Credable Raises $2.5 Million to Expand Digital Banking Platform

Digital banking platform Credable wants to reach new markets after raising $2.5 million.

The seed funding round, reported Monday (March 20) by TechCrunch, will help the company expand its services, which include a number of banking products for customers in Uganda, Kenya and Credable’s home country of Tanzania.

“The problem we’re trying to solve is that a huge population of underbanked customers need banking services to improve their livelihoods,” CEO and Co-founder Nadeem Juma said in an interview with TechCrunch. “They are in different channels that they use every day, like telco-led mobile money, eCommerce platforms and gig economy apps. Rather than try to create a new channel to bank these customers, we aim to enable these channels through a B2B2C offering that provides the customers with the banking services they need in the channels they’re already in.”

Credable — not to be confused with CredAble, an Indian business growth app covered extensively in this space — said in the report it plans to expand into markets, including Pakistan and Nigeria, two of the most populous countries on Earth.

Nigeria, meanwhile, recently became the first African country to adopt open banking regulations.

These regulations, released by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), lay out the rules governing how traditional banks and other financial services providers can access and manage customer data in the nation.

“The adoption of Open Banking in Nigeria will foster the sharing of customer-permissioned data between banks and third-party firms to enable the building of customer-focused products and services,” Musa Jimoh, director of the CBN’s Payments System Management Department, said in a circular written to deposit money banks, mobile money operators and payment service providers (PSPs).

PYMNTS also recently explored some of the challenges FinTechs face in Africa in a conversation with Isaac Kamuta, head of payments and cash management at pan-African banking institution Ecobank.

According to Kamuta, trust is one of the chief advantages regulated traditional banks have over newer, unregulated firms in the financial services sector.

“Consumers will only keep their money in a place where they’re sure to find it tomorrow if they need it,” he told PYMNTS.

However, that trust is not directly in the banks per se, Kamuta noted, but in the fact that banks operate within a regulated field and must follow strict regulatory requirements.

“Consumers know that there’s someone watching over banks, and they will make sure that there’s governance and controls [in place],” he said.

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