Lidya, a new online financial services platform aimed at Africans worldwide, has gone live today and is now issuing loans to SMEs. Lidya has been launched by the founders of Africa Courier Express (ACE), Tunde Kehinde and Ercin Eksin.
The platform’s first product is a receivables based loan aimed at SMEs. The value of this loan can be between US$500 and US$15,000 and credit is disbursed to qualified customers in 72 hours.
The platform operates a credit scoring algorithm that will help customers to build their credit profiles and access highly competitive financing rates and larger loans.
Tunde Kehinde, co-founder of both Lidya, as well as the retail giant Jumia, commented on the platform’s official launch:
“The overall aim of this platform is to tackle the huge issue of financial inclusion in Africa and to help support the continent’s entrepreneurs. With 600 million mobile subscribers and close to 350 million people online in Africa today, it’s clear that mobile-led, technology solutions are the future of financial services in Africa. Lidya will work with SMEs to not only provide capital to grow but also provide data to help entrepreneurs understand and improve the financial health of their businesses.”
Lidya co-founder Ercin Eksin, also commented on the launch: “We estimate the credit gap in Africa to be several hundred billion US dollars. To unlock capital for customers that do not have access to credit; innovative financial services backed with world-class customer experience must be developed.
Lidya is revolutionizing how risk is assessed and how credit is disbursed. We look forward to helping our customers access the capital they need to fulfill their potential. ”
Who is Tunde Kehinde?
Tunde Kehinde is the Co-Founder of ACE, the leading direct-to-consumer fulfillment platform in Nigeria delivering hundreds of thousands of packages to consumers. Tunde is also Co-Founder and former Managing Director of Jumia.com, Nigeria’s Number Online Retail Store, he helped grow the business from five employees to close to 1,000 employees serving customers all over Nigeria.
Prior to Jumia, Tunde co-founded Bandeka.com, an online dating platform identified by Forbes as one of the hottest tech start-ups in Africa. Tunde has prior experience as a business development executive with Diageo in London and as an Investment Banking professional with Wachovia Securities in North Carolina and New York City.
Tunde holds a degree with honours in Finance from Howard University and an MBA Harvard Business School.
Ercin Eksin
Ercin Eksin is the Co-Founder of ACE, the leading direct-to-consumer fulfillment platform in Nigeria delivering hundreds of thousands of packages to consumers. As the former Co-CEO of Jumia Nigeria and Chief Operating Officer of Jumia Africa, Ercin managed operations for Jumia across six African countries including Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, Egypt, Morocco and Ivory Coast.
Ercin has prior experience at Rocket Internet where he served as a director of Global Operations working with over 20 companies across 20 countries to achieve operational excellence. Prior to Rocket Internet, Ercin worked for Toyota specializing in advanced research in Electronics in Belgium.
Ercin has an MBA from the University of Chicago-Booth.
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