Pagatech: Extending the frontiers of mobile payments

If there are any stand-outs in the mobile payment space, it definitely has to be Pagatech. Outstanding enough to attract over 1 million users, the technology start-up offers the ability to transfer funds and make payments for goods and services. With simple registration online, via SMS or an agent, users can easily deposit cash in Paga account via agents, partner banks or debit cards which can then be transferred to other mobile phones or make payments online via SMS. Now, lets meet Nigeria’s very own Mr money man, Tayo Oviosu. He is the founder and chief executive officer of Pagatech. PAGA was founded after Oviosu realised Nigeria’s had mobiles phones and yet had little to no access to financial services besides the banking industry and mobile top-up vouchers cash resale. This idea has proved to be more beneficial than the risk of not stepping out at all to follow his instincts.

Oviosu followed his dreams despite warning from friends who chastised him for venturing into such uncharted waters. PAGA in the past year has been able to secure FDI’s from big names such as Omidyar Network, Acumen fund, Adievo Capital and Capricorn Investment groups’ et.al. With almost a million subscribers using PAGA for their daily transactions, and millions of Dollar worth of transactions in less than 5years, PAGA is indeed a new movement to reckon with in the business network, both locally and internationally.A graduate of Electrical Engineering from USC and an MBA from Stanford University, Oviosu has over twelve years of experience in a variety of technical and business roles in High-tech and Private Equity. Most recently, he was Vice President at Travant Capital Partners where he was responsible for executing the firm’s investment strategy in West Africa.

Prior to joining Travant, Tayo was a manager, Corporate Development, at Cisco Systems in San Jose California. 

In that role, he was responsible for strategy, acquisitions, and private equity investments in four tech sectors – Virtual Computing, Application Networking, Security, and Network Management. Tayo also helped lead Cisco’s investment expansion in Africa. At Cisco, Tayo led numerous acquisition and private equity investment opportunities, including the $130 million acquisition of Reactivity, and investments in Aquantia (10G Base-T, Series A), and Guardium (Database Security, recently sold to IBM). Tayo was also responsible for the private sale of 22 percent of Cisco’s South African operations to a consortium of investors in 2007. Prior to Cisco, Tayo was a Senior Consultant at Deloitte Consulting in the CRM and Technology practice. At Deloitte he worked on cases in five industries – high tech, telecom, pharmacy retail, government, and healthcare. He was responsible for leading technical implementation teams.

Ben Uzor