Zeeh Africa, a fintech infrastructure company, has received a significant investment from Tekedia Capital. The company specializes in unifying financial data in one place, offering a comprehensive solution for businesses and individuals. With Zeeh, lending businesses can easily access and analyze all their customers’ bank accounts and transaction histories in a single dashboard, streamlining decision-making processes in the B2B sector.
In addition, Zeeh Africa provides a B2C service akin to CreditKarma in Africa, enabling individuals to access and manage all their financial data from various sources within a unified platform. The platform offers a compelling feature where users can view personalized offers from vendors and merchants based on specific parameters. For instance, users meeting certain criteria, such as maintaining an average monthly balance of N1 million over the past three months, can explore tailored mortgage offers.
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The primary objective of Zeeh Africa is to enhance commerce by presenting actionable offers to users based on their financial profiles. By eliminating irrelevant offers, such as promoting a N2 million vacation package to a user whose average monthly balance has not exceeded N100k in the last 6 months across all bank accounts, Zeeh Africa aims to provide a more targeted and relevant financial experience.
Access to financial services remains a challenge globally, particularly for individuals in remote or rural areas. According to Statista, the unbanked population in Sub-Saharan Africa has gradually decreased since 2011, but still accounts for 45% of the continent’s population in 2021. Worldwide, the number of unbanked individuals stands at 1.4 billion, as reported by the World Bank. In addition to the unbanked, there is another category known as the underbanked, comprising individuals with bank accounts who lack access to loans and other banking facilities. Bridging the gap between the financially included and excluded populations remains a complex task due to the intricacies of traditional banking systems compared to the innovative solutions provided by fintech startups.
David Adeleke, the founder of Daxlinks Global, reflected on the situation, noting the immense potential for reaching unbanked traders in Ibadan, Nigeria. In 2016, while still an undergraduate at the University of Ibadan, he established Daxlinks Global as a micro-savings and micro-lending fintech solution aimed at facilitating financial inclusion for small and medium business owners. The platform leveraged agents who collected daily savings and loan repayments from traders in local markets. Over time, the platform expanded to cater to salary earners and developed an interface for communication with third-party services and automated direct debits.
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This journey led to the establishment of Zeeh Africa in August 2022, with a focus on open banking solutions and API integration with fintechs and banks. Zeeh Africa aims to enhance data quality, facilitate KYC services, track finances, and provide access to bank statements and direct debits. Open banking, already established in more developed markets like the US, the UK, and other countries, enables seamless interoperability among banks, fintechs, and other financial institutions. By adopting open banking principles, Zeeh Africa aims to curtail fraud, ensure secure access to financial data, and improve user experiences.
The preference for partnerships with foreign banks over local ones by African fintechs became evident due to events like the Silicon Valley Bank fallout and the Mercury Bank saga in 2022. While these incidents impacted Nigerian fintechs, it does not mean they will cease their associations with foreign banks. Nigerian banks, still heavily reliant on traditional services, are considered less attractive to household consumers and businesses. However, factors such as government policies, inflation, and exchange rates have also influenced this dynamic.
Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer, who has several years of experience working in Africa’s burgeoning tech startup industry. He has closed multi-million dollar deals bordering on venture capital, private equity, intellectual property (trademark, patent or design, etc.), mergers and acquisitions, in countries such as in the Delaware, New York, UK, Singapore, British Virgin Islands, South Africa, Nigeria etc. He’s also a corporate governance and cross-border data privacy and tax expert.
As an award-winning writer and researcher, he is passionate about telling the African startup story, and is one of the continent’s pioneers in this regard