The funding will be used by Okra to boost its infrastructure development and establish itself as a leader in the Nigerian fintech landscape.

The startup possesses the capacity to add clients to its portal within 24 hours. So far, it has already connected with all of Nigeria’s commercial banks as well as the likes of Branch, AIICO Insurance PLC, Travelstart, Bamboo, Renmoney, and Swipe.

With regard to the funding, co-founder of Okra, Fara Ashiru Jituboh told the media, “Our thesis is simple — financial innovation cannot exist without the proper infrastructure, which is data. Essentially, how far the African fintech sector can grow is intrinsically tied to the success of an infrastructure like Okra and with our core market in Nigeria, we’re opening the door to another level of innovation in Africa’s largest market,” said Jituboh.

“There are approximately 125 million bank accounts in Nigeria alone – but over the course of the next two years, we will see that figure rise exponentially, which presents huge opportunities for growth. Our role within this is to deliver ease, speed, and transparency to key players within the fintech space so they can get back to driving our continent forward.”

Established in January 2020 by Fara Ashiru Jituboh and David Peterside, the startup recorded a 175 percent rise in demand since March as the coronavirus pandemic has given digitalisation a significant boost.

Reportedly, Okra is also Africa’s first API “super-connector” and is developing the infrastructure for Africa’s next stage of fintech innovation.

In 2019, Nigerian fintech startups attracted investment worth $122 million, according to the 2019 African Tech Startups Funding Report.

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However, funding in the Nigerian fintech sector decreased by 21.8 percent when compared to 2019. Investments in other sectors such as logistics, transport, ecommerce, agritech, and healthtech saw substantial growth.

Reportedly, there are around 210 to 250 different players in the Nigerian fintech startup landscape.

According to Frost and Sullivan, a business consulting firm involved in market research and analysis, and corporate training across multiple industries, Nigeria’s fintech revenue is expected to reach $543.3 million in 2022 from $153.1 million in 2017.

Nigeria’s fintech sector also received funding from various global investors in 2019. According to the 2019 African Tech Startups Funding Report, the number of investors in African tech startups jumped grew by 61 percent in 2019 to reach 261.

According to the Enterprise Development Centre (EDC) of the Pan African University, Nigeria will lead the growth in non-cash transaction volume across Africa. The EDC further revealed that non-cash transaction is expected to reach 17.8 percent of total transaction volume in 2023 from 4.7 percent at the end of 2018. This is attributed to the development of Nigerian fintech startups.

Nigeria also established itself as the African capital for fintech investment and digital finance startups. Nigeria toppled Kenya which earlier held the top spot due to its mobile money revolution which was led by M-Pesa.

The report also pointed out that African tech startups as funding grew by 47 percent when compared to 2018. Also, the number of startups has increased by 50 percent during the same period. A total of 311 tech startups across Africa amassed $491.6 million in funding last year.

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According to local media reports, the deal will help Paga expand into the East African and Latin American markets.
Last year, Paga raised around $10 million in a fresh round of funding and announced its plan to take its operations outside of Nigeria.

Chief executive at Paga, Tayo Oviosu told the media, “Last year we refined our mission and vision to birth our massive transformative purpose, to make it simple for one billion people to access and use money. Apposit has demonstrated strong alignment with our purpose and they have some of the very best engineers I have been privileged to work with, in over two decades in technology in Silicon Valley and elsewhere. I am very excited to have Apposit join the Paga team.”

According to media reports, Paga is planning to launch its products in the Ethiopian and Mexican markets this year.
Both Paga and Apposit have worked closely since Paga’s inception in 2009. Apposit has committed an engineering team to Paga since the last 11 years.

Tayo Oviosu recently revealed that the fintech startup recorded over $2 billion worth of transactions in 2019 in its home market in Nigeria.

Through his Twitter account, he further revealed that around Paga had around 14.4 million customers in Nigeria as of 2019. Since it went commercial in 2012, Paga had carried out transactions worth $6.6 billion.

Recently, Paga announced the appointment of Ian Cleverly as its new Group Chief Financial Officer. He previously served the same role at Maistro, a business-to-business marketplace for online procurement service.

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2019 turned out to be a significant year for African tech startups as funding grew by 47 percent when compared to 2018. Also, the number of startups has increased by 50 percent during the same period.

The African Tech Startups Funding Report 2019 revealed that a total of 311 startups amassed $491.6 million last year.

2019 also witnessed a 61 percent increase in the number of investors in Africa. As of 2019, there were 261 different investors in Africa funding different tech startups across Africa.

Kenya has emerged as a leading market when it comes to attracting investments. Tech startups in Kenya alone secured $149 million in funding last year. Kenya is followed by Nigeria which secured $122 million last year.

In recent years, the technology space in Egypt has substantially grown. In 2019, around 88 tech startups have raised funds from investors in the continent.

Surprisingly, South Africa is ranked at fourth when it comes to funds secured and also the number of tech startups.
This indicates that investors are looking beyond South Africa and searching for investment opportunities in emerging markets.

The fintech sector continued to attract most of the African investors. According to the African Tech Startups Funding Report 2019, 77 fintech startups raised around $107 million in funding in 2019.

Last year, Nigeria established itself as the African capital for fintech investment and digital finance startups. Nigeria seemed to have toppled Kenya which earlier held the top spot due to its mobile money revolution which was led by M-Pesa.

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According to media reports, the funding will also be used to upgrade Migo’s human resource capital.
While the funding round for Migo was led by Brazil-focused VC firm Valor Capital, other participants include the Rise Fund and Velocity Capital.

Migo offers credit scoring services to banks, financial institutions, and large corporations. Most notable among Migo’s clients are telcos MTN and 9Mobile, banks like Bank of Industry and Fidelity Bank, and technology companies such as InterSwitch and Flutterware -Africa’s first fintech unicorn.

Those who are eligible for the credit line can use it to make purchases from a merchant or withdraw cash without the need for point-of-sale hardware or plastic cards.

Reportedly, 90 million adults in Nigeria and 100 million adults in Brazil have no access to credit. Migo sees this as an opportunity and wants to bring them under the financial ecosystem.

Chief executive officer at Migo, Ekechi Nwokah told the media, “The global social inequality challenge is driven by a lack of access to credit. If you look at the middle class in developed countries, it is largely built on access to credit. What we are trying to do is to make prosperity available to all by reinventing the way people access and use credit.”

According to him, Migo already has a number of deals in the pipeline in Brazil. He further revealed that the startup has already signed a big-name partner in the Latin American country. He, however, refrained from mentioning the name of the partner.

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The deal would see Visa become a cornerstone investor in Interswitch ahead of its scheduled London IPO in the first half of 2020. The deal is expected to boost Interswitch’s IPO and the startup is expected to be valued at around $1.5 billion.

Visa’s investment in Interswitch follows rival Mastercard’s $300 million investment in Dubai-based Network International, which is also gearing up for a London IPO. Network International is one of the largest payment processors in Africa and the Middle East.

Many in Africa believe Visa’s investment in Interswitch will significantly change the fintech landscape in Africa.
Victor Asemota, a veteran tech investor told the local media, “We were once talking about validation but we have moved way past that now to strategic positioning by major players. It is no longer a case of let’s see where this is going. It is now a case of jumping on the bandwagon.”

The investments by Visa and Mastercard highlight their desire to benefit from and tap into the fast-growing and under-penetrated markets in Africa.

Founded in 2020 by Mitchell Elegbe, Interswitch is one of the largest electronic payments and infrastructure companies that focus on Africa. Interswitch’s card scheme, called Verve, is Africa’s largest with more than 19 million active cards on its network. The company also operates in more than 20 other countries.

Earlier this year, Visa also took part in a funding round for Indonesia’s ride-hailing startup Gojek. Visa recently
announced that it is collaborating with Gojek to bring a pay later service to the platform and new capabilities to pay in installments.

The company has also invested in Singapore-headquartered Grab.

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According to CBN, fintech has disrupted the Nigerian financial industry, especially in areas such as payment, savings, and micro-lending. In order to regulate the fintech sector, the CBN will form new policies and stricter regulations.

The CBN is also identifying fintech companies which are operating without proper regulatory approval and bring them under regulatory control.

While speaking at the recently-concluded World Bank and IMF meetings, CBN’s deputy governor in charge of Financial Systems Stability, Mrs Aisha Ahmad said, “The way fintech is disrupting the Nigerian financial space, a lot of it has come from the payment space. So, you see them more active in the space for receipts where they are already getting licences from us.”

She added, “We’ve seen disruptions in the savings space and disruptions in the micro-lending space. So, these are not organisations that the CBN is not aware of. But broadly speaking, our focus has been to identify these organisations.”

She pointed out the CBN’s intentions are not to repress the fintech sector in Nigeria. Instead, the CBN is ready to welcome more players into the sector as it helps accelerate financial inclusion in the country. The CBN is targeting 80 percent inclusion by 2020.

Last week, Nigeria’s newly formed Taj Bank announced that it has entered into a partnership with fintech startup Smart Save Integrated Technologies. The partnership will aim to develop strategies to accelerate financial inclusion in the country and bring the low-income earning Nigerians under the financial sector.

Last month, the CBN said it is committed to strengthening money transfer operators in Nigeria as they help facilitate the influx of foreign remittances into the country.

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According to reports, in Europe, Lidya may provide loans up to $15, 000, compared to $3, 000 in Nigeria.

Ercin Eksin, co-founder of Lidya told the media, “We have built a world-class business that is helping SMEs to access the credit they need to grow, often for the first time. Our technology is proven in Nigeria where we have helped thousands of businesses to create wealth and employment. Improving access to credit for SMEs is a global problem and we have ambitious international expansion plans to meet this challenge.”

He added, “Through Lidya, we have the opportunity to empower the growth of SMEs in Africa, Europe and around the world. SMEs create the most number of jobs and significantly contribute to GDP. We are on a mission to support the creation of 100 million jobs in fast-growing economies.”

Lidya is backed by venture capital firms such as Omidyar Network and Alitheia Capital. Each year, Lidya plans to tap into four international markets, potentially in Europe.

Lidya’s fintech platform allows small and medium-sized businesses to register online for loans starting from $500 and get that credit within 24 hours. This process helps SMEs build a credit history for the first time.

So far, Lidya has provided more than 10,000 loans to 2,000 businesses in Nigeria, as of July 2019.

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Payment gateway Innovate I Pay is a leading fintech players in the African continent and one of the first African fintech startups to enter Dubai and the Middle East. Besides being the only distributor of foreign currency to Bureau de Change (BDC) operators in Northern Nigeria, it provides services such as international money transfer and foreign exchange management.

According to estimates, by 2040 Africa will surpass India and China to be the biggest job market. Meanwhile Dubai, as a symbol of its friendly relationships with African nations, has reformed its visa procedures for African nationals. The renewed visa process has increased the number of African immigrants who come to UAE in search of good jobs.

African payment gateway fintech Innovate 1 Pay has entered Dubai, keeping in mind the expanding African population in UAE which has increased as result of the renewed visa procedures.

Innovate I Pay chairman, Mahmoud Ahmadu told the media, “With the maturing of financial markets in Africa, we have expanded our presence to a total of 56 countries currently, and with the promise that the new UAE visa regime holds for African professionals, we believe the prospects for growth in addressing this demographic is very promising indeed.”

Innovate I Pay is licenced by the Central Bank of Nigeria. There have always been strong ties between UAE and the African countries. The fifth edition of the Global Business Forum on Africa is to be held in Dubai. The forum is expected to forge strong economic co-operation and better economic relationships between Africa and UAE.

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OPay, founded by Norwegian browser company Opera plans to expand to other African markets and also diversify. OPay will also support other Opera brands such as motorcycle ride-hail app ORide and OFood delivery service. Investors such as IDG Capital, Sequoia China, Source Code Capitial, GSR Ventures and Opera Limited took part in the funding round.

The majority of the fund OPay raised came from Chinese sources such as Source Code Capital, Sequoia China, and GSR Ventures. In 2016, OPay founder Opera was acquired for $600 million by a consortium of Chinese investors, led by current Opera CEO Yahui Zhou.

According to media reports, OPay’s new funding could change the face of fintech in Nigeria. It could help the country overtake Kenya as Africa’s digital payments leader. Currently, Kenya holds the top spot due to the country’s swift transition to the digital sector.

One of the reasons for Nigeria to not overtake Kenya so far, despite being Africa’s most populous nation and also the largest economy was its central bank’s policy to not let non-banking entities offer mobile payment services. However, the restrictions were lifted earlier this year, making the process of setting up fintech companies in the country easier.

OPay was launched in August 2018 as a mobile payment service provider. Since its inception, the startup has diversified into the food delivery and motorcycle taxi-booking services. Currently, Opera has a large user base in Africa with 120 million people using its browser.

Recently eight Nigerian fintech startups have partnered to bring tech training programme Lambda School to Africa with an aim to offer young Africans free software development training and the chance to secure jobs.

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