Nigerian fintech, Grip wants to rebundle the finances of consumers and businesses

For a long time, disruption in the Fintech space meant startups nibbling small pieces of traditional banks’ pie –an era of unbundling banks. Africa has witnessed the rise of startups that did an excellent job taking parts of the banking value chain and improving the overall financial experience for users using technology.

However, that soon posed a problem—a heavily fragmented financial ecosystem; It turns out that users want more from a singular product than having to juggle multiple platforms and financial products.

The big “rebundling” in Fintech has been foretold for a while now where startups will aggregate the distribution of fintech products and services, making it less fragmented for the market and simpler for users.

That prediction has become a reality with the likes of innovative startups like Curve, Revolut, OneCard and others operating in various parts of the world. But Africa is left out, much more than Nigeria, which has the largest fintech market on the continent.

Juggling multiple payment cards and wallets from different banks and fintech apps is a side effect of a fragmented financial ecosystem. A side-effect which heavily impacts the majority of the banked population in Africa.

Grip was founded in April 2021 on a defiant mission to simplify payments and transform Africans’ experience of interacting with their money.

Grip’s unique offering is that it consolidates all your credit cards, debit cards, bank accounts and fintech wallets into a single app and card. The Grip card paired with the Grip app enables the user to add all their cards into one Debit Card. Grip partnered with award-winning designers like Renike and Shutabug to design their stylish and unique debit cards that have made a massive impression on the public with many demanding a Grip Card.

Grip wants everyone to be able to choose the services and products they want, manage them how they want, and have the power to change those choices whenever they want to.

Grip’s distinct ‘all-in-one’ technology enables customers to interact with their finances in ways that were not possible. Asides from the added benefit of being able to manage all your existing cards and fintech wallets with Grip, you will also get access to groundbreaking features that will allow you to withdraw from any fintech wallet with your Grip card, fulfil a single payment across multiple cards and wallets, and chose a backup card that is charged automatically if your default card declines a transaction, among others. These are important offerings in an ever-accelerating world where our finances are being unbundled with new players emerging and introducing novel digital financial services (including payment cards) regularly.

Furthermore, Grip’s offering brings relief to Nigerians who have been battling with FX restrictions on the Naira card. On Grip, users would have unlimited access to FX to spend in online stores and over 200+ countries without ever worrying about limits.

When asked, the Founder and CEO of Grip, Nelson Atuonwu simply described Grip as: "When you think about how Spotify combines music that was normally distributed independently to a single platform, and all the benefits that were unlocked for the users, Grip aims to accomplish the same thing for your finances."

"In bundling, consumers are always the winners, because it allows them to interact with services and service providers they've already been used to in new ways that just wouldn't have been possible previously. A lot of the stuff we just announced today is novel, never-seen-before features and we're only just getting started. This has been 18 months of painstaking research and work-in-the-making, and we are beyond excited to finally have users experience what we've been able to accomplish as a team," Atuonwu added.

Grip launched its app on both App Store and Google Play to over 3000+ people on their waitlist and the general public last week.

This article was written by Ifeoluwa Mibiola, a copywriter at Grip. Contact via: mobiolaifeoluwa[at]gmail[dot]com