin founded Allawee in 2022. The company changed direction twice: it started as a credit card lender, then offered credit-risk software that other lenders could use to judge whether a borrower would repay, and finally settled on card infrastructure, the systems that banks and fintechs use to issue and manage their own cards.
By May 2025 it was issuing cards for PiggyVest, Nomba and Carbon through a dashboard that, according to Enenwali, cut the time to launch a card programme from months to weeks. He told TechCabal that building one from scratch could take one to two years. Allawee also offered business accounts through a partnership with Providus Bank, and in December 2024 it launched a Mastercard credit card aimed at federal civil servants and members of the National Youth Service Corps, with Providus Bank as BIN sponsor. Condia reported that Allawee had about 400 customers and offered Apple Pay and Google Pay support and spending controls. It raised about $1 million from investors including Rali Cap Ventures, Voltron Capital, the ODX OnDeck Fund, Golden Square Capital, PiggyVest and Carbon's co-founders, as well as angel investors.
“Your money will remain yours. It won't expire or be forfeited, and any remaining balance will stay safely recorded.”
Why Paystack bought it
Condia reported that Paystack bought Allawee for its technology and team, not for its customers or brand. Paystack already had sponsor bank and card scheme relationships, a payments licence and fraud models; Allawee had built the pieces that tie a card programme together, such as card production and credit decisioning. Its card-issuing tools let Paystack's banking-as-a-service business offer cards alongside accounts.
An Allawee representative told Condia the company had reached an inflection point, and that its next phase needed more distribution, regulatory capacity and capital than it could raise or build alone quickly. Condia also reported that the whole Allawee team joined Paystack at the time of the acquisition, though some members had left in the following 12 months.
TechCabal noted that once Paystack held its own banking licence, Allawee's Providus-backed accounts competed directly with Paystack's microfinance bank, which helps explain why the standalone accounts are being closed.
What happens to customers
Allawee's products are being split between two Paystack businesses. Business customers are being directed to Paystack MFB, the microfinance bank Paystack created after acquiring Ladder Microfinance Bank in January 2026. Individuals are being directed to Zap, Paystack's consumer transfer app.
Nothing carries over automatically. Balances, account numbers, transaction histories and verification records will not move, so customers have to open new accounts from scratch. Allawee said in its email that money left after the deadline would not be forfeited, but that customers would need to email the company to request a manual payout, which could take longer.
Paystack's run of deals
Allawee is the second fintech brand Paystack has absorbed in 2026. In June it folded Brass, a business banking startup that a Paystack-led consortium rescued in 2024, into Paystack MFB. Since January it has also bought Ladder Microfinance Bank and reorganised under a new holding company, The Stack Group, which covers merchant payments, consumer payments, banking and new technologies.
The deals reflect wider consolidation in Nigerian fintech. TechCabal pointed out that the 2020 to 2022 funding boom left many companies with overlapping products, and that tighter funding and closer regulation have since made buying a rival quicker and cheaper than building the same product. In January 2026 Flutterwave acquired open banking startup Mono.
Regulation may limit how far Paystack can take card issuing. Condia reported that a June 2026 Central Bank of Nigeria circular restricts a dominant merchant-acquiring company from holding a large share of the card-issuing market, and the reverse.
