Zest Payments, the fintech arm of Nigeria’s Stanbic IBTC Holdings, has been fined ₦2.7 million ($1,829) by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for failing to submit its 2023 audited financial statements on time.
The regulatory setback comes as the two-year-old fintech continues to report losses since its launch in October 2023.
The penalty, disclosed in the parent company’s half-year 2025 report, followed a delay of just over two weeks beyond the March 31 statutory deadline.
Under CBN rules, all licensed payment companies are required to submit audited accounts by the end of the first quarter of each year. Delays attract daily fines, starting at ₦5,000 and increasing with the license category.
Launched in 2023, Zest offers payments, e-commerce, and lifestyle solutions for businesses of all sizes. It is among the pool of Nigeria’s bank-backed fintechs – including GTCO’s HabariPay and Access Bank’s Hydrogen – that have emerged following the CBN’s 2010 directive.
The directive allowed banks to establish licensed fintech subsidiaries to compete with independent players such as Flutterwave, Paystack, Opay, and Moniepoint.
Losses since launch
Despite Stanbic’s ongoing capital support, Zest has yet to turn a profit. In January 2025, the bank injected ₦4 billion ($2.58 million) to boost Zest’s e-commerce platform and expand its payments business. By the end of the 2025 half-year, its total investment in the subsidiary was ₦4.33 billion ($2.79 million), an 85.8% rise from the ₦2.33 billion ($1.58 million) recorded in December 2024.
Conversely, revenue grew, rising more than fourteenfold to ₦874 million ($562,962) in the first half of 2025 from ₦59 million ($38,003) in the same period of 2024.
Yet, the company still closed the period with a ₦389 million ($250,563) loss, a mild relief from the ₦945 million ($638,956) reported in the same period last year.
The losses were driven by heavy operating expenses: staff costs reached ₦664 million ($427,697), while other operating expenses totaled ₦593 million ($381,964).
At the company’s launch, Stanbic IBTC Group Chairman Basil Omiyi set an ambitious goal: “We aspire to become the leading end-to-end financial services provider for businesses and individuals in our country and region.” So far, profitability has remained elusive.
Compliance strain across the group
The fine against Zest adds to a broader compliance burden across Stanbic IBTC’s subsidiaries.
The group’s investment-banking arm, Stanbic IBTC Capital, earlier incurred a ₦50.15 billion ($32.30 million) non-contestable penalty for using an unapproved digital distribution channel to raise ₦392.49 billion ($252.81 million) for another lender.
Stanbic IBTC paid ₦159 million ($107,507) in regulatory penalties in 2024 and has already paid ₦113 million ($72,785) in the first half of 2025, underscoring the growing cost of compliance missteps across the group.
Note: Financial figures have been converted using the official average exchange rate of ₦1,552.52/$1 as of the first half of 2025 and ₦1,478.97/$1 for 2024.
