Nigeria's three big bank-owned payments companies are moving in different directions. HabariPay, the GTCO subsidiary behind the Squad payments platform, grew its nine-month profit by 72%, while Access Holdings' Hydrogen recovered only part of its lost ground and Stanbic IBTC's Zest slipped into a loss, according to the groups' unaudited results for the nine months to September 2026, reported by BusinessDay and Nairametrics.
HabariPay: fast growth, lean costs
HabariPay's profit before tax rose to ₦11.23bn from ₦6.53bn a year earlier, Nairametrics reports from GTCO's financial statements. It recorded no tax charge in either period, so profit after tax was also ₦11.23bn. Operating income rose 47% to ₦13.88bn, while operating expenses fell about 9% to ₦2.64bn. BusinessDay notes that the company made ₦3.03bn in the same nine months of 2024, so profit has almost quadrupled in two years.
At the end of September, HabariPay had total assets of ₦26.75bn, equity of ₦25.61bn and liabilities of only ₦1.15bn. It is still small next to its parent: GTCO's group profit before tax was ₦879.90bn, down from ₦900.80bn, and HabariPay's profit is about 1.3% of that. GTCO's three non-bank businesses (HabariPay, its fund manager and its pension fund administrator) together made ₦23.88bn before tax, up 70%.
Managing director Eduofon Japhet told BusinessDay that HabariPay's switch now connects about 12 to 13 banks and major fintechs. In October, Squad added Google Pay for businesses using its checkout, shortly after Google Pay launched in Nigeria.
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Hydrogen, Access Holdings' payments company, made a profit of ₦1.08bn, up from ₦833m a year earlier but still below the ₦1.45bn it made in the first nine months of 2024, BusinessDay reports. Its parent grew profit before tax 8.3% to ₦667.36bn.
Zest, Stanbic IBTC's payments company, made a loss after tax of ₦698m, against a ₦543m profit a year earlier. Its total income was ₦1.13bn, but operating expenses reached ₦1.81bn, of which staff costs were ₦940m, leaving a pre-tax loss of ₦683m. BusinessDay says Zest was the only one of eight Stanbic IBTC subsidiaries with separately reported results to lose money before tax, in a period when the group's profit before tax rose 35.1% to ₦531.88bn. Kemi Okusanya, who led Hydrogen until mid-2026, became Zest's chief executive in June, according to BusinessDay.
- HabariPay (GTCO): ₦11.23bn profit, up 72%
- Hydrogen (Access Holdings): ₦1.08bn profit, up from ₦833m, below ₦1.45bn in 2024
- Zest (Stanbic IBTC): ₦698m loss after tax, from a ₦543m profit
