Two entrepreneurs are set to unveil Nigeria’s first online lender, Lidya, in New York on Thursday, Bloomberg reports.
Here are things to know about it:
- Marketed as a digital bank that will have no branches, Lidya will be based in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital, and offer small and medium-sized businesses unsecured loans of between $500 and $15,000.
- Lidya will initially focus on Nigerian customers, and later target cities across Africa.
- Lidya’s founders are: Tunde Kehinde, a Harvard Business School graduate and former managing director of Jumia; and Ercin Eksin, former Co-CEO of Jumia Nigeria and Chief Operating Officer of Jumia Africa.
- The founders will look to bring in other shareholders and raise more than $1 million in the next few months from investors, primarily in the U.S.
- Lidya will be opened next month and also partner with Nigerian banks to allow them to use it as a platform to target small businesses.