Paga turns to tokenised investments in latest infrastructure push

Paga, one of Africa’s oldest fintech companies, is deepening its push into wealth products through a partnership with blockchain infrastructure startup TBook that will allow users to invest in tokenised real-world assets (RWAs).

The partnership will connect Paga’s payment and compliance infrastructure with TBook’s marketplace for tokenised assets built on the Sui blockchain, giving customers and businesses access to investments ranging from fixed-income products to tokenised private assets.

The partnership deepens Paga’s infrastructure strategy. Paga Engine, its payments infrastructure business, which it said processed about $12 billion in transaction value in 2025, can now distribute tokenised investment products alongside its existing financial services. The company is positioning itself to power the financial products that other businesses offer, not just the ones it provides directly.

“My desire is to see Africans participate fully in global commerce and grow their wealth,” Tayo Oviosu, Paga’s Group Chief Executive Officer (GCEO), said in a statement. “This partnership gives everyday Africans access to investment-grade opportunities that have historically been out of reach. Businesses building on Paga Engine can offer these investment products in their own apps, extending reach significantly.”

During the Sui Live event in Miami, the United States, in May, Oviosu said the company was seeking to launch more crypto-enabled, yield-bearing, and investment-grade products for African consumers. It partnered with Sui, the blockchain network developed by US-based Mysten Labs, to enable users to earn yield on Sui Dollar (USDsui), a US dollar-pegged stablecoin whose reserve assets generate interest that is passed on to holders.

This isn’t Paga’s first move into wealth products. In 2020, it partnered with Wealth.ng, a Nigerian investment platform, to enable users to access investment opportunities across agriculture, real estate, and fixed income, offering returns of up to 16% annually. This time, however, Paga is targeting the on-chain finance opportunity.

Tokenised assets convert ownership of traditional financial instruments into digital tokens that can be traded on blockchain networks. In practice, that could allow a Nigerian retail investor to buy a fraction of a commercial property portfolio overseas, or gain exposure to private credit or government securities, without meeting the high minimum investment thresholds that have traditionally kept such assets out of reach.

The market has grown rapidly over the past two years as financial institutions continue to experiment with blockchain-based versions of traditional investments. Tokenised RWAs now hold about $10 billion in total market capitalisation, growing tenfold from $957.3 million at the start of 2024, according to analytics firm CoinMarketCap.

The total value of tokenised real-world assets held on blockchain networks has grown to $31.59 billion, according to industry tracker rwa.xyz. At the same time, India-based research firm Mordor Intelligence estimated the broader asset tokenisation industry was worth $2.08 trillion in 2025. The industry could reach $18.74 trillion by 2031, according to Mordor.

While tokenisation promises broader access, greater liquidity, and faster settlement, it does not eliminate the risks associated with the underlying assets. For example, tokenised property, used in real estate, still depends on proper legal ownership, independent custody, accurate valuation, and regulatory oversight in the jurisdictions where the assets are located.

Founded in 2023, New York-headquartered TBook provides the infrastructure that allows fintechs to embed tokenised investment products into their existing apps without building the underlying blockchain technology themselves. The company connects regulated issuers of tokenised assets with fintechs seeking to offer investment products to their users and enables businesses to generate yield from customer balances through tokenised real-world assets.

The model could appeal to deposit-taking fintechs seeking new revenue sources beyond transaction fees, creating another way to monetise customer balances while allowing users to earn investment returns.

While Paga’s core payments business operates under a Mobile Money Operator (MMO) licence, Oviosu told The Banker, a Financial Times publication, in 2023 that the company had also secured a microfinance banking licence from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), which could enable the fintech to offer tokenised investment products directly.

“Every consumer fintech is sitting on idle balances that earn nothing for the customer and little for the business—especially in emerging markets,” Nick Young, TBook’s co-founder, said. “TBook’s partnership with Paga unlocks fully regulated, institutional-grade assets for millions of users through a single turnkey integration. This is what financial inclusion looks like at scale.”

TBook is part of a growing wave of StableFi (stablecoin finance) infrastructure startups offering fintechs and investment platforms a plug-and-play way to integrate yield-bearing products into their apps. Companies such as Blend, OpenTrade, and Stable offer similar infrastructure for embedding yield-bearing tokenised assets, including stablecoins (currency), real estate (property), and gold (commodity).

Paga could also become a distribution channel for TBook’s embedded investment products across the more than 300 businesses using Paga Engine, allowing those businesses to embed tokenised investment products into their own applications.

A similar model already exists in Europe: Spanish fintech Criptan offers annual yields of up to 8.5% on USDC and 5.5% on EURC—the US dollar- and Euro-backed stablecoins issued by US company Circle—through infrastructure provided by OpenTrade. The integration allows Criptan’s customers, including fintechs and other businesses, to access and offer tokenised yield products without building the underlying technology themselves.

For Paga, the partnership also reinforces a broader blockchain strategy. In June, the company partnered with stablecoin infrastructure startup Crossmint to integrate multi-chain settlement for cross-border payments, following its earlier collaboration with Sui. The moves suggest Paga is steadily assembling blockchain infrastructure across payments, savings, and investments as it seeks to become a financial infrastructure platform.

TBook has adopted a similar strategy elsewhere. In November 2025, the company partnered with OmniPay, a Philippines-based fintech, to distribute embedded tokenised investment products through consumer-facing financial applications, underscoring its strategy of expanding through fintech partners rather than selling directly to end-users.