StockNow Launched in Nigeria and Seven Other African Countries
Nomanini, a fast-growing fintech in Africa, with a goal to improve business growth for informal, cash-first markets, today announced a strategic partnership with financial services provider Baobab Group end to end retailer supply chain finance solution StockNow, in eight new countries, specifically, Senegal, Mali, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tunisia, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Nigeria, and Madagascar.
The innovative strategic partnership leverages the respective strengths of Nomanini and Baobab Group to enable supply chain financing in Africa’s underserved markets and see brick and mortar retailers benefit from healthier stock levels and cashflow.
In its first project with Baobab Group, Nomanini will launch StockNow in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which has a population of about 90 million and approximately 180,000 general trade retailers that have limited access to working capital.
Across the other seven markets, over the next five years, the partnership has set the goal to reach a total merchant base of 820,000 micro, small and medium retailers who sell a large number of the fast-moving consumer goods but face a number of challenges like access to responsible capital that make it hard for their businesses to grow.
The benefits of StockNow include better capital flow, access to stock advances, and maximising sales opportunities. As part of the partnership, Nomanini and Baobab Group will now collaborate to secure FMCG partners to better serve retailers by financing products that retail quickly, and at low cost. This initiative expands services to entrepreneurs to help them increase sales and manage cash flow effectively. StockNow will further support retailers with administrative functions such as simplified stock ordering.
“Nomanini continues to identify innovative approaches to partnerships that enable us to stay at the forefront of connecting retailers to digital financial services to improve their businesses.” said Vahid Monadjem, Chief Executive Officer at Nomanini. “The Nomanini and Baobab Group partnership is a powerful combination. It strategically aligns both companies to create services that deliver the best value to retailers.“
“Our understanding of Africa’s general trade sector is uniquely complementary to Baobab Group’s mission to make financial services more accessible, affordable, inclusive and transparent, and supports our intention to expand more quickly into markets in Africa that will benefit from inclusive finance. We believe this partnership will create compelling and sustainable value for the evolving needs of Africa’s general trade sector. “ He added. Nicolas Serre, Group CTO, Baobab, commented “We are searching for partners, especially Fintechs, that allow us to create additional values for our customers, by combining their capabilities with ours. Time to deploy is identified as a key element in such a partnership” Nomanini provides informal retailers with the tools to improve their businesses by combining new digital financial services with existing distribution networks. Our platform connects the informal retail ecosystem around Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), including financial service providers, distributors and manufacturers by integrating payments, working capital, and data analytics to unlock the latent potential of Africa’s economy. Baobab is a financial services group with operations in eight countries on the African continent and one province of China. Via its subsidiaries, Baobab provides financial services to half a million micro entrepreneurs and small businesses, fulfilling its mission of broadening access to finance among those underserved by traditional banks. Our global range of products includes micro-loans, savings solutions, transaction and daily banking services as well as innovative banking products like mobile payments, buy-now-pay later plans and digital nano loans. Our 4,000 team members work together to make financial services more accessible, inclusive and transparent.
