Musing on the Paystack-Stripe Deal

I can't help musing on the Paystack breakthrough.

For those who don't understand what they do, imagine that you go to a website to buy a shoe. The website incorporates Paystack for you to pay by entering your ATM card details on the Paystack feature on that website. They make it safe for you to use your cards online to purchase goods and devices without issues.

In tech-speak, Paystack describes itself as an online payment gateway that makes it easy for merchants to accept credit and debit card payments online from users or customers.

Look at.

So it means that these guys operated in a country where Beau Harry via the CBN restricted the dollar limit on people's payment cards to as low as $50.

They battled poor internet connectivity, poor infrastructure and erratic power supply.

For all the billions pumped in the last 6 years into agriculture through diverse interventions by the CBN, BOI, DBN, and ministries like Agric and Finance, how many of these mostly fly-by-night companies can boast of being worth as much as $50m especially if you consider devaluation.

It's far better and easier to ride the wave, than to create a wave.

The creativity and innovation in the Nigerian youth is waiting to be unleashed. The government just needs to get out of the way.

It was the late Fahim Saleh, former CEO of Gokada, who said that even though he's done businesses in some difficult places like Bangladesh and New York, he finds that anyone who can conquer the arduous unpredictable Nigerian business terrain can crack it anywhere else.

To create unicorns, we need many exits like Paystack's.

#EndSARS #SARSMustEnd

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