As a bridge between cash and digital, the company schedules appointments to grow its business.
As it turns into an omni-channel payment platform giving tools to help businesses flourish, Kudi, an African Financial Technology Company, has changed its name to Nomba.
The company has expanded its offerings to include simple business solutions for accepting, processing, and managing payments both online and offline for all types of enterprises. These technologies will provide a separate gateway into the digital economy for more enterprises of all sizes across Africa, while also allowing them to optimize their operations.
According to the Small and Medium Firms Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) National Statistics, the small business sector in Nigeria employs 86 percent of the overall workforce, with 41 million micro-businesses and 73,000 small and medium enterprises.
Despite this, payments in Nigeria’s retail sector are primarily offline, with over 25 million retailers refusing to accept digital payments. Many retailers who take digital payments don’t have a cohesive platform to manage their operations across numerous touchpoints and locations.
Enterprises rely heavily on traditional financial services providers that do not supply the ecosystem of services that support their businesses, from payment collection to trade finance to sophisticated business reporting to multiple location management.
Underserved and full-service businesses may self-onboard in five minutes and buy a full-service integrated terminal and dashboard to manage all of their payment needs across numerous channels and locations, whether in cash, cards, transfers, USSD, or QR.
Nomba claims it will expand its POS terminal penetration across the country over the next six months, giving more businesses access to technology that provides real-time monitoring of all business activities, whether they are a one-man operation or a large corporation, all on one dashboard. It also intends to broaden its product offerings to include invoicing, payroll administration, and other business-enhancing technologies.
To help fuel this growth, the fintech has hired two new executives: Jeffrey Williams as Vice President of Business and Toluwani Ijogun as Vice President of Brand, Marketing, and Communications.
By the end of the year, Nomba will have equipped over 350,000 entrepreneurs with all of the tools they need to manage their enterprises smoothly, thanks to their knowledge and expertise.
Ms. Ijogun will be responsible for brand strategy, as well as all consumer, business-to-business, and partner marketing activities that help the company achieve its objectives as VP, Brand Marketing and Communications.
She will also be in charge of the brand’s internal and external communications, marketing skills, and analytics. Ms Ijogun has over 15 years of experience managing premium brands across West Africa, including Guaranty Trust Bank, GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Plc, Philips, Eat N’ Go (owners of Domino’s Pizza and Coldstone Creamery franchises in Nigeria), FSDH Group, and most recently as Senior Vice President: Brand and Marketing for Kuda Bank, where she was instrumental in the company’s growth in the Nigerian market.
Jeffrey Williams-Edem has more than 18 years of sales, business development strategy, digital payment, and merchant acquisition experience in a variety of industries. He comes to Nomba as VP, Business from Interswitch, where he was instrumental in the design and implementation of the company’s first retail solution strategy for Nigeria’s micro, small, and medium business market.
As Kudi moves to Nomba, Jeffrey will be in charge of building and operating the machinery that will enable the company to achieve its goals of business acquisition, new market development, and revenue generation. In addition, he will be in charge of sales, business operations, and product development.
“Since our inception in 2017, our technology and analytics have enabled merchants to earn and create successful companies, impacting their own and others’ lives.” Today, complementary regulatory frameworks and well-thought-out relationships with financial institutions have come together to provide an enabling climate for fintechs to chart the future of payments, making digital payment solutions accessible to everyone. “Over the next five years, we’ll be leveraging these characteristics, as well as Jeff and Tolu’s experience and skills, to expand the use of digital payment solutions across the country, making payments easier for everyone,” said Yinka Adewale, Nomba’s Chief Executive Officer.
Nomba began as a chatbot with the goal of making payments easier in 2017. However, by 2018, it had transformed into a firm whose unique point-of-sale (POS) technology, as well as relationships with banks and other licensed financial institutions, had democratized access to banking goods and services for merchants across Nigeria. This includes essential banking services such as the creation of savings and loan accounts.
Today, over 150,000 businesses use the Nomba platform to conduct card, cash, and bank transfer related transactions for their own businesses and on behalf of their customers. Nomba was named a YCombinator Top Company in 2022. Nomba processes over $16 million in payments daily over more than 500,000 unique transactions, with an onboarding rate of over 10,000 new businesses every month.
