‘Our N250bn daily transaction volume allows us to lend where traditional banks can’t’ — MD Nombank

For years, Nigeria’s fintech boom has been measured by how quickly companies can move money. Seun Osunkeye believes the industry’s next breakthrough will be determined by something far more difficult: using data to unlock credit for millions of underserved businesses.

As managing director of Nombank, the banking subsidiary of Nomba, Osunkeye oversees a platform that now processes about N250 billion in merchant transactions every day, up from N7 billion in May 2025. He says that scale has given the company something traditional lenders often lack: a real-time understanding of how businesses earn, spend, and grow.

Rather than relying heavily on collateral, audited accounts, or rigid documentation, Nombank is using transaction data to assess creditworthiness and extend financing to businesses that conventional banks have historically overlooked.

In this exclusive interview with BusinessDay’s Chinwe Michael, Osunkeye explains why transaction data is becoming the new collateral, why fintechs are racing to acquire banking licences, and how Nombank intends to close Nigeria’s persistent SME financing gap by lending where traditional banks cannot.

Your interest in SME financing predates your career in fintech. Looking back, how did your academic research evolve into leading one of Nigeria’s newest digital banks?

My interest in SME financing started long before I entered the industry. During my undergraduate studies, I researched how microfinance institutions influence the survival and growth of small businesses through access to capital. Although it began as an academic exercise, the central question stayed with me: why do viable businesses still struggle to obtain financing?

That curiosity shaped every stage of my career. I worked across finance roles at HotelOga and NightsBridge before co-founding Carnegie Venture Partners, where I advised startups raising capital. Those experiences allowed me to see financing from multiple perspectives, as an operator, an investor, and a financial professional.

When I joined Nomba, first as a senior finance associate and later as a financial controller, I encountered the same challenge repeatedly. Thousands of healthy businesses were excluded from formal finance because traditional lending products failed to reflect how they actually operate. Leading Nombank, therefore, wasn’t a career pivot; it was the culmination of a journey focused on one objective: making capital more accessible to businesses that deserve it.

Unlike many banking executives, your background is rooted in accounting and corporate finance rather than traditional banking. How has that influenced the way you are building Nombank?

My training has fundamentally shaped how I think about building institutions. Accountants are trained to focus on controls, sustainability, and long-term value before growth narratives. That discipline has stayed with me throughout my career.

As financial controller at Nomba, I wasn’t analysing the business from the outside. I was directly involved in treasury management, fundraising, planning, and financial reporting. I understood what drove merchant profitability, where operational risks existed, and how sustainable growth should be measured.

That perspective is different from a conventional banking background. Traditional bankers often understand credit exceptionally well, but fintech businesses move much faster. They require rapid decision-making while maintaining strong governance. My objective is not to build a bank that simply grows deposits; it’s to build an institution with the financial discipline, governance, and resilience to support businesses over the long term.

Nomba’s acquisition of a microfinance bank marked a major strategic milestone. What business problem was the company trying to solve?

The initial objective was infrastructure. As Nomba expanded, we recognised that relying entirely on third-party banking partners would eventually limit innovation and operational efficiency. Acquiring a banking licence allowed us to own critical banking infrastructure, mobilise deposits, and develop financial products within a regulated framework.

Over time, however, the vision became much bigger. Today, Nombank is no longer simply the banking engine supporting Nomba. It has evolved into a standalone institution with its own customer proposition, focused on solving financial challenges for businesses that remain underserved by conventional banking.

Many merchants use Nomba every day without necessarily recognising the role Nombank plays behind the scenes. How do the two businesses complement each other?

Nomba is the technology platform that enables merchants to accept payments and manage their businesses. Nombank is the regulated financial institution that powers the banking services underneath that ecosystem.

Whenever merchants save funds or obtain financing through our platform, those activities happen through Nombank. Operating as a licensed microfinance bank also means meeting stringent regulatory requirements around capital adequacy, governance, and deposit protection, providing customers with greater confidence that their funds are held within a supervised banking framework.

Nombank now processes approximately N250 billion in daily transactions. How does that scale translate into a competitive advantage in lending?

Data is our biggest differentiator. Every day, we see how businesses generate revenue, manage cash flow, respond to seasonality, and recover from difficult periods. Those insights allow us to understand business performance far more accurately than traditional financial statements alone.

Rather than relying heavily on collateral or historical audited accounts, we can assess businesses using real operational behaviour. That enables faster lending decisions and products that are aligned with actual working capital needs.

A banking licence can be obtained by others. Years of transaction data and customer trust cannot be replicated overnight.

Traditional SME lending remains heavily documentation-driven. How is Nombank redesigning that experience?

Most conventional lenders require audited financial statements, physical collateral, and extensive paperwork. Those requirements often exclude exactly the businesses that need financing most.

Because we already understand how our merchants transact, much of that documentation becomes unnecessary. We can evaluate businesses using live transaction data, allowing us to approve facilities much faster while tailoring repayments to each business’s operating cycle rather than imposing rigid lending structures.

Embedded finance is becoming one of fintech’s fastest-growing segments. How is Nombank positioning itself within that opportunity?

We increasingly see businesses wanting to integrate financial services directly into their own platforms instead of sending customers elsewhere.

For example, one of our partners in the oil and gas sector has embedded Nombank’s collection infrastructure directly into its platform, allowing fuel stations to make payments seamlessly. Because we understand transaction behaviour across that ecosystem, we’re also able to provide credit precisely when liquidity is needed.

We believe this model can be replicated across logistics, agriculture, retail, remittances, and numerous other sectors. The future of banking isn’t about building one application that serves everyone; it’s about embedding financial services wherever businesses already operate.

Nigerian fintechs have been moving toward MFB licences, Paystack, Moniepoint, and OPay. What’s driving this, and how do you see Nombank positioned within that wave?

Every significant Nigerian fintech eventually hits the same ceiling: you can move money, but you can’t hold it. An MFB licence removes that ceiling, and that’s what’s driving the wave. But I’d push back on the idea that these moves are equivalent, because the context behind each one matters.

Nombank isn’t a reaction to what anyone else is doing. We’ve been operating as the banking infrastructure behind Nomba for three to four years. While others are now acquiring licences and figuring out what to build, we’ve already been building quietly, with a live customer base stress-testing the product the whole time. The merchants using Nombank today weren’t acquired after we got a licence. They were already there.

That sequencing is the real differentiator. We didn’t get regulatory authorisation and then go looking for a market. We built the market first and understood what it needed, and the bank was the answer to a question our customers were already asking. That shows up in the depth of our data, the maturity of our credit thinking, and the trust we’ve already established with the businesses we serve.

Where do you believe Nigeria’s fintech industry still has the greatest opportunity for innovation?

It’s SME credit. The payments infrastructure has advanced significantly over the last decade. The real challenge now is designing lending products that genuinely work for small businesses.

Too many financial institutions still focus primarily on deposit mobilisation. Sustainable SME lending requires high-quality data, disciplined risk management, and patience. That’s where I believe the next phase of fintech innovation will be won.

What does leading the banking arm of a company on a unicorn trajectory actually feel like from the inside?

It feels like building institutional infrastructure at full speed. The pace is relentless. Decisions that would normally take a quarter in a legacy bank get made in days. But that speed is anchored by serious regulatory discipline. A licensed bank isn’t a place to run startup experiments. We’re custodians of public capital, and that shapes our risk posture and our strategy.

The ambition of the wider group and the discipline of banking aren’t in tension. They reinforce each other. My job is to make sure Nombank has the structural strength to support where Nomba is going.