Lendsqr’s cloud lending ecosystem is making credit affordable for all

Lendsqr, the leading lending-as-a-service cloud platform, has raised an undisclosed amount in a pre-seed round to scale its innovative cloud lending ecosystem making credit affordable for all.

Studies have shown that there’s a direct correlation, if not a causal nexus, between access to finance and economic growth. Whether individuals and businesses can easily access affordable credit today affects economic growth tomorrow. It’s one of the secrets of developed countries — their growth is majorly financed by loans from banks and other financial services providers.

But in Nigeria, like most developing economies, it’s not only difficult to access credit but it’s also expensive. And lack of access to finance, according to the International Finance Corporation, is a key constraint on the growth of small and medium enterprises in Sub-Saharan Africa, and thus also an important limitation on employment, economic growth and shared prosperity.

The founder of Lendsqr, Adedeji Olowe, recognises this: Credit should be accessible and affordable for all because it’s important to both Nigerians and the Nigerian economy. Nigeria is estimated to have an annual consumer credit gap of ₦74 trillion which requires more than a pocket of digital lenders to fill.

That’s why Lendsqr is building a superior, cost-effective cloud lending ecosystem that makes lending accessible and affordable for lenders and borrowers. And more than 100 lenders are currently using the Lendsqr cloud lending ecosystem to offer credit to about half a million users.

Lendsqr is already helping smart lenders like Blocka Cash, Urgent10k, Kredi Bank, and CreditVille to scale their lending significantly. And others like YesCredit, P2Vest, and Klump are using Lendsqr APIs to make smart decisions on their own platforms.

Lendsqr provides the complete technology and data stack small and medium-sized lenders need to make quality decisions and lend to customers at scale.

Compared to other cloud lending solutions, Lendsqr is unique in that it’s an ecosystem that has everything a lender needs. The Lendsqr ecosystem learns and becomes smarter and better with every loan request and every fraud detected or prevented, making life easier and better for every lender that runs on Lendsqr.

Also, Lendsqr’s core revenue model is to charge a fee when we help lenders collect their loans. This means our goals and those of the lenders align — our bread isn’t buttered before theirs.

Other key features of the cloud lending ecosystem include:

• Getting lenders to market faster. In five minutes, they can start lending to customers
• Set up cost and cost of onboarding users is as cheap as free — N0
• The largest blacklist to protect lenders from predatory borrowers and chronic debtors
• Relentless collections and recovery that haunt and hunt down bad borrowers
• For other lenders who have plugged into the ecosystem, API calls are charged only if they retrieve data
• Smart decision engine with over 300 data variables available to lenders to tweak (they can also start with a simple configuration)
  

In the coming months, lenders that use Lendsqr will have access to native mobile software development kits (SDKs) so they can lend to the mass market, using their phone data for free instead of paying over $0.5 as offered by many lend-tech providers.

“We are integrating a large number of ecosystems such as distributors, buy now, pay later players, etc. to allow Nigerians discover affordable loans just when they need it. We are also connecting lenders with capital providers to enable them to scale their lending”, said Olowe.

“Within 18 months, one in four consumer credit in Nigeria would either be originated by lenders on Lendsqr or Lendsqr would have provided data comfort to the lenders”.

The investors that participated in the pre-seed round include ABV Fund, Pave, Niche Capital and Anavo Institute.

With decades of experience in banking, credit, technology, digital payments and venture capital, Olowe, who is also a Trustee of Open Banking Nigeria, is a veteran operator.

“The state of credit now reminds me of the state of telecoms 20 years ago.  The big telcos saw Africa and the impossibility of launching GSM telephony. The average bank, venture capitalists and others are also looking at Africa and seeing poverty, with people unable to access credit”, said the founder of Lendsqr Adedeji Olowe.

“We believe that good tech and data like what we are building can help lenders scale out from the small lender in the local market to the aspiring fintech having national or cross-border ambitions.

“When we solve credit in Africa, it would be the biggest opportunity that has ever come to the continent”.

Lendsqr is on a mission to simplify the lending process with an easy, but sophisticated technology that can guarantee an awesome lending experience.

The startup strongly believes that her technology will solve the credit gap in developing countries and improve the lives of millions.

For more information, follow Lendsqr on LinkedIn, Twitter, Medium, and Email to stay updated with future announcements.