Nigeria’s apex bank – the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has issued fintech startup Africave Technologies Limited DBA Kippa (commonly known as Kippa) a Payment Solutions Services License to operate as a “Super Agent.”
With this newly-acquired license, Kippa will be able to strengthen its network of merchants and offer them the infrastructure and tools they require to beagle to provide their customers with financial products and services.
Kippa’s presence is all over Nigeria’s 36 states thanks to its merchant network. The startup will now be able to offer more infrastructure that let its merchants accept payments from customers while increasing their customer retention level thanks to Kippa’s infrastructure. For Kippa, this means increased revenue.
Kippa’s license issuance comes on the heels of the latest appointment of Niji Ajao, former Deputy Managing Director at the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) as Chairman, and Oluwatoyin Albert’s appointment as Executive Director for Payment Services.
Speaking on the latest development, Kippa’s CEO Kennedy Ekezie-Joseph said that “We’ve done an incredible job acquiring and onboarding merchants from all nooks and crannies of Nigeria. We aim to further empower these merchants by providing them with the tools and infrastructure to provide financial services to their customers. This is already yielding results.”
Kippa launched back in June 2021 portraying itself as an all-inclusive financial management platform for businesses. The startup has served more than 500,000 merchants within its network and records a yearly transaction value of more than $3 billion.
“Looking at our counterparty data, merchants activated on KippaPay are in the 90th percentile of Kippa merchants regarding customer retention; so, they have more customers and a higher number of transactions per customer,” CEO Kennedy Ekezie-Joseph added.
Oluwatoyin Albert, Executive Director, Payment Services said that “We are excited to offer further financial services to our merchants, which align with the CBN’s broader financial inclusion strategy. We are fully aware of the existing regulatory framework and requirements and all will continue to drive our initiatives to millions of Nigerians while engaging all stakeholders concerned.”