Paga out, Lemmy MFB in: What LemFi’s banking shift means for African remittances

For years, the arrangement made perfect sense to everyone involved. LemFi, the UK-founded remittance company, needed a way to get naira into the hands of Nigerian residents receiving money from the UK or Canada. Paga, one of Nigeria’s oldest mobile money operators, already had that infrastructure built so LemFi’s naira wallet ran on Pagatech’s rails.

LemFi paid Paga for the privilege, and Paga generated revenue off it. That arrangement is now quietly coming apart, and it says something about where Nigerian fintech is heading.

Buried in LemFi’s legal terms and updated as recently as July 2026 is this clause: the company “may move your NGN account between providers (for example, between Pagatech and Lemmy MFB).” Users were also given a new account number as part of the changes.