Deon Nobrega - Afrikan Heroes

South Africa’s Paymenow Secures $12M to Empower Workers with Access to Their Earned Wages

April 4, 2023

Paymenow, the leading Earned Wage Access (EWA) platform in South Africa, has secured a R250 million (USD14 million) debt facility from Rand Merchant Bank (RMB) – a landmark achievement for the EWA market in the country. EWA empowers employees to access a percentage of their earned wages before the payroll cycle ends, providing them with funds without having to resort to expensive loans. This innovative financial wellness solution is a game changer for employees who want to improve their financial health and build savings.

Paymenow has grown rapidly in various industries, including retail, mining, security, cleaning, and facilities management, and presently serves over 200,000 employees, with plans to double that number in the next year. CEO Deon Nobrega is thrilled with the demand for Paymenow’s services in South Africa, where over 10 million of the 25 million active credit customers are behind on their payments. The potential market for liquidity is enormous, and Paymenow’s model is proving to be a valuable asset to customers.

One of the main benefits of Paymenow is its flexibility, which allows employers to offer a hybrid salary model, providing employees with access to a portion of their salary when they need it most. RMB, an indirect shareholder of Paymenow through its shareholding in the DNI Group, is excited to continue to partner with the company to promote financial education and wellness.

Paymenow’s impact report, based on independent research conducted among 400 customers, demonstrates the positive impact the platform has had on their lives. Almost all respondents reported an improvement in their overall quality of life, with nearly two-thirds reporting significant improvements. 83% of customers said their ability to save had improved, and 95% had reduced borrowing from money lenders.

Paymenow is also expanding its services to Namibia and Zambia, with plans to scale further across Africa, including Lesotho, Ghana, and Kenya. This expansion will offer access to financial wellness and liquidity to a broader customer base and enable Paymenow to make a more significant impact on society.

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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

Paymenow Partners Shoprite for Mobile App Purchases

May 30, 2021

Stellenbosch, South African based fintech startup, Paymenow has entered partnership with Africa’s largest retail outlet, Shoprite with an offer that will give more than 50,000 users the opportunity to buy food from retailer Shoprite directly in the Paymenow app. Founded in 2019 by Deon Nobrega alongside business development head Bryan Habana (a Rugby World Cup winner), technical director Willem van Zyl, head of software development Gerry Potgieter, and founder investor Garth Mackintosh, Paymenow aims to ease the burden inflicted by payday and micro lenders through affordable, real-time, access to cash.

Paymenow cofounders Bryan Habana and Deon Nobrega

Paymenow went live with its first customer a week before lockdown hit in March 2020. Its platform allows employees early access to their wages, but utilises gamification to take them on a journey to financial wellness. As they complete stages their status improves, and they get rewards by way of lower service fees.

The company has now expanded its offerings, giving employees who have signed up on the Paymenow app the ability to fund a Shoprite Money Market Account. This acts as a virtual wallet so that they can redeem their funds at any Shoprite, uSave or Checkers store as well as send grocery vouchers to family or friends anywhere across South Africa at the touch of a button.

“This is just another way in which Paymenow is looking to help our users stretch their money further and allow affordable, responsible access to necessity items,” said Nobrega.

These necessities include food, prepaid airtime and prepaid electricity. The provision of these value-added services, at much reduced fees, has taken off better than anticipated, with Paymenow having seen almost 15 per cent of all transactions going towards the purchase of airtime, data, and electricity since they were launched in late March.

Following on from the success of its Shoprite partnership, Paymenow will be rolling out a similar offering to Pick n Pay and Boxer Superstores, which will allow Paymenow users to buy essential grocery items, airtime, data, and prepaid electricity from more than 700 stores nationwide. Habana said Paymenow was working on adding other necessity-type value-added services to its offerings.

“With real inflation seemingly much higher than the official 3.2 per cent, we want to help as many South Africans as possible stretch their rand when it comes to life’s necessities,” he said.

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry

South Africa’s Paymenow, Co-founded By Former Rugby Player, Secures $231k Seed Funding

June 23, 2020

A fintech startup co-founded by Bryan Habana (who spent more than 15 years serving on South Africa’s national rugby team) Paymenow, based in Stellenbosch South Africa, has announced that it had secured a R4-million ($231k) seed funding from ViaMedia, a South Africa-based mobile services provider which is part of the Digital Ecosystems Group (formerly Blue Label Mobile).

“ViaMedia and the Digital Ecosystems Group will enable us to draw down on a wealth of product and operational expertise as well as access to a funding book that will allow our business model to scale locally as well as to the rest of Africa and Latin America,” said Habana.

Here Is What You Should Know

The latest investment will assist Paymenow in maintaining regular cash flow, while it aims to reach operational break-even by the end of the 2020 fiscal year.

With this investment, Digital Ecosystems Group will assist the startup in its business development efforts as well as introduce it to further funding and working capital.

According to Group CEO of Digital Ecosystems Group, Garth Mackintosh, PayMeNow further enables and accelerates DigiCo’s mobile financial services strategy.

Why The Investor Invested

Digital Ecosystems — previously Blue Label Mobile — houses a variety of complementary tech companies that provide an ecosystem of products and services to mobile phone users.

Group CEO of Digital Ecosystems Group, Garth Mackintosh

It enables the rapid rollout of mobile-mediated sales, financial services, banking, couponing, loyalty programmes, rewards, omni-channel communications, OTT services, ticketing, transport, media advertising, lifestyle, education, informational and entertainment content, streaming music and video, mega promotions, gaming and location-based services through companies like ViaMedia, Cellfind, Hyve Mobile, Airvantage and other subsidiaries and investments.

“We are excited to welcome Paymenow to ViaMedia, and more broadly, to our stable of ICT companies. We see fantastic growth prospects and complementary product offerings and clients across many of our group companies,” Garth Mackintosh said.

A Look At What The Startup Does

The startup, which was founded last year by former Springbok rugby player Bryan Habana and Deon Nobrega offers a financial wellness and inclusion platform that allows employees early access to already earned wages.

The app uses gamification to drive financial education and inclusion amongst its users, and is working with employers to help move South Africans out of a vicious debt cycle and into a savings mindset.

“Our business model and product, which entails a fully integrated business to business to consumer tech platform, has passed minimum viable product status and is ready to scale,” says Paymenow MD and co-founder Deon Nobrega.

Charles Rapulu Udoh

Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer who has advised startups across Africa on issues such as startup funding (Venture Capital, Debt financing, private equity, angel investing etc), taxation, strategies, etc. He also has special focus on the protection of business or brands’ intellectual property rights ( such as trademark, patent or design) across Africa and other foreign jurisdictions.
He is well versed on issues of ESG (sustainability), media and entertainment law, corporate finance and governance.
He is also an award-winning writer.