The journey begins
Over the last 25 years, small businesses have added over 12.9 million jobs to the US economy, And so have other economic giants like China, Japan, Germany, and India. According to the World Bank, “600 million jobs will be needed by 2030 to absorb the growing global workforce, which makes Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) development a high priority for many governments around the world“.
With all the figures above, you will agree that SMEs play a role in addressing employment challenges. Governments worldwide increasingly recognize the importance of SME development as a high-priority strategy to meet their job creation target.
Unfortunately, In developing countries like Nigeria, the growth and sustainability of small businesses face a significant challenge: limited access to finance. Despite its role in job creation and economic development, many small businesses struggle to secure the necessary funds to start, expand, or even sustain their operations.
Credit, if made available to all, would have been a significant source of finance for small business owners. Sadly, it is not. No credit access means many small businesses die daily. Many up-and-coming lenders claim to be financially inclusive and say they are bridging the credit gap. However, not many are truly bringing credit closer to the often marginalized populace. That is, until Coverdey.
The folks at Coverdey saw a huge disparity in the access to credit granted to Nigerians with little to no digital access. It seemed as though the world was moving fast and leaving them behind.
As more lenders focused on the tech-savvy and privileged populace, the opportunities available to non-tech-savvy individuals shrank even more. Mama Obinna could barely remember how to use her small Nokia 3310. How do they expect her to download their loan app on Play store? The world had clearly moved on and left her behind. Her business was barely scraping by. If only she could access a small loan to restock her vegetables in the market. She’s so sure people would buy. Alas! Her last hope for loans – her Ajo lady had also gone digital, leaving Mama Obinna stranded without credit access.
Coverdey knew that there were more Mama Obinna out there. With a lot of work ahead, they got to work. With COO Damaris Onyendi leading the team, Coverdey came to life.
Trials and Triumphs along the way
To scale and thrive, every business requires the right tools. Or, in this case, the right technology. Not just any technology, but one that could cater to non-digitally-inclined persons.
Coverdey found that most platforms offered technology that could only serve their Customers who were comfortable with digital tools and not their non-digital customers, who were their primary focus, up until Lendsqr, a Lending-as-a-service (LaaS) platform that provided Coverdey with the technology that addressed their challenges.
Coverdey, with the help of Lendsqr’s offline loan feature, has reached a wider market of financially excluded persons barely 365 days in business. And they plan to do even more. In the words of Damaris:
“Because our customers are mostly artisans and not exactly tech savvy, the manual loan feature makes it easy for us to help out and save the day.“
Coverdey can now manually book loans on behalf of their customers and have the loan amount disbursed immediately to their bank account without hassle. Their customers are given vast repayment options; they can repay daily, weekly or monthly. Additionally, they can use bank transfers for loan repayments.
Featured read: Learn more about which loan repayment methods are better
Another hurdle they had to scale was getting past the regulatory demands of KYC, which would have made it even more difficult for these persons to access credit. The Lendsqr team was able to custom-create a technology that allows Coverdey agents to create one-time, unique mandatory emails for their customers to ensure that the standard of KYC is never compromised.
For exceptional cases where customers they know and can vouch for cannot get loans due to certain risk assessment restrictions, Coverdey has also been able to liaise with Lendsqr in building a feature that allows them to override some restrictions for their very special customers.
The journey ahead
Coverdey, with the help of Lendsqr, is solving real problems of the average Nigerian. Best of all, they’re scaling at an astronomical rate. This reinforces the saying, “A product (or service) that solves real problems sells itself.”
Featured resource: We built Lendsqr to innovate affordable credit for all
Born out of a genuine passion to financially include often marginalized persons like traders, artisans etc. Coverdey has offered the average Nigerian access to credit opportunities to fund their dreams. However small or large it may be. The team is still in awe at how receptive and effective the support team at Lendsqr has been from the start of their journey.
According to Damaris
“We love how Lendsqr accommodates all kinds of customers and makes the lending process super seamless. Lendsqr is our bodyguard against possible bad loans, constantly looking out for us.”
Furthermore, the affordability and flexibility of payment options offered by Lendsqr pleasantly surprised them, so they seized the opportunity without a moment’s doubt.
Having disbursed over N25 million, the motivation is to expand even further across states in Nigeria. Slowly but surely, they are bringing credit closer to more Mama Obinna’s.
Fortunately, Lendsqr has become a reliable ally, wholly committed to supporting and guiding them throughout their growth journey.
Keep an eye out for them in 2024. You don’t want to miss it!
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