November 18, 2019

 

Bloom Impact is proud to announce our expansion into Nigeria, increasing the reach of our financial services marketplace across West Africa. This exciting development deepens Bloom Impact’s mission of empowering micro, small and medium businesses to grow and offer employment by easing affordability & access to finance.

 

Nigerian SME’s are at the core of the country's economy, accounting for 48% of national GDP, 96% of businesses and 84% of employment, yet they continue to cite access to finance as a major barrier for growth (1). Through a mobile App, Bloom Impact offers Nigerian business owners financial education tools and business finance products such as loans, savings & payment accounts, bookkeeping, credit reports and more, in an innovative, digital and accessible way.

 

Bloom Impact will simultaneously offer support to Nigerian financial institutions by facilitating market share growth and decreasing costs and risks associated with customer acquisition by providing contactless and digital access to qualified & verified business customers. Through extensive use and collection of data and digital verifications, Bloom provides their financial partners eligible customers, market growth and faster turn-around-times and deploys innovative machine learning technology in the process.

 

This expansion will help Nigerian MSMEs access needed finance, empowering local business owners and increasing the overall health of the Nigerian economy. To help with expansion, Bloom Impact has brought in Obinna Akakuru from Diamond bank, with expertise on MSME customers and strategic partnerships, to drive growth across the country. Working together with Bloom’s executive management, Obinna will help identify and partner with local banks, MFIs, and other financial associations to offer our services and expand market share more efficiently and digitally.