Economy
Fintech Start-up Zoto Grows Order Volume by 200%, Eyes 15m Orders in 2019
By Dipo Olowookere
Nigeria’s fastest growing payment solution, Zoto, a product of Hedonmark Management Services Limited, has announced growing its order volume in the 2017/18 financial year by 200 percent.
In a statement issued on Monday, April 09, 2018, the firm said in the period under review, it increased its transacting user base by 56 percent, with plans to record a significant improvement in the 2018/19 financial year.
The fintech start-up processed 5 million orders in the last year, which is expected to grow 300 percent to 15 million orders in the financial year 2018-19 due to growing volume of electronic payments by Nigeria’s young and digitally savvy mobile users. Zoto has scaled quickly with over one million downloads and an app rating of 4.6.
Nigeria has one of the fastest growing population in the world most of whom are mobile and digitally savvy due to prices of Android phones dropping by as much as 45 percent and data prices reducing by as much as 80 percent.
The accessibility to mobile phones and data has led to an explosion in electronic payments, with $117 billion worth electronic transactions processed in Jan – Dec 2016.
Speaking on the occasion, Oshone Ikazoboh, Co-Founder & COO of Zoto said, “We are delighted at the rapid progress made by Zoto in such a short period of time. These milestones will motivate us to work even harder and achieve the goal of becoming West Africa’s preferred digital payments solution.
“In near future we plan to expand vertically and horizontally by adding more categories and increasing the number of merchants in each category, this will help us provide better payment experience to our users and make us an indispensable channel for payments.”
Zoto’s value proposition is built around providing convenience and making payments easier. While most payments are web centric, Zoto empowers users with a rich and hassle free experience on the user’s mobile.
Payments are quicker in less than 10 seconds because the user can use the wallet’s stored value for various transactions like bill payments, recharge, bookings etc. Customers are provided with timely payment reminders making the entire service intuitive and user friendly.
Payments are processed seamlessly without bank OTP which is another feature driving ease and convenience.
Zoto has leveraged these developments to cater to Nigeria’s youth segment, providing anytime, anywhere payments facility.
It’s easy and intuitive interface has appealed to Nigeria’s youth segment which has led to higher conversion rates and number of repeat customers. While conversation rates for new users in finance and ecommerce globally are at 14 percent and 8 percent respectively, Zoto’s conversion rate is almost 67 percent (Source: Mixpanel product report 2017). Similarly, Zoto provides the highest level of customer experience through the use of deep analytics, AI, and instant refunds, which provides a repeat conversion of 60 percent compared to industry average of 17 percent in finance and 6 percent in e-commerce within a period of 8 week.
By Adedapo Adesanya
Crude production under the collective Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC ) fell in May to its lowest level in at least 37 years as the blockade of Iran by the United States and disruptions in the Persian Gulf, continued to limit output.
According to a Bloomberg survey released on Friday, output from the organisation’s 11 current members, including Nigeria, dropped by 1.22 million barrels per day to 16.33 million barrels per day last month.
Iran accounted for more than half of the decline. The data excludes the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which departed the cartel last month after six decades of membership.
War between a US-Israeli alliance and Iran has reduced oil supplies from the Middle East, largely closing the Strait of Hormuz waterway. Saudi Arabia, Iraq, the UAE and Kuwait have been forced to cut crude production. Iranian shipments face additional pressure following a US blockade of its ports imposed in mid-April.
Iranian output fell by 710,000 barrels per day to a five-year low of 2.34 million barrels per day in May, the survey showed. Central Command reported that US forces have redirected 127 commercial vessels to enforce the blockade of all maritime traffic entering and exiting Iranian ports.
Kuwait recorded the second-largest decline last month, with production falling by 310,000 barrels per day to 490,000 barrels per day, less than one-fifth of pre-war levels. Saudi Arabia, the group’s leader, saw output decrease by 240,000 barrels per day to 6.57 million barrels per day.
The production reductions have not prevented OPEC and its allies from raising quotas over recent months, continuing a year-long process of restoring output halted several years ago.
This comes ahead of a meeting scheduled to be held on Sunday, June 7, where a sub-group of seven members is expected to increase targets by 188,000 barrels again in July. The session is one of four online meetings OPEC and its partners plan to hold that day.
Delegates indicated the alliance has plans for two additional monthly quota increases in August and September. UAE output rose by 300,000 barrels per day to 2.44 million barrels per day in May, according to the survey.
By Aduragbemi Omiyale
The 2025 third quarter Budget Implementation Report from the Budget Office of the Federation has shown that the federal government exceeded the funds allocation for repayment of debts for the first nine months of the fiscal year by about 18 per cent.
In a report by Punch, the sum of N10.74 trillion was budgeted for debt servicing between January and September 2025, but the government used N12.63 trillion for the purpose, N1.90 trillion or 17.65 per cent more than the allocation for the year.
The funds were spent on domestic debts, foreign debts and sinking fund by the central government in nine months.
Business Post reports that for the whole year, the amount approved by the National Assembly and signed by President Bola Tinubu for debt repayments was N14.31 trillion.
Looking at the nine-month figures, domestic debt service gulped N6.23 trillion, exceeding its N5.39 trillion provision, while foreign debt service was N6.30 trillion versus the budget provision of N5.06 trillion.
According to the report, the figures indicated that 67.2 per cent of the federal government’s retained revenue of N18.63 trillion was spent on debt service in the first nine months of 2025. When the sinking fund is included, debt-related payments consumed about 67.8 per cent of revenue.
It was also observed that aggregate federal government revenue underperformed the budget by N12.03 trillion or 39.24 per cent, as actual revenue of N18.63 trillion fell short of the N30.67 trillion projected for the first three quarters.
In the third quarter alone, the government generated N7.70 trillion versus the quarterly target of N10.22 trillion as a result of persistent oil revenue shortfalls, despite stronger non-oil collections.
The debt burden also crowded out capital spending, as total capital expenditure was N3.10 trillion in the first nine months compared with the N17.58 trillion budgeted for the period, indicating that actual debt-related payments were more than four times capital expenditure.
By Adedapo Adesanya
The NASD Over-the-Counter (OTC) Securities Exchange recorded a loss of 1.13 per cent on Thursday, June 4, shrinking the market capitalisation by N30.03 billion to N2.630 trillion from N2.660 trillion on Wednesday.
Similarly, this brought down the NASD Unlisted Security Index (NSI) by 50.19 points to 4,396.08 points from the 4,446.27 points recorded a day earlier.
The loss was influenced by the overpowering of the bulls by the bears, after the bourse closed with two price gainers and three price losers, led by FrieslandCampina Wamco Nigeria Plc, which slumped by N20.03 to sell at N190.38 per unit compared with midweek’s N210.41 per unit. Food Concepts Plc declined by 25 Kobo to trade at N2.50 per share versus the previous day’s N3.00 per share, and Acorn Petroleum Plc crumbled by 2 Kobo to end at N1.32 per unit, in contrast to the preceding session’s N1.34 per unit.
For the gainers, Central Securities Clearing System (CSCS) Plc added N2.93 to close at N78.34 per share compared with the previous price of N75.41 per share, and Afriland Properties Plc gained 80 Kobo to settle at N16.80 per unit versus N16.00 per unit.
There was a slip in the volume of transactions yesterday by 46.8 per cent to 280,714 units from 527,221 units, as the value of trades dropped 66.5 per cent to N21.8 million from the preceding session’s N64.2 million, and the number of deals fell by 8.7 per cent to 42 deals from 46 deals.
Great Nigeria Insurance (GNI) Plc ended the session as the most traded stock by value on a year-to-date basis with 3.4 billion units worth N8.4 billion, followed by Infrastructure Credit Guarantee (Infracredit) Plc with 2.3 billion units sold for N6.5 billion, and CSCS Plc with 64.7 million units traded for N4.4 billion.
GNI Plc also finished the day as the most traded stock by volume on a year-to-date basis with 3.4 billion units valued at N8.4 billion, followed by Infracredit Plc with 2.3 billion units exchanged for N6.5 billion, and Resourcery Plc with 1.1 billion units transacted for N415.7 million.
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