Habari Pay post N1.3 billion profits in 6 months, up 300%

GTCO’s fintech subsidiary, Habari Pay reported a profit after tax of N1.3 billion in the first half of 2023 up from N322.9 million a year earlier.

This represents a 4 fold increase in profits year on year signalling the holdco’s earnings ability as it continues to leverage on its economies of scale.

Habari Pay through its “Squad” platforms allows the bank’s customers to shop for diverse products online, pay bills, watch videos, and listen to music, among others. The subsidiary has a Switching and processing license from the central bank and a VAS license from the NCC.

Results Highlights – A cursory review of its 2023 half-year results reveals the company generated an operating income of N2.2 billion.

• It also incurred N688 million and N188 million on operating expenses and taxes respectively.
• Total assets were also N5.65 billion up from N4 billion reported a year earlier.  The subsidiary also closed with a cash balance of N3.6 billion.
• GTB owns 100% of Habari Pay and according to its financials, it had invested about N3.1 billion in the company as of June 2023.

Company Milestones – Earlier in the year, the company reported that Habari Pay generated revenue of N1.52 billion in 2022 and a pre-tax profit of N926 million. The company only operated for 6 months in 2022.

• It also reported that it has been profitable from month 1 and has crossed N200 billion in monthly transactions as of January 2023.
• The company has also seen its merchant and acquiring business grow reporting gateway and switching averaging N139.3 billion recording a 1,398% growth. International payments also rose $175, 927 or 3,187% monthly.
• This is according to information contained in its Investor Presentation for 2022 annual reports.

Habari Pay operates in Nigeria’s lucrative FinTech industry which is also characterized by intense competition. Most tier 1 banks also have similar platforms within their HoldCo operating entities.

The birth of HabariPay started with GTBank’s launch of Habari mobile app in 2018 as a digital platform for music, shopping, lifestyle content, and others.

Last June, GTCO secured the final approval from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for HabariPay Limited as a wholly-owned payment subsidiary.

HabariPay had hit the ground running with the launch of Squad, a digital payments platform to provide customers with the tools to do business digitally. HabariPay’s Squad is now competing with the likes of Interswitch, Paystack, and Flutterwave in the same arena.