Published: November 12, 2012
Russian bank launches cloud-based lending in West African first.
Russia’s Renaissance Group has announced its move into the Nigerian market, launching Renaissance Credit (RenCredit) in Lagos. The bank will become the first financial institution in West Africa to offer a cloud-hosted banking system.
Through this platform the bank will provide personal loans, street-level microfinancing, retail deposits and point-of-sale agreements in return for goods. It will also connect customers to local e-payment channels. Developed by financial software provider Temenos, the system took just two months to roll out, hinting at strong potential for flexible, cloud-based models in other Sub-Saharan markets.
The new platform should ease access of credit to Nigeria’s rapidly growing middle classes and will aid the country’s move from being cash- to transaction-based. Analytical software provided by Expirian should, the company claims, allow a loan decision to be made within 15 minutes. The scalability of the cloud will also allow RenCredit to expand into other regions with minimum infrastructure costs and business risk.
According to African Development Bank statistics, the middle classes make up around 23% of Nigeria’s population, a figure that is growing at an impressive rate. Analysts from Morgan Stanley predict that Nigeria will become Africa’s largest economy by 2025, overtaking long-time leader South Africa.