Former managing director of Jumia Nigeria, Tunde Kehinde, is about flagging off a first of-its-kind project in Nigeria. Come October 2016, The Harvard Business School graduate will float Lidya, Nigeria’s first online-only bank.

The digital bank which will be based in Nigeria’s capital, Lagos will offer small and medium-sized businesses unsecured loans of between N152,000 ($500) and N4.5 million ($15,000).

“There are no real products catered to these customers today. What we’re trying to do is introduce a lot of technology, algorithms and machine learning to industrialize the credit assessment process.” Kehinde maintained.

He also revealed plans to partner with other Nigerian banks to allow them to use it as a platform to target small businesses and offer financial services at such low cost to its customers.

“Because of how the banks are set up, with bricks and mortar networks, they’re more inclined to service multinationals and large government institutions. Their cost structure isn’t favourable to servicing small businesses. Because we’re using technology and algorithms to assess the risk, it allows them to offer financial products to these customers at a low cost.” He added.

Source : Thecable.ng