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Tag: Kippa

  • Kippa transfers agency banking product Kippapay to Bloc

    Kippa transfers agency banking product Kippapay to Bloc

    With backing from investors including Saison Capital and Horizone, the Nigerian fintech company Kippa has transferred a large portion of its operations related to its agency banking product, KippaPay, to Bloc, another Nigerian fintech that is planning to launch banking services.

    This comes after Kippa stopped offering its agency banking services in October, while the co-founder of the company characterised the arrangement as a handshake.

    Following the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) approval-in-principle in November 2023, Bloc’s payment subsidiary GPay smoothly incorporates KippaPay. Because of this strategic synergy, Bloc will be able to use KippaPay’s services as part of its own growing offering.

    Read also: Nigeria’s Kippa secures $8.4 million to expand service to small and medium-sized businesses

    After the Naira devaluation in June, the decision to close KippaPay in October was impacted by the increased expenses of procuring POS equipment. Recouping these costs in a highly competitive market without changing agent commissions was a problem for Kippa.

    Bloc has restored full functionality on KippaPay’s mobile app and Android terminal, according to a recent notification issued to existing users. Users were also instructed in the email on how to restart using the agency banking platform for transactions.

    Nevertheless, it was mentioned that the Linux terminals’ service restoration is still in the works, therefore merchants were asked to return their POS devices to Kippa. A reliable source close to Kippa has revealed that any gadgets that have not been returned will be added to the GPay pool.

    Bloc has officially resumed operations, according to a spokeswoman, and all agents who were previously registered on KippaPay have been transferred to the new GPay application without any hitches. In order to make the transfer and settlement go well, they promised to communicate with more than 19,000 agents in the next weeks.

    This strategic move highlights how the Nigerian fintech landscape is always changing and how industry participants are working together to improve services and adjust to consumer demands.

    About KippaPay

    To help small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Africa expand, the Nigerian fintech firm Kippa offers digital solutions for managing finances and running a company. Designed to let SMEs in Africa send and receive payments via the Kippa app, the company’s digital payments product, KippaPay, was launched in April 2022. Having said that, KippaPay, the company’s offline payment solution, may soon be closing down as a result of worries over profitability. Many employees in the department responsible for this product will be let go when it is canned. Although the exact number of employees set to lose their jobs was not announced, the KippaPay team’s core members will depart by December 2023, according to the company. Given the outstanding effort put in by the team, Kippa’s founder and CEO Kennedy Ekezie said that the layoff was a tough decision for the company. Kippa has raised a total of $11.6 million, with $3.2 million coming from pre-seed fundraising in November 2021 and $8.4 million coming from a new financing round in September 2022.

  • Nigeria’s Kippa secures $8.4 million to expand service to small and medium-sized businesses

    Nigeria’s Kippa secures $8.4 million to expand service to small and medium-sized businesses

    Kippa is a platform that helps small businesses in Nigeria manage their finances and accept payments. The company recently announced that it had completed a new financing round in which it raised $8.4 million. With the completion of this fundraising effort, Kippa will have brought in a total of 11 million dollars.

    During this most recent round of funding, Kippa brought several new worldwide investors on board. Some of these investors were Goodwater Capital, TEN13 VC, Rocketship VC, Saison Capital (the venture arm of Credit Saison), Crestone VC (led by Inanc Balci, the co-founder and former CEO of Lazada), VentureSouq, Horizon Partners, and Vibe Capital.

    Kippa Obtains licence from the Central Bank of Nigeria to assist SMEs

    What the funding will do

    With the license and funding, merchants on the Kippa platform can, in turn, function as agents and offer financial services to individual consumers who come to their small shops regularly to make routine purchases. Some of these services are getting cash out and putting money in, opening a bank account, paying bills and utility bills, and getting insurance.

    Over the past year, Kippa has been able to hire former senior executives and regulators from some of the top fintech companies, such as OPay, BharatPe, Khatabook, TeamApt, OKCredit, NIBSS, and Unified Payments.

    According to Ekezie-Joseph, “our mission is to make it easy for anyone to start and run profitable small businesses in Africa,” mainly what they want to do. “This is why we are building a full suite of software and financial services that enables this ambition, thereby empowering African business owners,” the company said in a statement. We can say this because we have worked hard to understand their essential needs.

    Nigerian fintech, NowNow raises $13million seed funding to boost financial inclusion

    Kippa was first made as an app for managing money. Kennedy Ekezie-Joseph, Duke Ekezie, and Jephthah Uche launched it in June 2021. Small business owners can use the app to track their daily income and expenses, make invoices and receipts, manage their inventory, and keep an eye on how their businesses are doing in general over time.

    In November of 2016, the company announced that it had successfully raised pre-seed funding of $3.2 million from Target Global and other investors.

    Kippa is one of many financial management platforms like OZÉ, Bumpa, and Prospa aimed at the fifty million small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) in Nigeria and the larger market in sub-Saharan Africa.

    Along with other agency banking firms like OPay and TeamApt, the company announced a week ago that it had secured a Super-Agent licence from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the most powerful financial institution in Nigeria.

    During a previous interview, Ekezie-Joseph stated that “what this license does is that it allows us to empower all of our customers with tools and infrastructure, not just to accept payments, but to start to offer financial services to their end customers.” This is what the license does. The company said, “It gives us the chance to integrate with the national switches and gives us the chance to offer business-to-business platforms and services to other fintechs.”

    About Kippa

    For small African enterprises, Kippa is the one-stop shop for managing their finances. They made a simple accounting and banking service for small businesses, which gave African retailers their first chance to join the digital economy.

  • Kippa Obtains licence from the Central Bank of Nigeria to assist SMEs

    Kippa Obtains licence from the Central Bank of Nigeria to assist SMEs

    Kippa, a financial technology startup based in Nigeria, announced today that the Central Bank of Nigeria had granted it a Super-Agent banking license. This is a significant step toward the company’s goal of making it simple for anyone to launch and manage successful small businesses anywhere in Africa.

    What does the term “super-agent” imply?

    This corporately licenced entity empowered to conduct certain banking activities within the community is known as a “Super-Agent.” These activities include cash deposits and withdrawals, payment of bills (utilities, taxes, tenement rates, subscriptions, etc.); cash disbursement, cash repayment of loans, and other similar financial transactions. This licence was granted by the governing body in Nigeria so that more organisations that aren’t financial institutions can offer services that help people get into the financial system.

    Kippa’s aim for carrying out this motive

    It’s not too much of a stretch to think that Kippa’s purchase of this licence is a step toward becoming a neobank since several African fintech companies, like Fairmoney, Eversend, and Branch, have become neobanks in the past two years.

    However, Ekezie does not believe that Kippa will take that path, at least not soon. According to Ekezie, “We most certainly would not use the word neobank to describe what we are attempting to do.” [citation needed] “In my experience, what companies are looking for is not a new investment opportunity,” the author says. Businesses are looking for opportunities, tools, and financial support when it comes to sustainable and profitable growth. With this in mind, we work hard to keep giving them solutions that will help them achieve their goals.

    Read also: How to prevent people from adding you to WhatsApp groups

    Kippa provides services to merchants in all 36 states of Nigeria. Lagos, Ibadan, Abuja, Port Harcourt, and Kano are some of the top five states with the most merchants.

    This year, the company has also made some big changes, such as hiring Osagie Alonge as its Director of Marketing. Alonge formerly served as the marketing lead for both TeamApt and Opay.

    Also, the company hired Toyin Albert, a former Chief Growth Officer at ITEX Integrated Services, to be the head of its Payment Services and Niyi Ajao, a former Deputy Managing Director of the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS), to be the chairman of the company’s board of directors.

    Nigerian fintech, NowNow raises $13million seed funding to boost financial inclusion

    Enhancing Financial Innovation Access (EFInA) just put out a survey that says there are more than 50 million small businesses all over Nigeria. Kippa is one of several new companies that are in the process of developing tools and solutions for these smaller companies. Ekezie said that the company’s software-first approach makes it stand out in the market even though all other companies in the space seem to offer similar products and services.

    “We believe that the company that works out, at the appropriate nanoscale scale, how to construct for and serve these enterprises in a way that is profitable over time is going to be the one that emerges victorious in this market.” That is the goal that we are aiming for, Ekezie explained.

    The Foundation of Kippa

    Kippa was first made as a financial management app, and it came out in June 2021. Small business owners can use the app to monitor how their businesses are doing over time, make invoices and receipts, manage their inventory, and keep track of their daily income and expenses.

    “What this license does is that it allows us to truly empower all of our customers with tools and infrastructure, not just to accept payments but to start offering financial services to their end customers,” Ekezie said. “What this license does is that it allows us to empower all of our customers with tools and infrastructure, not just to accept payments.” “It provides us the opportunity to implement integration with the national switches and enables us to provide a business-to-business platform and services to other fintechs,” said the company.

    About Kippa

    For small African enterprises, Kippa is the one-stop shop for managing their finances. They made a simple accounting and banking service for small businesses, which gave African retailers their first chance to join the digital economy.