Afrobility: Africa Tech and Business #69: FairMoney - How the credit-led neobank is providing consumer loans and financial services across Nigeria, India and other developing markets
Overview: Today, we’re going to talk about FairMoney, the credit-led Neobank in emerging markets. we’ll explore the FairMoney story across the following areas
African lending & consumer credit
FairMoney's founding & early history
Product & monetization strategy
Competitive positioning & potential exit options
Overall outlook
This episode was recorded on Oct 1, 2023
Companies discussed: FairMoney, Branch, PalmPay, Kuda Bank, Carbon, 54Gene, GTBank, Access Bank, Ecobank, PalmPay, Carbon, PiggyVest, Upstart, Tala, Visa, Mastercard Safaricom (M-Pesa), PayForce & Chipper Cash
Business concepts discussed: Smartphone credit assessment, African customer segmentation strategy, Consumer lending, unbanked population, smartphone credit assessment, Neobank strategy & Personal Finance OS
Conversation highlights:
(03:01) - Intro
(07:19) - African consumer lending & neobank context
(18:35) - Neobanking context and background
(20:00) - FairMoney founding story and Founders’ background
(39:40) - Fundraising
(45:46) - Geographical expansion
(49:05) - Partnerships
(50:16) - Acquisitions
(55:42) - Team & Location strategy
(58:03) - User metrics and traction
(1:04:27) - Product and monetization strategy
(1:24:04) - Competition and options for exit
(1:35:44) - Bankole’s overall thoughts and outlook
(1:47:30) - Olumide’s overall thoughts and outlook
(1:55:17) - Recommendations and small wins
Olumide’s recommendations & small wins:
Interested in investing in Africa Tech with Olumide: Read about Adamantium fund & contact me at olumide@afrobility.com. Founders looking for funding: If you're a B2B founder working on Education, Health, Finance or food, please contact me for funding at olumide@afrobility.com
Checkout my FIREDOM book = FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) + Freedom = personal finance and financial independence book. Website, Read: Substack Newsletter & Buy: Print, eBook or Audiobook)
Recommendation 1: Arnold Schwarzenegger book 1: The Education of a Bodybuilder
Recommendation 2: Arnold Schwarzenegger book 2: Total Recall - My Unbelievably True Life Story
Recommendation 3: Richard Feynman's book: What Do You Care What Other People Think?": Further Adventures of a Curious Character (Feynman Book 2). I already read and recommended "Surely, you're joking Mr Feynman which was extraordinary)
Recommendation 4: Finnaus YT channel tells stories about financial companies and investors. Awesome. I watched the history of JP Morgan, Howard Marks, Jamie Dimon, Goldman Sachs, Fidelity, Vanguard and on and on. I must have spent over 10 hours in the past week on it
Small win: Hanging out in Rio de Janeiro. It was fun!
Bankole’s recommendations & small wins:
Recommendation: Zealot by Reza Aslan, Remember Me - Fireboy (FAEM remix) & Lonely At The Top - Asake (FAEM Remix)
Small win: Exercising after recovering from an injury
Other content: Laurin Hainy on TechPoint Africa, We Rich People Will Not Tell You How We Make Our Money - IG Reel, Moneylender licensing in Nigeria , Examples of spurious correlations & Titan: A Golden Case in Indian Retail
Listeners: We’d love to hear from you. Email info@afrobility.com with feedback!
Founders & Operators: We'd love to hear about what you're working on, email us at info@afrobility.com
Investors: It would be great to link up with you. Contact us at info@afrobility.com
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