The TeamApt team led by its Chief Executive Officer Tosin Enilorunda held a press briefing recently, where several issues pertaining to the company and financial services industry where discussed. Here are highlights from the briefing.
Switching licence
The Central Bank has awarded us the highest fintech licence that you can get. Its called a switching licence. The licence allows you to connect all the banks together in a scheme, as well as debit their positions with the Central Bank.
He continued
The award of the license will enable the firm to launch a new product called Aptpay. You should expect direct debit launched very soon. Direct debit enables one to debit peoples bank positions if you default, and you can debit across all accounts that you have
Pan African Expansion
Olorunda shed more light on the company’s plans for expansion across Africa
We are aggressively expanding internationally. A lot of Ghanaian banks have qualified our solutions and already bringing it on board to optimize their back-office processes. Tanzania is also on our mind, we have a couple of banks that are looking hard at using our solutions to move their banking systems forward.
The TeamApt CEO also stated that the firm would expand outside the continent before the end of the year.
The Playbook
In response to a question from Nairametrics on culture differences, Eniolorunda also disclosed how the firm intends to blend both Nigerian talent and homegrown talent in the companies it intends expanding to.
There are playbooks of international expansion. Several routes. One route is to simply go there, establish something and let your guys start selling. Another route is to go through the resellers.
He continues
As we are entering a new country, we will get a representative in that country, that understands the industry and the culture.
Accelerator programme
Down the line next year you should also expect some form of accelerator programme to come out of TeamApt. We have learnt a number of things we think we should be able to impact in new startups. We have learnt how to build a company from scratch. We have learnt to scale with minimum capital requirements.
Was the raise necessary?
The CEO in response to a question by Nairametrics stated why the startup had a fundraise.
To be honest we could have continued. We coud have contunued and we could have gotten this level of growth. Sometimes when you raise capital, you also raise smart capital which comes with relationships. Our decision to finally raise, is not just the capital raise but to get the institutional backing, you might need to get to some of your objectives and goals.