Jumia hires ex-PalmPay manager, Anthony Mbagwu, to head its Nigerian fintech subsidiary

E-commerce giant Jumia appointed Anthony Mbagwu as the managing director of its Nigerian fintech arm, JumiaPay. Mbagwu joins JumiaPay from rival fintech PalmPay where he was a senior business development and partnership manager for ten months.

Mbagwu has over 15 years of experience in the financial services sector. He was previously head of business support at Unified Payments, a prominent payment infrastructure provider, and head of service operations at Access Bank.

According to Jumia’s 2023 filing, PalmPay is one of JumiaPay’s biggest competitors.

Jumia did not immediately respond to requests for comments

JumiaPay is integrated as a payment method at the checkout of online platforms like Jumia—it processed about 39.5% of Jumia orders in 2023. It also has a standalone app that lets users make bank transfers, bill payments, loans, and merchant payments. One person familiar with the company said JumiaPay’s biggest customer is its parent company.

JumiaPay processed $192 million in payments for 8.4 million orders in 2023, a figure that pales compared to the $5 billion monthly transactions that Palmpay reported in 2023.

Mbagwu will report to Sunil Natraj,  the CEO of Jumia Nigeria.

Mbagwu’s appointment comes as Jumia intensifies its focus on profitability. The company has laid off staff and shut down its food delivery arm to save costs and increase revenue which stood at $186.4 million at the end of 2023, per its SEC filings. Some of those moves have resonated with investors with its share price rallying to $12.16 at the time of writing this article, nearly four times what it began the year.