Passpoint’s revenue grew 4.3x in the first five months of 2026. Gross profit jumped 4.9x. The numbers, while internal, point to a sharp inflection for the three-year-old Lagos fintech, driven by a single, volatile engine: foreign exchange. For every dollar of revenue the company earned through May, roughly 51 cents came from the margin on currency conversion [Meeting Notes_Passpoint.docx, June 2026].
It is a high-stakes, high-margin wedge into a crowded market. The company’s stated ambition is to become a full payment scheme for alternative payment methods, akin to what Visa is for cards but for the fragmented local rails of Africa and Europe. For now, its business is simpler. It gives payment service providers (PSPs) and fintechs a single API to collect payments across 16 African and 24 European corridors, then helps them swap those local currencies for dollars or euros [mypasspoint.com]. The bet is that the complexity of building direct, licensed connections in dozens of markets will keep PSPs glued to an orchestration layer, even as giants like Flutterwave and Paystack expand their own networks.
The Orchestrator's Wedge
Passpoint sits one layer behind the merchant. Its target customer is not an e-commerce brand but a PSP like TransFi,a foreign aggregator that needs to offer its own merchants local payment options in Nigeria, Kenya, or Senegal. Building those connections market-by-market requires licensing, banking partnerships, and compliance overhead. Passpoint claims to provide the hard infrastructure, not just a convenience layer.
- Direct Rail Access. The company says it is directly connected to the source in about 60% of its markets, including mobile money operators in Kenya, a US bank, and open banking providers across Europe [Meeting Notes_Passpoint.docx, June 2026]. This contrasts with pure aggregator models that rely entirely on third-party gateways.
- Just-in-Time FX. Passpoint does not pre-fund accounts for currency swaps. It matches customer orders internally or uses liquidity partners, aiming to capture a spread of 1.2% to 2% on conversions [Meeting Notes_Passpoint.docx, June 2026]. This treasury function generated $392,800, or 46.3% of revenue, year-to-date through May.
- The Scheme Ambition. The long-term goal is to evolve from a PSP-like operator into a network that sets the rules and standards for routing local payment methods, a five-year horizon project [Meeting Notes_Passpoint.docx, June 2026].
Traction and Concentration
The growth metrics are striking but come with clear fingerprints. Revenue and profit are heavily concentrated in the most recent months; April and May alone contributed 67.5% of the year’s revenue and 73.1% of its net profit [Meeting Notes_Passpoint.docx, June 2026]. Total processed volume (TPV) jumped from $8.3 million in March to $16.7 million in April.
That surge is also concentrated in a handful of customers. Fintechs make up 77% of Passpoint’s portfolio. Five fintech merchants contribute nearly 60% of gross transaction volume, with the top three accounting for about 35% [Meeting Notes_Passpoint.docx, June 2026]. The company notes concentration has improved from 70% in December 2025 to a range of 53-58% in early 2026, but the dependency remains a defining feature of its current scale.
December 2025 | 70 | % TPV from Top 5 Merchants
January-April 2026 | 53-58 | % TPV from Top 5 Merchants
The Founders' Payments Pedigree
The team is built with veterans of the African payments wars. CEO Kelechi Uchegbulem spent over a decade at institutions including Heritage Bank, GTBank, and Flutterwave, with later experience at crypto infrastructure firm BVNK [Meeting Notes_Passpoint.docx, June 2026]. CCO Adejuwon Oyebanjo, based in the UK, was a senior business development manager at Binance Pay. CTO Chinedu Ojiteli has a deep background in payments engineering from NIBSS and Flutterwave.
This collective resume is a direct response to the sector’s primary risk: compliance. The company has hired a Head of Compliance with experience at Yellow Card, Western Union, and PwC, and plans to grow that function to about ten people in the next year [Meeting Notes_Passpoint.docx, June 2026]. Navigating the regulatory landscapes of over 40 countries is the perpetual background cost of doing business.
| Role | Name | Key Prior Experience |
|---|---|---|
| Co-founder & CEO | Kelechi Uchegbulem | Heritage Bank, GTBank, Flutterwave, BVNK |
| Co-founder & CCO | Adejuwon Oyebanjo | Binance Pay, Flutterwave |
| Co-founder & CTO | Chinedu Ojiteli | NIBSS, IPSL, Flutterwave |
Where the Rails Could Bend
The model presents two intertwined risks: customer concentration and revenue volatility. A significant portion of recent growth was driven by the top five merchants, who accounted for roughly 59% of the April volume surge [Meeting Notes_Passpoint.docx, June 2026]. Losing one could materially dent momentum. Furthermore, with over half its revenue derived from FX margins, Passpoint’s financials are tethered to currency volatility and its ability to maintain that spread against competing liquidity providers.
The competitive field is also densely populated. Passpoint lists Flutterwave, Paystack, Paza, and Interswitch among its competitors. These are well-funded incumbents that are also expanding their geographic and product footprints. Passpoint’s answer is agility and focus,serving the PSP layer rather than the end merchant, and moving faster into new corridors with typical launch timelines of one to three months [Meeting Notes_Passpoint.docx, June 2026].
The Next Twelve Months
The immediate roadmap is about de-risking the concentration bet while scaling the infrastructure that supports it. The company will need to diversify its customer base beyond fintechs and prove its unit economics hold as it grows. Its $1 million seed round from VentureSouq, closed in May 2026, provides a runway to execute [techcabal.com, May 2026]. The next logical capital event, likely a Series A, will hinge on demonstrating that April’s $16.7 million TPV was not a peak but a new baseline, and that the path to becoming a payment scheme is more than just a pitch-deck line.
For now, the question for investors is whether Passpoint’s direct rails and treasury savvy give it a durable edge in the plumbing layer, or if it remains a feature,albeit a highly profitable one,waiting to be built or bought by a larger platform.
Sources
- [Meeting Notes_Passpoint.docx, June 2026] Internal metrics and product details | File: Meeting Notes_Passpoint.docx
- [mypasspoint.com] Company product claims and descriptions | https://www.mypasspoint.com/
- [techcabal.com, May 2026] Seed funding announcement | https://techcabal.com/2026/05/05/passpoint-announces-financial-orchestration-layer/
- [payatlas.com] Platform feature descriptions | https://payatlas.com