Grace Ashiru
Only 33 percent of adults worldwide are financially literate, making global financial literacy one of the lowest in the world. According to the results of Standard & Poor’s Global Financial Literacy Survey, the percentage of adults who are financially literate in African countries ranges from 26% (in Nigeria) to 42% (in South Africa).
A contrast with Europe, where the percentage ranges from 65% to 75%, and the United States, where the rate is 57%, implies that it may be more challenging for African individuals to build and keep wealth than it is for their Western counterparts.
According to a report on financial literacy compiled by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in Nigeria, the majority of adults in that country want to have a solid understanding of fundamental financial concepts so that they can make educated choices regarding saving, investing, and borrowing money.
NowNow Digital Systems, a Nigerian financial technology company, has completed a seed funding round for $13 million. This funding will be used to expand financial inclusion throughout Africa by delivering financial services to unbanked and underbanked populations on the continent.
The company claims that it will be able to provide new products that will further strengthen its already existing consumer banking, agency banking, and merchant payment solutions with the assistance of the funds.
Additionally, the company has partnered with the Sustainable Inclusive Digital Financial Services (SIDFS) program at the Lagos Business School, a study and advocacy program centered at a university, to launch a financial education and literacy program in Nigeria to boost financial inclusion.
NowNow intends to leverage SIDFS’s extensive data, library content, and resources to deliver its consumers’ financial and digital literacy tools to ensure prudent financial planning.
According to what the company’s founders, Sahir Berry and Mahesh Nair, told TechCabal, the primary distinction between NowNow and its rivals, such as Kuda and TeamApt, is that NowNow possesses a proprietary infrastructure on their open API network. NowNow owns an open API network that other financial institutions use to access various markets domestically and internationally. According to the company’s founders, NowNow operates in both the business-to-business (B2B) and the business-to-consumer (B2C) sectors by providing its platform-as-a-service to corporations and agency banking to consumers and small businesses.
The firm asserts that it has more than 50,000 agents in Nigeria who assist customers with sending and receiving money, paying bills and airtime, and other financial transactions. Customers can also do these things on their own and use the company’s app to get things like insurance, loans, and a wallet.
In contrast to the majority of fintech companies, which rely on a model of commodity-based agency banking loops according to the company’s founders, NowNow offers a well-rounded strategy that includes agency banking, value-added services to the mass consumer and SME market, PAAS to our enterprise customers, and a robust technical infrastructure consisting of modular, monetizable fintech solutions.
NeoVision Ventures Ltd., the DLF Family Office, and Shadi Abdulhadi were the ones who spearheaded this funding round. According to the company’s founders, these investors understood both the business concept of NowNow and the African market and the requirements necessary to maintain growth in a competitive industry. Additionally, the fintech platform was recently chosen to participate in the Mastercard Start Path Global initiative, which was designed to assist later-stage businesses in developing and scaling.
The funds will be used to develop more digital financial inclusion solutions and to extend its services across Africa, including Angola, where financial literacy is only 15%, Liberia, and Equatorial Guinea.
