How Fehintolu Discovered His Business Idea And Turned It Into A $16.8 Million Backed Credpal

Fehintolu and his team created CredPal  for providing point-of-sale consumer credit to working professionals in Africa

Credpal is a fintech company in Nigeria that lets businesses and individuals buy items from merchants online and offline and pay for the items with instant access to loan/credit at the point of checkout

Its proprietary technology provides consumer credit infrastructure that allows banks and other financial institutions to deliver consumer credit in real-time across point-of-sale channels. This helps Credpal users to Buy-Now-n-Pay-Later.

The founders, Fehintolu Olaogun (CEO) and Olorunfemi Jegede, (COO) were inspired by the observation that consumers in Africa  find it hard to  pay outright for products due to low purchasing power, and low access to credit for purchases, which in turn,  leads to low sales for merchants on the continent.

To address that challenge, they launched CredPal  to serve as the  financial backbone for consumer credit in Africa.

The company began by enabling the use of ATM cards which served as credit cards for users at point-of-sale (POS) channels. 

Building on the success of its POS infrastructure, CredPal has maintained a strong hold in the consumer lending space and is rapidly growing with the launch of  Credpal Pay for merchants and its credit cards that are serving the needs of customers. 

The team is  driving the  adoption and usability of credit cards in Nigeria and across Africa with the desire to see that working professionals no longer have a thing to worry about as it concerns dealing with their financial needs. 

The successful execution of the team has enabled the company to raise $16.8 million from Investors and attract over  85,000 users.

CredPal makes money by providing credit advances to its customers at POS channels  and charging 4%- 6.8%  interest on the loan. 

It also makes money by providing various categories of credit cards to its customers. The categories are:

BASIC: This is for users with less than or exactly N7k credit limit. it has a 21% monthly interest rate and no annual fees.

STANDARD: This credit plan features a 14% monthly interest rate and no annual fees.

PREMIUM:This plan has a 6% monthly interest rate and a N5,000 annual fee.

PRESTIGE3.8% monthly interest rate and a N52,000 annual fee.

The firm has won various awards including Visa Everywhere Initiative for Sub-Saharan Africa award, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation backed EFInA Grant,  YCombinator accelerator grant,  Merchant Payments Challenge Award, and  it  was selected for the fifth edition of Google for Startups Accelerator Africa. 

CredPal  Investors include  Y Combinator, Green House Capital and other VC Firms.

The  company is using its $16.8 million funding, to optimize its products and to execute its growth programs.

@Smatkaria