TechCabal

Leading Africa’s Tech Conversation

  • NowNow raises $13 million in seed funding to expand services across Africa

    Berry Sahir. Image Source: NowNow

    Financial literacy across the world is low, as only 33% of adults globally are financially literate. According to Standard & Poor’s Global Financial Literacy Survey, in African countries, the percentage of financially literate adults hovers within the 26% range (Nigeria) and the 42% range (South Africa). A comparison with Europe, where the percentage hovers between 65%-75%, and the United States, where the rate is 57%, suggests that African adults might find it more difficult to create and maintain wealth than their Western counterparts. 

    In Nigeria, a report on financial literacy from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) showed that the majority of Nigerian adults want to understand essential financial concepts in making informed decisions about saving, investing, and borrowing. 

    NowNow Digital Systems, a Nigerian fintech, has raised a $13 million seed round to improve financial inclusion across Africa by providing financial services to the unbanked and underbanked on the continent. The company says that the funding will help it introduce new products that will further enhance its already existing consumer banking, agency banking, and merchant payment solutions. 

    The company has also partnered with the Lagos Business School’s Sustainable Inclusive Digital Financial Services (SIDFS), a university-based research and advocacy program, to initiate a financial education and literacy program aimed at driving financial inclusion in Nigeria. NowNow wants to utilise SIDFS’s rich data, library content, and resources to provide financial and digital literacy tools for its customers to ensure smart financial planning. 

    The founders, Sahir Berry and Mahesh Nair told TechCabal that NowNow differs from its competitors, such as Kuda and TeamApt because they have a proprietary infrastructure on their open API network/and an open API network that other financial institutions use to provide access to different markets locally and internationally.

    According to the founders, NowNow operates in the B2B sector by offering its platform-as-a-service to enterprises as well as in the B2C sector by offering agency banking to consumers and small businesses. The company claims that it has over 50,000 agents in Nigeria who help customers send and receive money and pay for bills and airtime. Customers can also do these on their own as well as access services such as insurance, loans, and a wallet through the company’s app. 

    “Unlike many fintechs that are reliant on a commodity-based agency banking model, NowNow has a balanced approach of agency banking, value-added services to the mass consumer and SME market, PAAS to our enterprise customers, and a strong technical infrastructure of modular monetizable fintech solutions,” the founders said.

    The funding round was led by NeoVision Ventures Ltd., DLF Family Office, and Shadi Abdulhadi. According to the founders, these investors understood NowNow’s business model, the African market, and what is required to sustain growth in a challenging market. The fintech platform was also recently selected to participate in the Mastercard Start Path Global program, created to help later-stage startups innovate and scale. 

    The company plans to use the funding to build more financial inclusion digital solutions as well as expand its services across Africa to Angola, where the financial literacy rate is 15%, Liberia, and Equatorial Guinea.

    Muktar Oladunmade

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  • NOWNOW: Ditch your wallet, take your mobile money!

    Next time you head out for the day, leave your wallet at home. Seriously. Toss your valuables and phone in a side pocket of your bag and get on out the door. Why waste precious bag space and time when those moments that get you through your day — a quick airtime recharge, paying your electricity bills or paying for breakfast at your favourite cafe — can all now be completed, not by grabbing your wallet, but by reaching for your phone?

    It is estimated today that more than 2 billion people around the world are unbanked, meaning they have no access to a bank account or safe place to store their money. These individuals have to rely on cash or informal financial services which are often unsafe, inconvenient and expensive.

    However, one common ground shared between banked and unbanked societies across sub-Saharan Africa is the rise in mobile phone ownership with almost 76 percent of the population having a mobile phone subscription, which has led to developments around the potential and need for an affordable payment system, now called mobile money.

    The advent of mobile money has enabled quicker, cheaper and more reliable money transfersover greater distances, but what does this mean for a potential subscriber?

    Here is a brief overview of mobile money and its benefits to subscribers.

    What is mobile money?

    Mobile money is a form of electronic money that allows you to conduct financial transactions using your mobile phone. It involves the use of a mobile phone in order to transfer funds between banks or accounts, deposit or withdraw funds, pay bills. or make purchases.

    So far, there are two models of mobile money implementation in Nigeria – the operator branded and provider branded mobile money services.

    • Operator based mobile money: which is a value added service offered by a network operator to its subscribers.
    • Provider based mobile money: services are those offered by companies licensed by CBN to offer mobile money services.

    Operator based mobile money services do not have mobile money licenses but through partnerships with licensed mobile money providers, financial institutions, payment processors, and merchants they can offer mobile money to their subscribers. Provider based mobile money services, on the other hand, are licenced and either run an independent platform (usually through an app or device) or partner with numerous networks to roll out mobile money services.

    How does mobile money work?

    Mobile Money transforms your mobile phone into an electronic wallet (e-wallet). You can store funds in your mobile e-wallet for making electronic payment for goods and services and also transfer funds to family and friends. This reduces your need for cash when shopping and might help you handle cash with the daily limits of the CBN. You can also receive money on your mobile money e-wallet which can be funded via authorised agents of your mobile money service, partner banks and networks of your mobile money service, transfers from your ATM/Debit cards, or any other funding method offered by your service provider. Once funded you can securely and conveniently use your mobile money to send money to family and friends, buy airtime of any network, Pay bills like DSTV, GOTv, PHCN bills, etc.

    What are the benefits of using mobile money?

    Mobile banking offers many benefits, such as:

    • Ease of Use: Most mobile money services allow users to buy things in shops or online, pay for goods and services, transfer money from almost anywhere, pay bills and school fees, and top-up mobile airtime, anytime and anywhere.
    • Banking without walls: Mobile money services go a long way to addressing the needs of the unbanked, underbanked, and the unhappily banked, thereby reducing the need for long queues in banks.
    • Accessibility: Mobile money has proved better at reaching areas where banks or standard money transfer services may not. Mobile money users can receive international money transfers from family and friends who send using mobile remittance services.
    • Convenient Savings: The ability to save money and be able to cash-out whenever needed is a mobile money benefit that reduces the need for bulky physical cash.
    • Financial Control: Mobile money services charge lesser than standard transfer services, and in some cases eliminate the need for transaction charges completely.

    How safe is mobile money?

    Similar to a bank account, funds held in a mobile money account are protected by local financial regulations. Mobile money providers and partners are required to check the identity of their users – making it much harder for fraudsters and criminals to use these services illegally.

    Mobile money services store a record of every transaction and account balance, so even if the phone or SIM card is lost or stolen, the user’s money is kept safe. Additionally, transactions require some sort of identification in the form of a secret pin.

    This article is provided by NOWNOW, the mobile wallet that allows you make all your payments in one place and gives you cash back on every transaction!

    Download the app now right here or visit nownow.ng to find out more products, services and offers or visit any of our dedicated agents around Nigeria.

    NOWNOW

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