By Henry Uche

PalmPay is a leading Africa-focused fintech platform committed to driving economic empowerment in Africa by offering top-tier products such as money transfers, bill payments, credit services, and savings on its app and mobile money agents. In this interview with Daily Sun, its MD/CEO, Mr. Chika Nwosu, a seasoned executive with a Management Science degree, narrated the company’s challenges and achievements in 2023 and plans for 2024 in Africa and other sundry issues.

Excerpts:

Achievements in 2023

2023 has been an interesting, rewarding and humbling year for us at PalmPay. After just four years of being in operation as a licensed Mobile Money Operator (MMO), we have over 30 million users and successfully onboarded over 1.1 million businesses, with our business network boasting over 600,000 merchants and 500,000 agents.

These entrepreneurs, the backbone of Nigeria’s economy, are not just PalmPay’s Agents and Merchants, they are partners on this journey towards prosperity. Today, we have 36 state offices strategically placed across the country to ensure that every business, no matter how remote, has access to the financial tools and customer service support that they need to succeed.

Currently, our cashless payment ecosystem processes up to 15 million transactions daily and 6 billion USD Monthly Transaction Value, proving that our customers are choosing to stick with PalmPay, ensuring that we have one of the highest retention rates in the market. 75 per cent of our users come back to transact with us every month.

More than 40 million people, representing 1 in 5 people in Nigeria, trust our network to transact, save, shop and pay for utilities every month. This number represents the number of people who have accessed PalmPay services through either our secure and seamless smartphone apps or the merchant and agent networks.

We are trusted and loved by over 30 million users, 80 per cent of whom come to us thanks to a recommendation by their friends and family, and 30 per cent of whom were financially excluded before they started using PalmPay.

2023 was a year of remarkable accolades for the brand as our work to drive financial inclusion did not go unnoticed. We were awarded by several bodies including;  Fastest Growing Fintech Company of 2023 – AfriTech 3.0; Outstanding Payment Platform of 2023 – Marketing Edge; Award of Excellence in Fintech – Digital Nigeria (NITDA); Financial Institution of the Year and Best Use of Social Media – Nigeria Marketing Award; and Best Use of Social Media Fintech – Social Media Awards.

These achievements are part of our drive to achieve financial inclusion and financial literacy for millions of the unbanked population across Nigeria. This has been our driving force since we came into operation in 2019 and continues to drive our business goal as we head into the new year with optimism.

Challenges faced in 2023

We were confronted with the fragility of the financial ecosystem. Back then, network failure rates in the industry of up to 10 per cent were common. To drive consumers to choose to shift towards cashless payments, we knew we had to do better. Fast forward to today, a remarkable 99.5 per cent of transactions on PalmPay are successful within just 10 seconds.  One of the first challenges that we faced in 2023 was the cash crunch.

The cash crunch was more of an opportunity for us to showcase PalmPay’s capabilities than it was a challenge. It was an enabling situation for the business we work with because we were ready and had the technology and were waiting for more users to experience the benefits of having a digital cashless payment platform like ours.

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It must be stated that we owe our proactive response to the cash crunch situation to the over 30 million Nigerians who have trusted us with their finances and make use of PalmPay for their digital payments needs, and also to the over 1.1 million businesses including 600,000 merchants and 500,000 agents that because of their partnership, continue to offer our payment products to Nigerians across the country. PalmPay is not only a banking or payment app; it has grown to become a household name, deeply ingrained in the local ways of life, and we owe this to every stakeholder, including our indefatigable PalmPay staff for putting in the effort, time, and dedication to see that we succeed.

Our success is a testament to their unwavering commitment, innovative thinking, and collective passion to make a difference in Nigeria’s financial services sector. Looking ahead, we are poised for greater achievements. We remain committed to our mission and vision and will continue to innovate, expand our offerings, and collaborate with strategic partners to drive positive change. Driving financial inclusion is at the core of our business. We will continue to make our services accessible to as many people as possible, reaching them through our smartphone app and via our network of agents and merchants.

Plans for 2024

We came into the market in 2019 to drive financial inclusion to improve the number of the unbanked. According to the CBN, Nigeria currently stands on a 64 per cent financial inclusion rate in 2023. As a testament to our effects, 1 in 5 Nigerians use the PalmPay app because it is fun and has a transaction success rate of 99.9 per cent. We plan to keep building on these financial inclusion efforts in 2024. We are set to launch additional payment channels in 2024.

We launched in Tanzania in 2023. In 2024, we will continue to grow our multi-country and cross-border presence. Our continuous drive for financial inclusion and literacy means that we will be launching new products and features on the app that would support our customers in carrying out their payment needs.

PalmPay has its footprint in Ghana where we operate with an enhanced Payment service providers (EPSP) license and offer merchant acquiring solutions (All-in-one payment solutions for business) run business solutions in Ghana and the personal app which provides some bill payment solutions. Our services are being upgraded.

In addition to Ghana, we have also established a footprint in the east of Africa, Tanzania, under the payment system provider license. As we enter the new year, we aim to recreate our successes in West Africa, with the achievements we’ve recorded in Nigeria and beyond. As a technology-driven company, we will keep exploring AI for in-payment and even out-of-payment. Also, we will utilize AI for big data and risk control measures.

Safety & security

PalmPay is committed to ensuring compliance and fostering a secure financial ecosystem. The safety and security of our users are our priority. Over the years, we’ve been able to build several safety features into the PalmPay app to ensure our over 30 million users transact in a secure and trusted environment. For the four years that PalmPay has been in business, the reason why we’ve been able to increase our users to over 30 million is simply because of how user-friendly and secure our app is. We’ve done this successfully, marrying security and safety with the customer experience to create a balance.

We’ve integrated several security and safety features on the PalmPay app to protect our users from fraud, such as binding their phone to the app, an auto-logout and biometrics features to confirm our users’ identity. In all of these, our goal has always been to reduce fraudulent activities and provide a safe banking environment for all. Also, there is an inbuilt safety feature in the PalmPay app that uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to understand users’ transaction patterns to cater for incidents of fake accounts, fraud, and cyberattacks, to ensure account protection.

We employ a closed-loop risk management system that involves continuous monitoring, analysis, and response to security threats. It allows us to detect and prevent risks in real-time, reducing the potential impact of security incidents. We also run a Wallet Safety Workshop to educate our users on how to safeguard their wallets.

We are a forward-thinking fintech platform that has always encouraged our users to link their wallets with their BVN or NIN in accordance with the policy directives of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), for the purpose of protecting our users’ data while at the same time providing them with seamless financial services.

To show our preparedness to protect our users from incidents of fake accounts, fraud, and cyber attacks, we recently upgraded existing users’ KYC upgrade page so tier 1 users who have not upgraded their KYC can do so seamlessly.

Moving forward, we will continue to build a super app that supports the seamless sending and receiving of money, effortless payment of bills, and the ease of shopping anywhere. As a driver of financial inclusion, PalmPay will continue to focus on giving our users the freedom to take full control of their finances.