Pre-seed investment of US $500,000 was secured by the Nigerian fintech firm Swipe this year as it seeks to increase access to its numerous credit offerings.
Swipe, a credit-focused software startup founded in 2020, supports African businesses by offering credit solutions that permit company development and expansion through credit purchasing.
Its goal is to increase the use of credit cards by working with employers to promote the Cards as a Service (CAAS) product and to enable flexible payments at checkout counters across Africa using the BNPL product.
“Our BNPL model onboards merchants onto our platform and allows users to buy now and pay later using a Swipe Card, while our CAAS model onboards organisations and companies as partners to assist with the management, funding, and tracking of field expenses incurred by employees using Swipe Cards. On the CAAS model, employees are allowed flexible access to up to 50 percent of their earned salary via Swipe Card,” Temidayo Dauda, CEO of Swipe, told Disrupt Africa.
“Considering the Nigerian economy, we spotted that people in Nigeria need more flexible ways of making payments for products and services. People had to wait till payday or borrow from friends to pay for their needs. We noticed this and decided to find a solution to help our target users get their needs at the moment while spreading the payments over a scheduled time interval.”
Swipe and Flutterwave joined together in 2020 to provide users with card services. However, because consumers couldn’t make purchases on platforms that didn’t accept Flutterwave’s Rave, the company was forced to switch to a more flexible card provider. Swipe was able to start implementing MasterCard services in December 2021, giving users easier access to a large number of businesses.
The firm has partnered with Interswitch and Providus MasterCard and acquired US$500,000 in pre-seed capital this year to aid in its growth. With certain leading e-commerce companies, Dauda claimed it was finalizing new arrangements. Everything here is meant to increase adoption and open up new markets.
“We believe that this trajectory will drive credit card adoption beyond individuals and improve the overall perception of credit purchases across the country,” said Dauda.
“We have an objective of shipping this solution across Africa soon, but at the moment, we’re first building confidence in using our BNPL and CAAS products across Nigeria.”
