Aku
“Can a CBN-licensed microfinance bank build both a consumer neobank and a merchant payments gateway on a single Nigerian rails stack?”
Founded2019
HQLekki, Lagos, Nigeria
Total raised$2.25M
Latest roundSeed
IndustryFintech / Neobank
The story
Aku started as a consumer digital payments platform targeting African creatives, offering personal banking, savings, and credit through a mobile app tied to a CBN-licensed microfinance bank charter (Aku Micro-Finance Bank Limited). It has since expanded downstream into merchant infrastructure, exposing a payment gateway (AkuPay / NectarOS) with card acquiring, virtual accounts, direct debit, and payouts — positioning itself as both a consumer neobank and a Nigerian payments PSP for other merchants.
Last 12 months
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Product timeline
2019
Aku founded as a digital financial services platform for Africans locally and globally.· banking
2024
Operates as Aku Micro-Finance Bank Limited, licensed by the Central Bank of Nigeria; offers Aku Pay Cards, payments app, and merchant payment gateway (AkuPay / NectarOS).· card
Regulated entities
1
regulatory licence held by Aku
Licence types, jurisdictions and registered entities are in the Embedded Finance Index report.
The stack
4 layers disclosed in Aku’s embedded-finance stack
Payments / PSP
AkuPay (self-operated)NectarOS (self-operated)
Banking / BaaS
in the full report
Card network
in the full report
Lending
in the full report
Accounting gap: significant
6 more providers across 3 layers, with confidence-scored evidence and source URLs, are in the Embedded Finance Index report.