Nigeria’s One Finance Limited [OneFi], which recently raised funding to become a full service digital bank has acquired Amplify in a move to bolster its financial services offerings.
Amplify, a fintech firm, builds and facilitates payment solutions and digital financial transactions in Nigeria. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.
OneFi will add Amplify’s assets, tradements and flagship products, AmplifyPay and mTransfers, to its growing portfolio.
According to Chijioke Dozie, OneFi Founder and CEO, “Today’s announcement signals OneFi’s first acquisition; a strategic decision that kicks off our transformation from a digital lender to a diverse digital financial services platform focused on transactions, payments and loans and will ensure we meet our ambitious goal of doubling our size in Nigeria this year. We have long respected the Amplify team for their ability to provide innovative solutions under adverse conditions, and we look forward to blending our expertise to power the future of fintech infrastructure and digital payments in Africa.”
Amplify was conceived in 2015 by Segun Adeyemi and Maxwell Obi, who first met as Entrepreneurs-in-Training at MEST Africa’s Entrepreneurial Training Program in Accra, Ghana. The firm has scaled quickly to become one of Nigeria’s leading online recurring payment processors, supporting over 1,000 merchants and facilitating digital transactions for four of the country’s largest banks.
Of major interest to OneFi are Amplify’s AmplifyPay – a payment gateway specialising in recurring transactions – and mTransfers – a keyboard banking solution that enables consumers to conduct bill and P2P payments in any chat app – have propelled the three-year-old start-up to a market-leader in Nigeria’s financial processing space.
The deal will see Amplify co-founder and CTO, Maxwell Obi join the OneFi team to oversee the payments, whilst co-founder and CEO, Segun Adeyemi, will depart as he pursues new ventures.
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Paylater, OneFi’s consumer-facing lending platform, was launched in 2016, and provides hassle-free loans without the need for human intervention or bias in decision making. Paylater has deployed over $50M across 750,000 loans, approving over 1,500 loans a day at an average of $80 per loan.The acquisition of Amplify is the next step in the company’s journey, seeing the platform pivot to a one-stop-shop offering additional products such as savings, bill payments and credit reporting.
Amplify also secured their first investment from MEST Africa, the Pan-African incubator, training program and seed fund, in 2016, when Adeyemi and Obi graduated from the program and the company officially launched. Amplify is the 5th MEST Africa company to be acquired and the first in the fintech space.
