Onafriq Tried and Failed to Sell Baxi Before Shutdown
New reporting reveals that Onafriq attempted to sell its Baxi agent banking business in Nigeria before ultimately shutting it down, pointing to deeper distress in the country's agent-banking sector. The failed sale attempt is being read as a broader market signal about the economic viability of agent banking for mid-tier operators in Nigeria.
Baxi's Collapse: nobody wanted to buy what nobody could make profitable
The failed sale attempt is the detail that changes this story.
Onafriq didn't just shut Baxi down — it spent months trying to find someone else to run it. Nobody bit. And when you look at the numbers, that's not surprising: agency services revenue fell 56% in a single year, gross profit dropped 65%, and the business was sitting on $15 million in bank overdrafts by July.
If a buyer existed at any price, Onafriq would have taken the deal. The fact that 460,000 agents and an established network couldn't attract one tells you something more troubling than a single company's retreat: the underlying economics of mid-tier agent banking in Nigeria are broken enough that nobody wants to inherit them.
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- Onafriq tried to sell its Nigerian agent banking business before shutdown · techcabal.com · T1