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“We are excited to partner with Visa, a leader in payments globally, as they are constantly building world-class solutions for consumers and businesses. Our goals are well-aligned. As we scale our wallet across emerging markets such as Nigeria, Mexico and Ethiopia, partnering with Visa to give both consumers and businesses, who have been underserved, access to Visa’s global network made sense to us,” the company said in a press release.

“Common investor wisdom is to stay in your market and dominate. This assumes that you are expanding on your own but we believe that by collaborating and partnering deliberately, Carbon and other tech companies can scale faster and build more enduring platforms,” Chijioke Dozie, chief executive officer (CEO) and co-founder of Carbon, said. 

Nigerian fintech startup Carbon has set up a US$100,000 pan-African fund to address the lack of funding and support holding back entrepreneurs on the continent.Consumer lending platform Carbon, which rebranded in April as parent company OneFi continues to transition into being a full digital banking platform after raising US$5 million in debt funding and acquiring Nigerian payments startup Amplify, has been busy expanding its offering, and has also moved into new markets with a Kenyan launch.Its “Disrupt fund” is the first of its kind by an African fintech startup, and will invest up to US$10,000 per startup for five per cent equity. Portfolio companies will also be given access to Carbon’s API, allowing them to leverage Carbon’s growing customer base and innovative technology platform to get to market faster. Carbon expects the initiative to spark more collaboration and further investment that should drive growth across the ecosystem, and is accepting applications from companies with operations in Uganda, Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast and Egypt. Startups looking to apply for the fund must have a functioning product, be post-revenue, and be looking to operate in multiple countries. The fund has a wide investment mandate but target sectors include insurance, health and education.“There are many excellent companies across the continent looking for the kind of scale Nigeria offers and we are excited to partner with them to provide the support and financial investment they need. We are equally excited to expand beyond Nigeria and Kenya by working with a new generation of innovators across the continent and sharing our experience to tackle common obstacles to growth.”

Nigerian fintech startup Carbon has set up a US$100,000 pan-African fund to address the lack of funding and support holding back entrepreneurs on the continent.

Cependant, l’application, qui se rapproche de ce que fait Lydia en Europe, n’est pas limitée au marché nigérian. En effet, la société cherche à étendre ses activités en Afrique de l’Ouest et au-delà. En janvier, Paga a ainsi mis la main sur la société éthiopienne Apposit pour se développer dans ce pays d’Afrique de l’Est. L’Éthiopie est le deuxième pays le plus peuplé d’Afrique avec 109 millions d’habitants, derrière le Nigeria et ses 200 millions d’habitants. Paga a également ouvert un bureau au Mexique pour déployer son service de paiement mobile cette année. Une expansion à l’international qui traduit les ambitions de la start-up de devenir une plateforme FinTech de référence dans les pays émergents.

We empower individuals with access to credit, simple payments solutions, high-yield investment opportunities and easy-to-use tools for personal financial management. Carbon is headquartered in Lagos, Nigeria. We are a global company of over 90 employees with operations in Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya

Carbon is a financial service provided by Carbon Finance & Investments Limited (RC 1044655), licensed and regulated by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). We empower individuals with credit, simple payments solutions, high-yield investment opportunities, and easy-to-use tools for personal financial management. We are a global company of over 90 employees with a presence in Mauritius, Nigeria, the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, South Africa, and Kenya.

Lagos, Nigeria – Leading digital financial services company, Carbon, has released it’s 2019 financial statements audited by KPMG, detailing its product growth and $17.5mm in revenue.Carbon began operations in 2012 and within the space of six years, it grew revenue steadily, reaching an all-time high of $17.5mm in full-year 2019. In the same year, Carbon expanded its product offerings to the Kenyan market and it’s disbursement volumes have grown from N13bn (2018) to N23bn.Formerly called Paylater, Carbon pioneered instant lending in Nigeria and was the first mobile app to provide access to credit digitally and without requesting individuals to present the documents and collateral traditionally associated with accessing loans. Earlier this year, Carbon introduced its iOS app and USSD (*1303#) service. It also announced its Disrupt Fund, a $100,000 Pan-African fund to address the lack of capital for African tech startups.“The company will continue to share it’s audited financials annually, thus upholding a culture of transparency and accountability,” says Ngozi Dozie, Founder of Carbon.So far this year, Carbon has introduced multiple new features for its customer base including Carbon Express: a keyboard allowing users to make payments from any social app, periodic investments, free bank transfers, monthly wallet interest, and more.Carbon also plans to introduce debit cards, a reward program for loyal customers and SME accounts for entrepreneurs, in the months to come.You can find the full annual report here (https://bit.ly/2YNuvPw).About Carbon: Carbon (https://getCarbon.co) is a pan-African digital financial institution accessible via smartphones and which provides individuals with access to credit, a fee-free/interest-earning wallet, simple payments solutions, high-yield investment opportunities and easy-to-use tools for personal financial management.Our mission is to empower opportunity globally through friction-free finance that empowers individuals and businesses. We are a global company of over 100 employees with operations in Nigeria, England and Kenya.

Leading digital financial services company Carbon from Nigeria posted all-time high growth last year

Carbon began operations in 2012 and within the space of six years, it grew revenue steadily, reaching an all-time high of $17.5mm in full-year 2019. In the same year, Carbon expanded its product offerings to the Kenyan market and it’s disbursement volumes have grown from N13bn (2018) to N23bn.

Digital money transfer provider, SimbaPay, has announced the launch of its money transfer service to Nigeria. Using the SimbaPay app or website, Nigerians living in the UK can send money to Nigeria at zero charge using SimbaPay. The payment can be made to any bank account or mobile phone in Nigeria instantly.

South African fintech startup Jumo closed a $55 million round from a diverse group of investors, the company confirmed.

Nigeria, in particular, has become Africa’s unofficial capital for fintech development, surpassing Kenya in 2019 for drawing the most fintech specific and overall VC on the continent

Jumo joins a growing list of African digital-finance startups raising big money from outside investors and expanding abroad.

As it grows abroad, Paga faces greater competition in Nigeria. For the last decade, South Africa and Kenya — with the success of Safaricom’s  M-Pesa product — have been Africa’s standouts in digital payments.But over the last several years, Nigeria has become a magnet for VC and fintech startups. This trend reached a high-point in 2019 when Chinese investors put $220 million into Opera owned OPay and Transsion backed PalmPay — two fledgling startups with plans to scale in Nigeria and broader Africa.

With its Apposit acquisition and continued expansion, PayPal may become more than a model for Paga.Founder Tayo Oviosu sees big fintech players, such as PayPal and Alipay, as future competitors with Paga’s plans to move into more emerging markets.

Paga is a mobile payment company. We are building an ecosystem to enable people to digitally send and receive money, and creating simple financial access for everyone. Our mission is to make it simple for one billion people to access and use money. Our first market is Nigeria where Paga is the leading mobile payment company.

Paga is a mobile payment company. We are building an ecosystem to enable people to digitally send and receive money, and creating simple financial access for everyone. Our mission is to make it simple for one billion people to access and use money. Our first market is Nigeria where Paga is the leading mobile payment company.

According to Oviosu, Visa and Paga’s engineering teams have already started working together and Paga expects to roll-out these new options in Nigeria sometime in second-quarter 2020.

“Based on the partnership, we’re going to launch QR codes and NFC [payments] into the market in Nigeria — alternative ways of receiving payments than bringing out a physical card,” said Oviosu.

Carbon belives that access to credit and quality financial services is a human right. Its mission is to empower all people with the financial access they need to pursue a life of dignity and prosperity. The FinTech empowers individuals with access to credit, simple payments solutions, high-yield investment opportunities, and easy-to-use tools for personal financial management. Interest ranges from 1.75% – 30%, with an equivalent monthly interest rate of 1 – 21%. The Annual Percentage Rate (APR) on a Carbon loan ranges from 23 – 60.8%. The company recently launched its services in Kenya and is expanding its footprint to additional African countries.

JUMO also has a mobile wallet technology that offers an easy-to-use service that is accessible via mobile devices.Watkins-Ball commented on the cost-effective technology used to collect information which strengthened the business model, He said: “When we founded JUMO, we were always clear that we can only achieve our mission by leveraging sophisticated information technologies at really low cost.

Nigerian fintech firm Carbon — an early-stage financial services startup based in Lagos — has posted on its website financials audited by KPMG.This comes four months after the company obtained a credit rating as a pre-IPO venture. Carbon — which recently rebranded its OneFi holding company and PayLater product titles into one name — plans to continue releasing its financial results on an annual basis, co-founder and CEO Chijioke Dozie told TechCrunch.This may not be totally unheard of in other global tech markets, but for startups in Africa’s big tech hubs — such as Nigeria — it’s a rarity.One of the first glimpses into startup financials in Nigeria came when Jumia shareholder Rocket Internet went public in 2014, which required it to include limited Jumia data in its annual report. The accompanying prospectus to Jumia’s listing this year on the New York Stock Exchange offered the most expansive financial data to date on a tech venture operating in Africa.Prior to this — and still for the most part — companies in the continent’s (mostly) pre-public (earlier-stage) startup hubs — such as Nigeria — provide little to no financial performance info.“Typically, in the local market, we have not seen a lot of voluntary transparency or the availability of data,” said Lexi Novitske — a Lagos-based VC investor at Acuity Venture Partners.“Most startups are concerned such disclosure could expose losses, give market intel to competitors or attract unwanted attention from regulators. It could also lead to negative negotiation leverage if partners saw that they were making good returns.”So why’d Carbon go to the trouble of putting its pre-public accounting out in the open for anyone to see?

Clients and recruiting were two reasons. “From a customer perspective, we are trying to get people to trust us with their financial services…so they can see this is the institution I’m dealing with and this is their financial position,” explained Carbon’s Dozie.Carbon has evolved from its original focus as an online lender to offer a broader array of mobile-based financial services — including payments, investment products, credit reports and business banking services. In March, the company acquired Nigerian payment solutions company Amplify for an undisclosed amount.By stats offered by Briter Bridges and a 2018 WeeTracker survey, fintech now receives the bulk of VC capital and deal-flow to African startups, many of which are attempting to reach the continent’s large unbanked and underbanked populations.Carbon fits into that category and its CEO believes being upfront about the startup’s financial position will attract top talent. “From a recruitment perspective, we want recruits to know we have good prospects — that this is a company that’s doing well and wants to keep doing well,” said Dozie.That impression is buoyed by Carbon’s initial results, which were fairly positive for a Series A-stage startup. The company had revenues in 2018 of $10 million, according to its online annual report, and turned a profit of around $500,000.It’s helped with recruiting interest, according to Dozie, who said he’d marked an increase in candidates inquiring about open positions since the results were posted.

we don’t get considered because investors don’t really think that you can get the results or this performance in the markets that we’re in,” he added — noting that Carbon has operations in Nigeria, Ghana and South Africa and is considering expansion in Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, DRC and Egypt.Investor Lexi Novitske thinks Carbon offering financial performance data is a good thing for Africa’s tech ecosystem. “The move builds trust from clients, partners or investors in a market where there is not a lot of openness,” she said. “I am encouraged to see how other companies will react. My hope is that more will openly report their own metrics…”Dozie says the company will continue to post audited financials on an annual basis, even if they show losses. If the startup continues to expand, attract capital and talent and grow revenues, other Nigerian fintech firms may follow suit.

Carbon is a financial service provided by Carbon Finance & Investments Limited (RC 1044655), licensed and regulated by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). We empower individuals with credit, simple payments solutions, high-yield investment opportunities, and easy-to-use tools for personal financial management. We are a global company of over 90 employees with a presence in Mauritius, Nigeria, the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, South Africa, and Kenya.

Your money is always working harder for you.Earn up to 11% interest p.a. when you invest with Carbon.

Your Carbon account allows you enjoy cheaper transactions, zero account fees, and an annual interest of 2% per annum.

Visa has entered a partnership with Nigeria based startup Paga on payments and technology.Founded in Lagos, Paga scaled its fintech business in West Africa, before targeting expansion in Ethiopia and Mexico.The startup has created a multi-channel network for over 14 million customers in Nigeria to transfer money, pay-bills and buy things digitally through its mobile-app or 24,840 agents.The new arrangement allows Paga account holders to transact on Visa’s global network. It will also see both companies work together on tech.The collaboration reflects a strategy of the American financial services giant to expand in Africa working with the continent’s top startups.

WorldRemit has the largest bank payout network for transfers to USD bank accounts in Nigeria, which includes Access Bank, FirstBank, Fidelity, GT Bank, UBA and FCMB, with ongoing plans for further expansion. Cash pickup in USD is also available from the following banks: Fidelity Bank, First Bank, Access Bank, Polaris Bank, FCMB, Zenith Bank and Union Bank. For added security and convenience, both senders and recipients automatically receive transaction and PIN numbers via SMS and email, for cash pick up. Recipients must present both numbers along with their ID at cash collection points. 

New service allows WorldRemit customers in over 50 countries to send money directly from their phones to 1,800 cash pick-up locations nationwide

In order to prevent fraudulent transactions, Paga has put certain measures in place to protect its users. A user logging into an unrecognized device, for example, will have to answer a couple of security questions before proceeding. Again, every transaction using Paga has to be finalized with a personal PIN known only to the user.

Nigerian fintech startup Paga, poised for global expansion, has announced its acquisition of Apposit, a United States (US)-based technology company with operations in Ethiopia. Founded in 2009, Paga provides Nigerians with safe and convenient ways of making payments, allowing money to be sent to any phone number for the beneficiary to redeem at a Paga agent or at an ATM via a cardless withdrawal. Customers can also use Paga to deposit money to bank accounts in Nigeria, pay their bills, or top-up mobile phone airtime.