eTranzact posted ₦30.6bn revenue in 2025 but profit fell 27% as spending surged 45%

eTranzact International Plc made more money in 2025. It kept less of it.

The Lagos-listed payment technology company closed the year with revenue of ₦30.6 billion, up from ₦29.9 billion in 2024. On the surface, that looks like progress. Dig into the numbers and a different story emerges. Profit after tax fell from ₦3.39 billion to ₦2.47 billion, a 27% drop in a year the company grew its top line.

The squeeze did not come from the top. Gross profit actually improved, rising from ₦11.4 billion to ₦14.3 billion, as cost of sales dropped from ₦18.5 billion to ₦16.3 billion. eTranzact’s core switching and merchant-acquiring business became more efficient. The problem is everything that came after.

Niyi Toluwalope, Chief Executive Officer of eTranzact Plc

Administrative expenses jumped from ₦6.4 billion to ₦9.2 billion, a 45% increase in a single year. Employee costs drove much of that, climbing from ₦3.8 billion to ₦4.7 billion as headcount grew from 353 to 405 staff. Selling and marketing costs more than doubled, from ₦424 million to ₦931 million. The company is spending hard, and the spending is outrunning the revenue growth.

The tax bill made things worse. Income tax expense rose from ₦1.5 billion to ₦1.73 billion, but the bigger story is the effective tax rate, which jumped from 31% to 41%. Non-deductible expenses surged from ₦234 million to ₦792 million and pushed the rate up sharply. The company is paying more tax not just because it earned more, but because a larger slice of its costs cannot be shielded.

Put it together and the picture is of a company in an aggressive growth phase, spending on people, infrastructure, and market visibility, and absorbing the cost in its bottom line. That may be deliberate. The five-year summary shows eTranzact was in accumulated losses as recently as 2023, with retained earnings only turning positive in 2024. A company that spent years digging out of a deficit does not mind sacrificing near-term profit if the spending builds something durable.

But there is a second story running alongside the financial one, and it concerns ownership.

Access Bank reduced stake in eTranzact

Access Bank, once the company’s dominant shareholder with a 37.56% stake, cut its position to 7.74% by the end of 2025. That is a dramatic exit by a significant institutional investor. The financial statements do not explain why, or who absorbed those shares. What the shareholder register shows is that eTranzact Global Limited now holds 15.03%, up from 22.5% in the prior year in terms of relative weight. The concentration of ownership has shifted, quietly, without public explanation.

For investors, that matters. Access Bank’s presence on the register was a signal, a large, regulated financial institution with intimate knowledge of the company’s operations choosing to hold a meaningful stake. Its near-exit raises questions the annual report does not answer.

Was the reduction a portfolio decision? A signal about the company's direction? A response to the ownership restructuring underway at the platform level? The silence is conspicuous.

What is not in dispute is that eTranzact’s operational fundamentals remain intact. Merchant acquiring revenue more than doubled, from ₦5.2 billion to ₦10.5 billion, the standout line in the entire income statement.

Switching services dipped from ₦24.7 billion to ₦19.9 billion, a decline that deserves its own explanation, but the merchant acquiring surge more than covered the gap at the gross profit level.

Cash and short-term deposits also ballooned, from ₦12.7 billion to ₦31.7 billion, driven largely by a ₦18.2 billion surge in restricted cash tied to settlement and holding accounts. That is operational cash, not free cash, but it signals the platform is processing significantly more transaction volume.

The company paid its first dividend in recent memory, ₦1.15 billion or ₦0.125 kobo per share, a signal that management believes the worst of the recovery phase is behind them.

Whether that confidence is warranted depends on whether the spending surge in 2025 produces the returns management is counting on in 2026. The gross margin says the business works. The profit line says the business is still finding its footing.

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