Interswitch returns to N23bn profit as Nigeria drives over 90% of revenue

Interswitch has returned to profitability, posting a pre-tax profit of N23 billion in 2025 after recording a N1.6 billion loss the previous year. This is a significant turnaround for one of Africa’s most recognisable fintech companies and a signal that the business has stabilised after a difficult period.

The results, however, tell two stories at once. The first is a genuine recovery. The second is a geography problem that Interswitch has been unable to solve for years: Nigeria contributed over 90% of the company’s N137 billion in revenue, meaning that despite operating across multiple African markets, the business remains overwhelmingly dependent on the country where it started.

For a company that has long spoken about pan-African ambitions and once targeted a London Stock Exchange listing that would have valued it at around $1 billion, that concentration is worth examining honestly.

What the turnaround means for Interswitch

Going from a N1.6 billion loss to a N23 billion profit in a single year is not a small move. It is the kind of swing that tells you something structural changed inside the business, whether that is cost discipline, revenue growth, or both. Interswitch processes payments across banking, commerce, and government services, and its infrastructure sits at the heart of Nigeria’s financial system.

Verve, its card scheme, competes directly with Visa and Mastercard in the local market and has expanded to other African countries.

The Nigerian dependency, though, cuts both ways. On one hand, Nigeria is a market of over 200 million people with a rapidly growing digital payments ecosystem. Being dominant there is genuinely valuable; there are worse problems than owning a large share of a large market. On the other hand, it means Interswitch’s fortunes are directly tied to what happens in one economy.

When Nigeria has a bad year, with currency pressure, inflation, and regulatory changes, Interswitch feels it immediately and has limited buffers elsewhere.

Similar read: How Mitchell Elegbe’s radical interview method built Interswitch

That is not a theoretical risk. In recent years, Nigeria’s macroeconomic environment has been punishing. The naira has lost significant value against the dollar, inflation has stayed elevated, and businesses operating in Nigeria have had to absorb shocks that their peers in more diversified markets could spread across multiple geographies. Interswitch’s 2024 loss likely reflected some of that pressure.

The 2025 recovery suggests the company has adjusted, but the underlying geographic concentration has not changed.

What this says about the challenge of building a pan–African payments business

Here is the honest reality of African fintech expansion: it is much harder than it looks on a slide deck.

Every African market has its own regulatory regime, its own dominant payment rails, its own banking relationships, and its own consumer behaviour. What works in Nigeria does not automatically work in Kenya, Ghana, or Côte d’Ivoire. You cannot just copy and paste a product and expect it to land. You have to rebuild trust, establish partnerships, and often redesign the product for each market.

Interswitch has been at this for over two decades. It was founded in 2002, has survived multiple economic cycles in Nigeria, built infrastructure that processes billions of naira in transactions daily, and has genuine operations in other African countries. And yet, nine out of every ten naira it earns still comes from Nigeria.

That is not a criticism of Interswitch specifically, it is a reflection of how hard the pan-African payments opportunity actually is. Most of the companies that have tried it have found the same thing: your home market is where your relationships are deepest, your brand is strongest, and your regulatory understanding is most developed. Everything else requires starting almost from scratch.

The path forward for Interswitch likely involves two things happening simultaneously. The first is continuing to deepen its position in Nigeria, a market that is still growing and where Interswitch has structural advantages that newer entrants will struggle to displace. The second is being more deliberate about which non-Nigerian markets it bets on, rather than having a presence in many places that each contribute a fraction of a per cent to overall revenue.

Returning to profitability gives Interswitch the financial headroom to make those bets. What it does with that headroom over the next two to three years will determine whether the 90% Nigeria figure starts to move or stays exactly where it is.

Also read: PenCom unveils Interswitch, Pencentral, 7 others as new pension payment solution providers