Agency banking is a big business in Nigeria. It involves agents or merchants who act as human ATMs and offer financial services to the underbanked and unbanked.
E-Settlement is a holding company for different financial entities, and it is one of the heavy players. PayCentre Africa is an agent banking platform that is present in Nigeria, and other countries in Africa.
The company said it had more than 5 million customers last year. Yep!, a neobank that will leverage E-Settlement's network and convert these underbanked customers online as well as target those online, was started by Awojoodu with the help of Airende Ojeomogha and Garry Ottosen.
Yep!, a superfinancial app with payments, remittance and banking features, has raised over one million dollars in a pre-seed round led by Greenhouse Capital. The startup will serve digital financial services to consumers, small business owners and merchants in five markets.
We want to bank the guys in Lagos as well as the guys in a village at Ikot Ekpene. We are also looking at a full African play, and at the same time, not just Nigeria.
We are going to bring everybody into the digital environment using both digital tools and agent networks, not just the guys that are digitally enabled, but even the guys that are off the digital channels.
Over 42 million adults in Nigeria lack basic banking services. Agency banking does a great job in fostering financial inclusion, but at some point the underserved need to be brought into an all-round digital ecosystem that provides access to the full spectrum of financial services.
Yep!'s solution was built with this in mind. The first thing they had to do was get a microfinance license, something they couldn't do with money. Cash in, cash out, digital accounts, cash issuance and bill payments can now be offered by these agents.
We can now start banking consumers because we have their money and we can also bank our agents. On the call, Ojeomogha said that they closed all the ecosystems to bring agents, merchants, businesses and consumers together.
Customers who use banks and other digital-only platforms like Kuda, Carbon and FairMoney will be the ones the startup will go for. It will provide account opening, bill payments, credit financing, and financial management services to both consumers and businesses.
ffline and online acquisition strategy isn't novel. OPay, known for providing financial services to underbanked customers, launched its digital banking arm in 2021. Last year, Team Apt teased a digital banking play for the underbanked.
Yep! has an edge because of its experience in raising debt capital for lending purposes, a practice where agency banking providers supply working capital to their agents who in turn lend to their end consumers. Ojeomogha and Ottosen will be crucial to that.
Ottosen has built lending programs, including consumer and business credit cards, for several U.S. banks and Ojeomogha has experience as an investment banker.
We have offered agent lending in the past and have gotten low single digits default. We have taken a different approach to some of these things. Gary and I have raised hundreds of millions of dollars in debt, so access to credit facilities is an advantage for us.
One of the advantages we have is that we have a lot of data. Because it is a digital bank, we will be able to reach deep into both Nigeria and Francophone Africa.
Airende Ojeomogha, Olaoluwa Awojoodu, and Garry Ottosen are the founding fathers.
The company has a $500,000 credit facility that can be used to start working capital loans. The founders say they are in talks with international credit providers to increase this to $10 million by the end of 2022.
Yep! is testing out new products to differentiate itself from other platforms. Sub-Saharan Africa is the most expensive region to send money to. Remittance flows can be built on if agents act as the middleman in receiving money from the diaspora and distributing it to those on the continent. Checking and saving accounts, a credit card, and a physical bank for African migrants will be offered by the startup.
That's all in Yep! Yep! will use the pre-seed investment to double its agent network to over 200,000 by the end of 2022, in order to boost financial inclusion. The funding will allow the company to begin its digital banking services in Nigeria and other countries, which the company believes is ripe for the taking since there is less competition compared to Africa's most prominent fintech market.
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