Credpal, The Buy Now Pay Later Platform

Ekene Eyimegwu

3 years ago

Recently, the adoption of buy now pay later(BNPL)is sweeping the e-commerce sector all over the world. According to reports, BPNL as a payment option for both online stores and at the point of sale is expected to record a compound annual growth rate of 20% from 2021 to 2028.

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BPNL is a short-term consumer financing that allows customers to buy products online and pay in instalments with little or no fees. Several startups such as Afterpay, Klarna, Affirm, and Zip are some of the players facilitating the adoption of BNPL. The tremendous growth of this service can be attributed to the activities of these providers whose platforms encourage consumers to make immediate purchases and pay over time.

In Africa, the BNPL activity is not left behind such that Credpal, one of the pioneers in this space raised $15 million in a bridge round comprising equity and debt. According to Crunchbase data, the latest funding brings the total investment secured by CredPal to $16.7 million having previously raised $1.5 million in 2020, part of which was used to launch its credit cards services. Some of their existing investors, including Greenhouse Capital (which is also an investor in Kenya’s BNPL startup Lipa Later), as well as new investors including Uncovered Fund, LongCommerce, First Circle Capital, and Adii Pienaar, co-founder and former CEO of WooCommerce, participated in the bridge round while some undisclosed financial institutions provided the debt facility. This fund will be used to expand its consumer credit offerings in, Nigeria and other African countries starting with Kenya, Egypt, Ghana, and Cameroon. The company also said that part of the new investment will also help it secure a partnership with telecom operator Airtel Nigeria to allow low to middle-income earners to buy smartphones and pay in instalments. Credpal was Launched in 2018 by its CEO Fehintolu Olaogun and COO Olorunfemi Jegede. The Y Combinator- and Google-backed platform permits individuals and businesses to pay for the products they bought in instalments across online and offline merchants, for both large and small-ticket items from as low as ₦2,000 up to ₦5 million. CredPal claims to have over 85,000 active customers and more than 4,000 active merchants.

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In 2018, the concept of BNPL was still developing in Nigeria when CredPal launched its point-of-sale consumer credit service plugged into e-commerce stores for lower-to-middle class income earners. The adoption wasn’t tremendous so CredPal toyed with the idea of creating a new credit offering via cards which increased the BNPL adoption. The credit cards were launched in November 2020to increase the reach of their BNPL service. its credit cards are used by consumers to access CredPal’s BNPL services when they visit a partner store to purchase items such as electronics, particularly smartphones, furniture, and groceries. It also has a mobile app which is available for download in the Google play store and the ios app store. On the platform, Customers can access credit from ₦5,000 to ₦500,000 which they are required to repay within a 30 to 180 days period after making a down payment of 30%. Interest rates range from 4% to 9%.

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CredPal is positioning itself in the face of growing competition such as Lipa Later (one of the early companies in the space in Kenya), M-Kopa (which has since expanded into phones and retail products in Kenya, Uganda, and Nigeria), CDCare, PayQart, Carbon, PayJustNow, and Payflex( recently acquired by Australian BNPL Zip). What differentiates Credpal from all these other platforms is that they provide an omnichannel approach to BNPL. The omnichannel merchant suite “CredPal Pay” helps businesses of all sizes and categories to accept buy now, pay later options. The platform serves as a point-of-sale infrastructure that enables BNPL through a credit payment link, checkout plugin, QR codes, and a transaction management system. In this service offering, CredPal faces competition with ThankUCash in providing BNPL infrastructure to merchandisers.

With the majority of consumers in Africa finding it difficult to access efficient and sustainable credit solutions, the BNPL movement is growing stronger across Africa. Likewise the competition among players. Regardless, Credpal remains committed to improving credit facilities for African consumers and helping sellers grow their sales.

Featured Image Source: The Guardian Nigeria News

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