STARTUP INTERVIEW:
Chijioke Dozie is the CEO and co-Founder of OneFi, a leading African Mobile-First Consumer Lending Business that has disbursed over $40m to consumers since inception.
Tell us something about OneFi?
At OneFi, we issue small loans to the financially underserved mass retail segment, via our mobile app “Paylater”, a Nigerian leading digital financial services platform that specializes in consumer lending. The app empowers individuals with access to credit, simple payments solutions, high-yield investment opportunities and easy-to-use tools for personal financial management. The platform also helps users transfer money, recharge airtime and pay bills.
Individuals and SMEs, especially those classified as the underbanked segments of the population.
When was OneFi founded and by who?
The company was founded in 2012 by Ngozi Dozie and I and Net1, a Nasdaq
listed company that’s a significant minority shareholder.
What are the company’s USPs?
We’re actually the first African fintech platform to receive a credit rating. In December last year, we were assigned a ‘BB’credit rating from the Global Credit Rating Company, which is Africa’s leading credit rating agency. This goes a long way towards providing full transparency to all of our stakeholders – especially our customers.
Not so long ago business owners had to fill out a vast amount of forms and pay exorbitant interest rates in order to get loans approved but our service is making this quicker and cheaper. Due to this, we’ve heard various growth stories from small businesses who are making the most of our services which is always great to see.
How is the company funded?
OneFi has raised approximately $10.8mn via funding rounds.
What are the ambitions of OneFi?
We’re very keen to double in size in Nigeria before expanding into new markets. We’ll also be introducing a number of its services on USSD mobile technology in order cater to consumers who don’t use smartphones. The ambition is for OneFi to become a full-service digital bank, which will also coincide with a name change next month. In terms of partnerships, we’re also set to work with Visa to provide credit in supermarkets via QR codes.
What is the latest news from the company?
We’ve recently secured a $5M debt facility for our consumer-facing platform, Paylater. The facility comes from New York and Nairobi-based Lendable, a technology-enabled funding provider to African consumer and SME lenders. We’ll be using this to deploy more loans to Paylater customers, specifically through a suite of innovative new products.
- AFRICA TECH
