Paga partners with Sui to bring dollar yields and asset tokenization to Africa on blockchain rails

Paga, one of Africa’s oldest fintech companies, has partnered with Sui, the blockchain network built by former Meta engineers at Mysten Labs, to launch stablecoin accounts, tokenised real-world assets, and crypto payment rails across its markets.

The partnership was announced at the Sui Live event in Miami on May 7 and marks Paga’s first formal move into crypto since founder Tayo Oviosu transitioned to Group CEO in April.

The deal will be executed through Paga Group’s UK entity, with initial services offered through its US operations. Any funds entering Nigeria will pass through the company’s licensed remittance infrastructure, Paga Remitt, and be reported to the Central Bank of Nigeria.

Oviosu said the company is also engaging Nigerian regulators on how digital assets and stablecoins should be treated within the country’s evolving regulatory framework.

The partnership covers four product areas: high-yield USD accounts backed by USDsui, Sui’s dollar stablecoin; crypto on-ramps and off-ramps across Paga’s markets; tokenised real-world assets including real estate, bonds, and solar projects; and cross-border payment rails for businesses and consumers.

The tokenised asset programme aims to make investments accessible to African users with as little as $100. Oviosu said the goal is to allow someone in Lagos to invest in a project in Hong Kong and earn from it directly.

“These are the walls of the cage, and until we tear them down, financial freedom on this continent is incomplete,” Oviosu told attendees at Sui Live. “Tearing down these walls is not a job we can do on our own; it requires the right rails, the right partner, the right technology that is fast enough, cheap enough and global enough to serve 1 billion people.”

Since its founding in 2009, Paga has processed $42 billion in total payment volume from 653 million transactions. The company currently handles around $1.5 billion in monthly payments. That existing scale means the Sui partnership launches with immediate reach rather than from a standing start.

Oviosu pointed to the 57% of African adults who remain unbanked, describing Africa as “the single largest financial greenfield market in the world.”

USDsui: a yield-bearing dollar on Sui

USDsui, Sui’s native stablecoin, is issued by Bridge, the crypto infrastructure firm acquired by Stripe for $1.1 billion in 2025. Yield from the US Treasury-grade assets backing the coin can be funnelled back into the Sui ecosystem through token buybacks and DeFi deployment, creating what Mysten Labs co-founder Adeniyi Abiodun described as “real yield from real world finance going back into DeFi.”

USDsui launched in March 2026, maintains a 1:1 peg to the US dollar, and is backed by US Treasury-grade liquid assets.  Unlike USDT and USDC, it is yield-bearing, meaning users earn interest simply by holding it.

“The beauty of the Sui dollar stablecoin is that it earns yield while passively sitting there. People can protect their savings and also earn from those savings,” Oviosu told Nairametrics.

A wider shift among African fintechs

Paga’s move reflects a broader turn among African fintech companies toward blockchain infrastructure. In October 2025, Flutterwave partnered with Polygon to build out its stablecoin payment infrastructure.

In January 2026, Paystack reorganised into The Stack Group to deepen research into emerging technologies. Both companies were admitted into the Central Bank of Nigeria’s anti-money laundering supervisory programme for virtual asset service providers in March.

Sui confirmed the deal in a LinkedIn post, describing Paga as “one of Africa’s largest payments networks” and noting that the company processed $11 billion in payments and 169 million transactions in 2025.

Adeniyi Abiodun, co-founder of Mysten Labs, said Africa’s growing developer ecosystem and rising interest in blockchain technology make the continent a strong market for blockchain-powered financial infrastructure.