Zeeh Africa's Open Banking Platform Revolutionizes Access to Credit in Africa

The video is from CNBC Africa’s Flora Limukii spoke to David Adeleke, Co-Founder and CEO of Zeeh Africa to gain insights of how the company’s platform is connecting clients to access credit facilities more efficiently.' Zeeh Africa is an open banking KYC API solution provider and we are leveraging AI with a mission to close the 36 billion dollar credit gap in Africa. We are currently live in Nigeria and with a little footprint in Kenya as we speak right now. One of our major features at Zeeh Africa is the fact that we can aggregate financial data from traditional bank or accredited financial institutions and make this available to third party financial institutions or individuals or businesses to be able to share this data and also to use it to build innovative products cut across loan, investment, pensions, insurance and other areas. It's interesting that you mentioned something about traditional banking. Therefore, how are you bridging the gap between traditional financial institutions and upcoming fintechs as far as the open banking ecosystem is concerned? Thank you very much. So that's even basically what open banking is all about. Open banking is more like a framework. I see it more as a practice that it enables, it closes that gap between traditional banks and the upcoming fintechs or the upcoming financial institutions. Let me do a simple case study, a simple use case of what it does. So say an individual has an account with traditional banks and you've carried out certain transactions with them. You have a transaction history. So say for example you want to get access to credit from let's say an upcoming loan company. Those loan companies need the data about you. They need to understand your credit worthiness. They need to understand your credit score. They need to know whether you are credit worthy to take that credit facility. So instead of building a new financial footprint with that upcoming right, with the help of open banking, they can leverage this data you have with the existing traditional bank to be able to make good sense of the person's financial footprint. So with this we are seeing a generation of driving financial inclusion across both the own bank or the bank and everybody across the country. So open banking is actually the practice that bridges that gap between the traditional banks and upcoming fintech. And when you're speaking about fintech, the issue of data privacy and security of the customers and also trying to just get the trust of the users and also these financial institutions comes up. Therefore how as ZAfrica are you ensuring that you protect the data and customer privacy? Okay, not to make too much, not to boast, right. We have one of the best cyber security experts who also happens to be the co-founder and CTO is one of the best in West Africa, right, with Frank. So we've been able to put extremely secure measures, right, into our infrastructure to ensure that our infrastructure is safe starting from the API, right, to sharing those data across different parties. That's one. Then two also is we are compliant with the regulatory body that's in Nigeria, right, as regards the data privacy. So one of the measures we put in place is what we call consent. So it's like we want to share your data as an individual with the third party institutions so we still have to get the consent from you. So you have to be aware that those data is being shared. That's one. And two, the level or the data that is being shared, you also have a copy of it as an individual. So you know what part of your data is being exposed or which one are you giving consent to to be shared to the other company. So these are measures that we are putting into place to ensuring that our system is very secured and we are also in line with the regulatory framework that is established at the moment in where we are operating. And Anzi Africa, how are you ensuring that this is catering for financial inclusion and also catering for the most remote areas of Africa? Okay, so in terms of numbers, right, with the help of our infrastructure, we've been able to process roughly I think $15 million, right, in terms of loan. That's what our infrastructure has done. We've been able to get 2 million API calls. That means we've been able to review over 2 million calls on our platform. And a larger percent of this, I think 65% of those 2 million API calls that we've done so far has been gotten from the remote areas that's in Nigeria at the moment. And these people categorize of the underbanked guys and the unbanked fellows, right. So Z-Africa is on that mission actually to drive financial inclusion because without an effective credit system in a country, there is little or much to which the economy can grow because say for example you are running a business and you're running it with your personal fund, you'll be doing it at maybe X rates. So but when you inject external fund which can come in through either investment or another way through credit, right, it can go up to 2X, 5X as the case were, also with a favorable interest rate for the credit system, right. So with Z-Africa, right, we've been able to enable businesses across the country because we get calls requests from companies that run across north, south, east and west of Nigeria, not just in a specific area, right. So we've been able to drive financial inclusion in that light through our open banking infrastructure. Then one of the other things that we've done at Z-Africa is the fact that we've been able to integrate AI, right, into our open banking system. So with AI now we've been able to personalize people's financial management for them. So since we have access to those data, right, through consenting to the users, we've been able to build an algorithm that analyzes those statements and can tell you what your spending should be like, what is your budget, what your salary is, when it's going to come in. So with that you take control of your finances. So this is our attribute of financial inclusion that we are driving at Z-Africa. Yes, and even before we were speaking about coming into Rwanda, therefore speaking to just coming to Rwanda, why Rwanda right now? Okay, so Rwanda is actually a very beautiful place. I love Rwanda to start with, like, since I got in I've been welcomed and it has a very cool atmosphere, so that's just one. Then also what is fascinating about Rwanda is the fact that there are welcoming policies, right, that are in place to enable growth for startups, for businesses, even for investors. So for example now the open banking, the data privacy protection is already in place since, if I'm not mistaken, October 15, 2021 or 2018 thereabouts, right, in Rwanda. So this shows that the country in Rwanda itself is actually ripe for growth in the financial space, that's one. And two, one of the major things that attracts me to Rwanda is the fact that they have this, what they are trying to build in Rwanda is the fact that it's going to be the next hub, like the next centre for growth across all sectors, right, but since I play in the financial space. So I'll be talking as regards the financial space, such that you can come to Rwanda, build your startup here, and use it as a proof of concept to expand into neighbouring African countries, just like the events that I attended yesterday, right, when one of the presentations that was made was the fact that they call it a double tax treaty, right, imagine you having a tax agreement in Rwanda and yet it can extend into a neighbouring African country. So with this, right, this shows that Rwanda is actually sitting at the forefront of innovation, of forward thinking, and embracing growth. And also I noticed that there's already the sandbox, already live in Rwanda, right, so this actually enables policies that, so if you want to come into the country, right, you don't need to just go all out, you can still play in the sandbox, run your pilot test, check it out before you can go fully live into the system. So all in all, I mean, Rwanda actually is a very good place, right, to build your startup from. Looking at the country that you're operating in, currently Nigeria and Kenya, how are you navigating the regulatory challenges that come with coming up with a startup and also these financial sectors to ensure that there's compliance and also promote secure open banking in these two countries? Okay, so one of the major ways that we do is currently we have a lawyer, right, so she sits double as our compliance officer, right, so basically she guides the entire affair of all our regulatory body, anything that has to do with legal work, anything that has to do with compliance to ensure that we are doing what we are expected to do, the way we ought to do it, right. So with this in place, right, it has made us well positioned to comply with whatever policy, whatever regulations, and policies change also at times, right, in Nigeria, for example, so she keeps us up to date, because I'm the CEO, right, I can be available even though I do that to my best capacity, but then we have people that are experts in that field, managing that part for us, so we put that into place also, right, to ensure that we are very compliant and we're promoting the growth of Rwanda. We're promoting the growth of open banking across Africa, because that's our goal, right, we're looking at how to push open banking across Africa.

The rise of multiple credit companies in Africa has contributed significantly to raising awareness on loans and credit and bridging the gap between traditional banking solutions and the evolving fintech ecosystem. CNBC Africa’s Flora Limukii spoke to David Adeleke, Co-Founder and CEO of Zeeh Africa to gain insights of how the company’s platform is connecting clients to access credit facilities more efficiently.

Redefining access to credit in Africa through open banking

The rise of multiple credit companies in Africa has contributed significantly to raising awareness on loans and credit and bridging the gap between traditional banking solutions and the evolving fintech ecosystem. 

Redefining access to credit in Africa through open banking

Related Videos

Trending Tokens

News Tips

Advertise With Us

Redefining access to credit in Africa through open banking

SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTER

DAILY UPDATE

Related Videos

Trending Tokens

News Tips

Advertise With Us

Newsletters