Akinjide: Driving Financial Inclusion for All through Literacy with NowNow

Founded in 2018, NowNow is one of the leading African digital banking platforms with a mission to deliver best-in-class financial services in Nigeria and Africa. The company has built an ecosystem that digitises payments and creates access to financial services for agents, consumers, and businesses. Recently, NowNow partnered the Lagos Business School’s (LBS) Sustainable Inclusive Digital Financial Services, SIDFS to initiate a financial education and literacy program aimed at driving Nigeria’s financial inclusion growth. In this interview with NowNow’s Partnership Director, Lekan Akinjide, he express the reasoning behind the partnership and its end-goal of driving financial inclusion for SMEs and Nigeria’s rural and urban communities through financial education. Precious Ugwuzor brings excerpts:

For those who may be unfamiliar with NowNow, despite being a leading African B2B and B2C Fintech company, can you briefly explain what NowNow is and its offerings?

 NowNow was established five years ago in 2018, regulated by the Central Bank of Nigeria. As everyone is aware, opening a bank account in Nigeria is difficult due to several conditions which must be met. As such, NowNow was conceptualised to allow unbanked Nigerians and individuals excluded from accessing financial services such as basic account features like savings, and so on, the opportunity to be included.

NowNow is not just consumer centric, we also cater to Business-to-Business (B2Bs) and Small & Medium Enterprise (SME) entities. NowNow has spent a lot of resources to improve its technological elements which has enabled us to integrate with local and international financial organizations. For example, we collaborated with Mastercard as a key partner, the only one in Nigeria to do so which illustrates both our current achievements and long-term goals.

Today, NowNow has grown exponentially and has a large ecosystem that is still growing. It comprises an amazing team of about 300 people with offices in Lagos as our main hub, as well as Dubai and India. Through our journey, we have been able to drive not only financial inclusion, but also corporate social responsibility which is where our partnership with Lagos Business School comes in and has brought great value. We believe that NowNow is not just a commercial entity but has the responsibility to uplift those who have been excluded.

Why is the partnership with the LBS’s Sustainable Inclusive Digital Financial Services (SIDFS) to initiate the financial education and literacy program a very important initiative for NowNow?

As an organisation, exposure is a key goal we are aiming for. During our internal research process to understand the needs of our consumers, we examined the layers specifically in terms of saving. We looked at how people save money, the understanding behind it, and the processes they follow. Our findings indicated that although there was limited information available for the lowest income earners, they still practicing certain savings cultures albeit unrefined and without proper processes.

During the initial phase of this partnership where we engaged in more thorough research in collaboration with SIDFS, we observed several market sectors to see which demographics to target. Through this, we identified women, students, and other underrepresented groups as potential candidates. Women, despite being the most financial excluded group in Nigeria, are the segment which understand financial prudence and management best.

To NowNow, this partnership is an important initiative because we can give back to Nigerians by empowering women, a vast majority of whom do not have access to financial services despite their natural skillset. When you look at financial statistics, the highest demographic for loan repayments are women.

 As mentioned, statistics show that women form a greater percentage of those excluded from the formal financial sector. In what way will this partnership seek to address that issue and drive financial inclusion in women and other isolated groups?

The key to achieving our goal is not just educating women but understanding their strengths. Historically, women have played an important role often multitasking — raising children, providing for the family, and managing finances.

 By enabling these individuals to save money in a secure financial institution, such as NowNow, the goal is to advance that skill and avoid unforeseen catastrophes. In addition, it will have a wider economic effect as their financial participation stimulates the economy.

This partnership will provide marginalized groups and SMEs access to financial instruments, loan schemes, and more. It will improve profit elevation and increase the social-economic standing of disadvantaged groups.

The initiative between NowNow and LBS was announced as a long-term partnership, kindly expand on the future direction, and plans in the works to broaden the scope of the partnership.

This focus on women is just the first phase of the initiative. Going forward, we will evaluate the original strategy to enhance future phases and guide on which population segment to target next. This assessment will also be used to refine and improve our offerings in terms of financial education to women. This is a marathon and not a sprint to NowNow. Lagos Business School has gone over and beyond in terms of opening its doors, proving access to information and their network, as well as sharing past experiences with social inclusion programs.

NowNow has frequently showcased its unique commitment to deepening financial inclusion and providing financial empowerment to Africans. Apart from this partnership, in what other ways is NowNow achieving its goal in the Nigerian sector?

 NowNow was the first FinTech company in Nigeria to launch the NFC Touch & Pay in collaboration with Mastercard. We are growing a very robust ecosystem which focuses not just on consumers, but also consists of B2B offerings where we sell our own solutions to third parties. The Nigerian market is relatively unpenetrated in terms of FinTechs and as such we focus on providing solutions to different segments by ensuring we offer a variety of products to satisfy the needs of the market — now and in the future.

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NowNow, this partnership is an important initiative because we can give back to Nigerians by empowering women, a vast majority of whom do not have access to financial services despite their natural skillset