South African-based Standard Bank taps into Nomanini’s retail data through a new $4m funding round.
The bank’s investment into Nomanini was completed by Goodwell Investments, the investment firm.
Nomanini is the company behind a FinTech platform for the informal retail economy. The platform connects merchants and distributors as well as global service providers, integrating payments, working capital and data analytics to unlock what it refers to as “the latent potential of Africa’s economy.”
The deal will mean Standard Bank can use Nomanini’s data to better assess small merchants’ creditworthiness, hoping many more will be eligible for working capital loans.
The bank will also be able to provide a mobile app to these enterprises, giving them access to new lines of business, credit and savings services.
The service will be available in South Africa, Zambia, Mozambique, Uganda, Malawi, Angola, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, Lesotho and Botswana.
“This partnership with Standard Bank will be instrumental for Nomanini’s next wave of growth, while ensuring that millions of Africa’s underserved micro-entrepreneurs receive access to digital financial services for the first time,” said Vahid Monadjem, founder and CEO of Nomanini. “And this is just the beginning. Nomanini’s interoperable wallet is a gateway to a whole range of digital banking services – loans and savings now but soon, remittances and insurance too. It’s only by bridging the divide between the digital and the physical cash that rules in these markets that we’ll be able to rewrite the rules of informal retail trade in Africa.”
FinTech companies in Africa are going from strength to strength. As FinTech Global recently reported, the continent has seen a rise of new ventures in this space since M-Pesa, the Kenyan mobile-phone transfer system was first launched in 2007. Since then, Africa has seen a boom of FinTech startups and investment to boot. Just in the first six months of 2019, there were $78.8m invested in FinTech ventures on the continent.
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