5 Things to know about Nigeria’s First Online Lender

Image result for Tunde Kehinde, Ercin Eksin
Ercin Eksin & Tunde Kehinde

 

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:

  1. 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.
  2. Lidya will initially focus on Nigerian customers, and later target cities across Africa.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.