Nigeria’s online and mobile app savings platform, Piggybank recently raised $1.1 million seed funding from local investors
Nigeria’s online and mobile app savings platform, Piggybank recently raised $1.1 million seed funding from local investors led by Olumide Soyombo, Founder of LeadPath Nigeria, with participation from international and pan-African investors Village Capital and Ventures Platform.
In a recent interview, the Piggybank founders, Somto Ifezue, Odunayo Eweniyi and Joshua Chibueze, told Business Insider Sub-Saharan Africa that the funding will be used for product development and to improve the quality of the team and operation standards.
Ifezue, Eweniyi and Chibueze believe that capturing the unbanked remains the major target of fintech companies and one of the things fintechs are doing is to unbank the banked rather than getting the unbanked to bank. That is, fintechs are trying to get people with bank accounts to depend less on their banks.
According to a recent World Bank Global Findex Database report, 118 million Nigerians do not have bank accounts.
The recent data by the Bretton Wood institution said most people in sub-Saharan African countries save for a business purpose in contrast to adults in high-income economies who save for old age.
“Companies are beginning to know that millennials hold the future and are working on a product to accommodate that space."
“There is a lot of banks but not enough banking is done."
“What fintech are doing is to unbank the bank rather than getting the unbank to bank. Because the unbank do mostly with the cash and that will remain for a long time."
“We still have a long way to banking the unbanked but what most fintech is trying to do is the other way round.”
They said there is the need for more collaborative efforts rather than an adversarial relationship between fintech and banks in the country.