Nigerian fintech company Paystack is widening its focus beyond payments as it builds new tools aimed at helping small businesses better understand their finances, just as it steps up efforts tied to Nigeria’s estimated $32 billion funding gap for small firms.

The company, which processes payments for more than 300,000 organizations across Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa, Kenya, and Côte d’Ivoire, has now rolled out a rebuilt merchant dashboard featuring an artificial intelligence-powered command center designed to let business owners ask questions about operations and receive answers from transaction data system.

Decade-first dashboard redesign

Instead of moving through multiple pages, users can now type questions in plain language. The dashboard returns answers in short summaries, tables, or charts depending on what is being asked. Paystack says the system combines large language models with structured data tools to interpret merchant activity, including revenue patterns, settlements, and transaction flows.

The redesign marks the company’s first major dashboard overhaul in nearly a decade. Built on Pax, Paystack’s internal design framework, it signals a shift in how the company expects businesses to engage with financial data. According to the company, the goal is to cut the time spent locating information and enable merchants to focus more on operational decisions.

“Businesses don’t come to their dashboard because they want to click through pages. They come because they have questions,” said Dara Assim-Ita, senior product designer at Paystack, who led the rebuild. “Over the last decade, we have seen how much time merchants lose navigating tools that were built to display data rather than deliver answers.” She added that users can now ask direct questions such as why revenue fell in a given week or how a specific transaction performed, with responses generated from verified merchant data in the system.

Paystack expands into microfinance lending

Shola Akinlade, who leads Paystack, is steering it into a broader role in financial services. The push follows its move into microfinance via acquisition of Ladder Microfinance Bank, now Paystack Microfinance Bank, to serve small and medium-sized businesses that struggle to access credit from traditional lenders. Paystack has processed trillions of naira in payments, giving it data on merchant cash flow.

Founded in 2015, Paystack became one of Africa’s early startups backed by Y Combinator and was later acquired by Stripe in 2020 for $200 million. Since then, it has expanded its product suite carefully, balancing new offerings with regulatory requirements across markets. Its consumer payments app, Zap, marked an earlier step into retail-focused services.

The company said the dashboard works on mobile devices, allowing users to access the same features on phones and tablets as on desktop. Paystack plans to migrate more products into the system as it refines how merchants use its tools. It is betting that access to financial data can help small businesses make decisions without added complexity in daily operations.