Nigeria’s digital payroll and human resource management platform Bento has announced its expansion to three new African countries – Kenya, Ghana and Rwanda. Apart from announcing its announcement to these new markets, the company announced that it would be expanding into six other African markets over the next one year.
The plans to expand to these six other African markets will come into fruition starting next year and will run through the course of the year. The countries Bento plans on entering include Egypt, South Africa, Tanzania, Angola and Ethiopia.
Bento, founded in 2019, is a payroll and human resource management platform assisting businesses by automating the disbursement of workers’ salaries as well as other statutory remittances including taxes and pension. Bento is taking the lead in Africa’s payroll and human resource management market which for long, has depended heavily on irksomely tasking processes to make the aforementioned payments.
Explaining how hard the traditional payroll management system is to operate and the benefits that Bento comes with, co-founder and CEO Ebun Okubanjo said that “Seeing so many companies using analogue methods to manage their workforce is both frustrating and exciting for us. Employers don’t have access to locally customized, world-class payroll and HRM tools, and employees can’t easily access third-party services to help make life easier. When you think about it, your salary powers your life, so we’re building the operating system that will have a profound impact on the African continent for generations to come”. According to the CEO, Bento is also leveraging data to extend credit solutions and other services such as umeployment insurance savings and investment to third parties (employees).
Speaking on Bento’s future, products and expansion plans, its Chief Operating Officer and co-founder Chidozie David Okonkwo said that “We’re starting with payroll and HRM, but moving rapidly towards Salary 2.0, where we redefine the intersection of work and life and transform the way people earn, spend and borrow on the continent. Having successfully established product-market fit in Nigeria, one of the most difficult markets to penetrate in Africa, we’re excited to roll out across the continent and solve the real problems we know millions of employers and employees face on a daily basis”.
Bento says that it is currently serving more than 900 businesses across the countries where it is present. These businesses include healthcare and financial service companies such as Paystack, Kobo360, Branch, LORI systems, Tangerine Africa and Hygeia.
