The innovative use of technology in the delivery of financial services is eliciting a positive impact on businesses and customers’ experience in Nigeria. Aside from providing a cheaper, faster and user-friendly financial option for Nigerians, fintech solutions are driving financial inclusion, employment creation.
With about 30% population of tech-savvy and smartphone-loving millennials, Nigeria is a huge market for fintech services. This generation of digital natives wants their financial transactions completed seamlessly. They crave prompt OTP and instant credit.
Felix Elugbadebo, a legal practitioner and technology enthusiast in Lagos fits into this description. Jumia fintech product avails him of the hassle of physical recharge cards for data and calls. “One aspect of technology (fintech), that I am very well interested in is a financial technology (fintech) which means being able to conduct financial transactions on your device be it mobile phones or on your computer. One of such fintech platforms is JumiaPay.
“I have been using JumiaPay since the name was Jumia One. I’ve been using it for airtime purchases, for data purchases and for other transactions that are available on the platform. Whether you live in the city or in rural areas, everybody wants an easy life. Nobody wants to run across the street to buy recharge cards or have to call an agent to buy data when you can actually do all that on your mobile device,” he said.
While many customers were caught in the usual itchy transaction net of the festive periods, Felix was getting incentives from his transactions on JumiaPay. He recounted that “over the Easter break, a lot of people could not use the USSD service provided by telcos and the banks but for people like me who use fintech platforms, we had no issues especially with JumiaPay when I get 3% discount off my purchases.”
The ability of fintechs like JumiaPay to deliver on customer timely needs is endearing them to the youthful market. For instance, the Jumia 2020 Q4 report, showed the company’s fintech product is making more inroads with more financial situations for customers. The report showed that Total Payment Volume JumiaPay increased by 30% from €45.6 million in the fourth quarter of 2019 to €59.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2020. JumiaPay Transactions increased by 10% from 2.4 million in the fourth quarter of 2019 to 2.7 million in the fourth quarter of 2020. Overall, 33.1% of Orders placed on the Jumia platform in the fourth quarter of 2020 were paid for using JumiaPay, compared to 29.5% in the fourth quarter of 2019.
With an estimated population of over 200 million of which 40% is financially excluded, it is expected that the increasing fintech traction will drive financial inclusion for the unbanked in Nigeria, while customers with bank accounts would achieve higher levels of customer satisfaction.
Adedapo Adesanya 
Modupe Gbadeyanka