Credit Direct, the consumer lending subsidiary of FCMB Group, a Nigerian financial services group, is expanding beyond traditional lending into embedded finance as it seeks to make credit and other financial services more accessible to individuals and businesses.<\/p>\n
Victoria Arinze, product marketing lead at Credit Direct, said at Moonshot by TechCabal<\/a> in Lagos that Credit Direct wants to use partnerships with businesses and merchants to bring credit closer to these transactions.<\/p>\n Embedded finance involves integrating financial services into platforms where customers already make payments or conduct other transactions, allowing them to access services such as loans without having to approach a financial institution separately.\u00a0<\/p>\n The continent\u2019s 50 million small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)<\/a> face a funding gap estimated at more than $330 billion.<\/a> Credit Direct aims to close this by extending its lending expertise and integrating financing into the platforms that businesses and people use.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are primarily a credit organisation, and that has not changed and will never change. Credit is still the core of what we do,\u201d Arinze said \u201cWhat we\u2019ve realised, however, is that credit really is not the end of how a person\u2019s finances is built. When you give them credit, they then need to live their life, and living their life means being able to pay for things when they want to or when they have to.\u201d<\/p>\n