Standard Bank Group Limited, Africa’s biggest lender by assets, has invested $4 million for an undisclosed stake in South Africa-based fintech firm, Nomanini, to boost financial inclusion in Africa’s informal economy with focus on 14 African countries including Nigeria, Angola and South Africa.
The deal would see the bank providing credit for small traders and informal sector players that lacks access to financial services.
Nomanini, which was founded in 2010 by Vahid Monadjem, a former global fellow for emerging market development at McKinsey & Company, connects informal sector merchants with distributors through an electronic-wallet and physical device.
Merchants can use the same device to offer basic services to their communities.
Both parties plan to extend the service to Nigeria, South Africa, Angola, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, eSwatini, Zambia, Mozambique and Lesotho by 2021.
Standard Bank’s investment in Nomanini would see the lender using Nomanini’s platform to collect data on the informal retail economy or even data on pre-paid airtime, which would enable the bank build up financial profile of each retailer.
This would also allow the bank offer a mobile application that provides access to new lines of business, credit and savings services for millions of informal traders across the continent.
“Transactional data analysis via the Nomanini’s platform means that micro-merchants’ creditworthiness can be more accurately assessed, and as a result, many will become eligble for working capital loans for the first time,” the fintech firm said.
The fintech firm through its chief executive officer Vahid Monadjem, says it is open to partnerships with other banks elsewhere, but its partnership with Standard Bank will keep it busy for a very long time.
Nomanini had previously raised about $1 million in funding over three rounds.
In 2014, it raised an undisclosed amount in Series-B funding from Seychelles-based Rockbridge Investments Limited after Netherland-based eVentures Africa Fund and angel Investor Esther Dyson in 2012 invested $600, 000 in the company.
Nomanini’s latest investment follows their last funding round in 2015, when it raised an undisclosed sum from US-based Goodwell Investment.
The fintech company provides banks, mobile networks and mobile money operators with merchant tools and management platforms to enable convenient access to cash transfers, bill payments and bank transactions for people in the informal markets.
The firm owns an enterprise payment platform that optimises transactions in the informal retail sector across Africa; however it is currently being used in South Africa, Kenya, Zambia, Namibia and Mozambique.
Israel Odubola
