A new loan management platform has emerged within the fintech space in Nigeria. With their aim to demystify the challenges around informal loans, Credit Warehouse, a data company has announced its latest flagship “The Contract Manager”.
The Contract Manager is a platform where friends, family and even small business owners can sign virtual, yet legally binding contracts of any amount as evidence that the transactions took place. Credit Warehouse would act as a witness and custodian of such information. In addition, once the loans are due, Credit Warehouse would send reminders to the borrower, hence reducing the follow-up responsibility for the lender, all this at no cost.
According to the Co-founder, Mr. Segun Maleghemi “the product is the third in a suite of products and services launched into the market.” He stated that they had previously launched both the Agent Verification platform and Connector Services but those were B2B services meant for their enterprise customers. With the Contract Manager launch, it means they now have their first B2C products in the market and was proof that they were edging closer to their target beneficiary, the common man.
”In our research, we observed that people behave properly when a 3rd party is involved in credit transaction; hence we built a platform that acts as such to people’ informal transactions. A lot of thoughts was put into this, and yes, we asked ourselves again and again if this was needed. But when you look at research reports, you would see that over 61% of all loans come from friends and family. This product was built deliberately to support this large segment of the Credit Community.”
In his statement, the Co-founder and CTO Paschal Onuorah said “Our mission is to ensure that deserving individuals have access to affordable credit when they need it. We want to create a system where people are comfortable giving out help, knowing they wouldn’t be taken for granted. With our follow-up activities, we remove the excuse that one party forgot. We also help same party have evidence which they can use to approach the formal sector for credit at lower interest rates. Ultimately, we recognise that this would promote positive attitude to debt obligations and invariably facilitates financial inclusion.”
The team initially got $5000 grant from the Tony Elumelu Foundation in 2018. This was during the ideation stages. They also raised some Pre-Seed funding from E-Settlement limited, a leading Mobile Payment company. With the launch, they are hoping to grow their influence in the Credit Space and also protect a sector that is desperately needed to restart the continent’s post pandemic economic recovery.
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