By Chinenye Anuforo
The banking industry is undergoing massive digital disruption, with online deposits, mobile apps and e-bill payments fundamentally becoming the norm.
There is an increased consumer demand for digital banking services.
This increased consumer demand for digital banking services has given rise to numerous technological advancements within financial institutions with artificial intelligence (AI) at the core of these digital transformations.
Digital banking in essence is the digitization of every level, from front- to back-end, of banking. This means that digital banks rely on artificial intelligence to automate back-end operations such as administrative tasks and data processing which in turn alleviates pressure put on employees to complete day-to-day tasks.
Not only do digital banks allow users to make account deposits and transfers remotely; but they also provide them with the opportunity to more easily apply for loans and access personalized money management services.
Carbon Finance, one of the leading players in Nigeria’s Fintech sector has continue to bridge this gap left by the traditional commercial banks.
Originally set up as a lending company, Carbon has established itself as one of the continent’s leading and fastest-growing digital banks, with over a million users across the federation and operations in two African countries.
Having begun operations in 2012 as One Credit, a brick-and-mortar consumer lender focused on the Nigerian market, the company then pivoted in 2016 to become a digital lender via its Paylater App and was focused on providing access to consumer credit services. With a refreshed intention to develop into a fully-functioning digital financial service platform that offers cost-effective bill payments, free fund transfers, and high yield savings and investments options in addition to loans, the company in 2019 rebranded itself as Carbon and was granted a microfinance banking license by the Central Bank of Nigeria.
Speaking during a press conference to mark its 10th anniversary, the Co-founder and CEO Chijioke Dozie, said: “When we started in 2012, it was a sort of manual business where we use the agents going door to door and selling loans and we had to do all sort of manual verification where, our agents had to basically check a customer’s data, their employment record, the physical KYC but luckily for us, a couple of things happened.
The central bank introduced the bank verification number (BVN), which allowed us to verify KYC remotely. We didn’t need to be physically present where our clients were. Secondly, with arrival of the likes of paystack and other payment processing companies it enabled us to now take payments remotely via debit card. So prior to that, we had to use cheques. Carbon is a beneficiary on some of the advances that happened in the Nigerian bank ecosystem and we leveraged on that to fully digitize in 2016/2017 with the launch of Paylater which was the first digital lending app in Nigeria where a customer could get anywhere from N10,000 to N200,000 24/7 and that feature still exists today in Carbon.
I think that when you look around now, not only do you have more Fintech companies adopting similar strategy, even the banks. Carbon had pushed the banks into that strategy.
At Carbon, we are very proud of what we have built, thanks to our customers and the humans at Carbon. When we look at the last ten years and the future ahead, we want to focus more on our customer’s needs and ensure we are adapting to the market demands and changing the way Nigerians make payments,”
Continuing, he said the journey has been very exciting. “We have ups and downs. But, I think we are very optimistic about the future of the Nigerian fintech ecosystem”
On his own part, Co-founder, Carbon, Mr. Ngozi Dozie, “One of the things we do in Carbon is to be very innovative in all that we do in pushing the ecosystem forward.
We are the first to give customers free credit report, even today, customers whether you take a loan or transaction, you can go to the app and check your credit report for free.
We are the first Fintech in Nigeria if not the continent to get a credit rating from GCR and the idea for that was because, we believe that banking is about finance but it’s also about trust. We want to make sure that our customers trust us in the way that we trust them.
Of course, recently, we were the first to give free bank account where fee payment are free as opposed to your typical charge of N100, buying airtime is free. We have really pushed this forward by our latest buy now and pay later product where you can buy product right now, and spread the payment for three to six months and pay no interest rate.
There’s no where around the world where you can spread a payment with zero interest rate. And the goal for this is to provide customers value in a convenient manner at the lowest cost possible, that’s what drives us and that’s what you expect to see from us. It is the constant pushing of the boundaries where customers are getting value everyday.And our goal is that for every product that we have, if a customer has a perfect information, they will choose that Carbon product.”
Elaborating on Carbon’s greatest achievement he said that, it is making finance more accessible. “People can easily get a loan now and that was not possible 10 years ago even for people who were gainfully employed, they couldn’t get access to finance with a touch of a button. But with what we have done, we have shown the Nigerian financial institution that Nigerians are credible.
Everyone always have the believe that Nigerians don’t pay back loan but I think for the fact that we have been lending for 10 years is a testimony that Nigerians actually do pay back if you have good processes in place.”
On what’s next for Carbon, Dozie said: “Financial inclusion has always been high on our agenda and now that The Central Bank of Nigeria plans to broaden access to financial services to people in under-served parts of the country, ensuring that 95% of eligible Nigerians have access to financial services is huge part of our plan.Beyond financial inclusion, we are also looking at how we can offer solutions to other money-related issues that affect Africans.”