In hindsight, it isn’t laborious to see the play Onafriq, the pan-African funds firm, was making when it expanded into Nigeria by buying Baxi in 2021.
Nigeria nonetheless relied closely on money, and Baxi already had greater than 90,000 brokers. Onafriq may enter with a ready-made distribution community as an alternative of spending years constructing one.
The timing seemed good, too. OPay and Moniepoint had begun constructing massive agent networks in 2019, whereas PalmPay entered agent banking later. In 2021, Baxi was already certainly one of Nigeria’s largest unbiased agent networks, giving Onafriq an early lead over some newer opponents.
But the lead didn’t maintain. By the tip of 2024, PalmPay reportedly had greater than 700,000 brokers, whereas Moniepoint had over 800,000 point-of-sale (PoS) terminals. But as of 2025, Baxi had simply over 460,000 brokers, paling compared. In October, it lastly determined to shut down the enterprise, months after attempting to promote Baxi.
Between the traces: Agent banking turned a scale sport. Rivals poured cash into terminals, agent recruitment, and incentives, making it simpler to shut the distribution hole. At the identical time, brokers may work with a number of suppliers, making a big community much less defensible than it first appeared.
The economics additionally modified. More terminals entered the market a lot quicker than transaction volumes grew, so suppliers competed over the identical funds.
Meanwhile, account-to-account (A2A) transfers—direct financial institution funds—gave prospects one other approach to transfer cash with out visiting an agent.
Onafriq’s try and promote Baxi earlier than shutting it down exhibits that the issue was greater than one dangerous 12 months. The firm had already determined the agent enterprise now not match the place it needed to place capital.
Zoom out: Onafriq purchased Baxi partly as a result of bodily distribution was scarce. Five years later, the market had a lot. Being early gave Baxi a head begin, nevertheless it didn’t cease opponents from catching up and, finally, passing it.
