In a small office on Adeola Odeku Street in Victoria Island, Lagos, a young fintech startup was trying to solve a problem that many global payment companies had largely ignored.
The challenge looked simple but was one of the hardest in digital finance: how do you make a payment worth just N60 or N100 profitable?
Today, that startup, Touch and Pay Technologies (TAP), has grown into one of Africa’s leading micro-transaction payment companies, processing millions of low-value transactions that power public transport, government collections and everyday commerce across Nigeria.
Its journey, recently reflected on by entrepreneur, investor and board member Ndubuisi Ekekwe, is becoming an important case study for African fintechs looking to build businesses around local realities rather than imported business models.
“I first met them in a modest office on Adeola Odeku Street in Victoria Island, Lagos. They had a small piece of technology, but I was completely sold on the vision,” Ekekwe wrote in a recent LinkedIn post.
