Grace Ashiru
FairMoney, a Nigerian digital banking platform, has bought PayForce, a small business payment service for merchants. This is part of its plan to offer more financial assistance to merchants.
Sources say it was a cash-and-stock deal worth between $15 million and $20 million, but the terms of the deal were not made public. As part of the deal, CrowdForce CEO Oluwatomi Ayorinde will run the company’s payments business, PayForce by FairMoney.
FairMoney focuses on giving credit-based neo-banking services to retail customers, while PayForce uses a network of human ATMs to give agency banking services. PayForce’s suite of products includes business banking, tools for the finance team, B2B payments, and virtual cards.
FairMoney plans to make credit products for different kinds of businesses. This will help solve one of the biggest problems small businesses in Nigeria have: getting loans and working capital.
FairMoney wants to be the best retail and merchant bank in Nigeria. It plans to expand its services to include credit cards, remittance, stock, and investment products for individual customers, payroll services, BNPL, and online merchant acquiring for businesses.
It is also in talks to get more than $30 million from new and old investors in a “bridge round” to pay for these acquisitions and grow its business outside of Nigeria and across Africa.
