In 2019, vehicle inspection officers stopped Tunde while driving, alleging that his papers were expired. As someone that is very prompt with renewing his vehicle papers, it seemed impossible and he argued with the officers until he realized truly his papers were expired 2 days earlier. This incident got him thinking why the process of vehicle documentation and paper renewals seems broken in Nigeria, this is not a case of him trying to evade the law, he just slipped and these were the initial thoughts that led to CarPaddy.com
To put it in perspective, information is so opaque that a lot of drivers don’t even know what documents are required to stay on the right side of the law, and a bunch of people just resort to outsourcing their vehicle paper registration and renewals to some unqualified and unverified “middle-men” just to help them navigate the difficult task of registering new plates or renewing multiple vehicle documents.
This process of outsourcing comes with so many challenges like not knowing if your documents are complete, not being able to ascertain if they are genuine or fake, not getting a reminder when they are about to expire, add that sometimes registering or renewing different vehicle documents through multiple channels and a whole lot of challenges that make it hard for a busy person to keep up with.
With this experience and because he is a software developer, Tunde Owoeye-Phoster created a website called CarPaddy.com as the Technical lead with another co-founder to make the process of registering a vehicle or renewing vehicle papers seamless in Nigeria. CarPaddy was born with the tagline “one-click vehicle papers” and “paddy” is a Nigerian slang that means one’s buddy.
According to Tunde Owoeye-Phoster “I had no grandiose plan for it, I have more than one car and didn’t want to forget my expiry dates, plus I thought doing vehicle papers from my phone would be cool. Fast-forward: 1 year+ later, CarPaddy has more than 3,000 customers and has generated tens of millions with no serious marketing” that’s when it started to look like this was a serious problem.
CarPaddy, now a registered agent of the MVAA (Motor Vehicle Administration Agency) can assist clients to process all types of genuine vehicle papers from their phone or computer, including vehicle licenses, insurance, and over 30 other vehicle documents. You can simply visit CarPaddy.com, create an account in a few seconds, enter your vehicle details once and the rest of things will be taken care of for you.
So why CarPaddy?
First, you get FREE reminders through 3 channels (SMS, Email, and Whatsapp) about your vehicle paper expiry and you get these reminders 3 times before your papers expire so that you are adequately informed and never have to forget your expiry dates.
Next, within 1 minute you can pay for your vehicle papers and they will be delivered to you at your address, also, you have a dashboard where you can monitor your vehicle papers, this is particularly useful for admin and logistics officers that manage fleets of cars for their organizations.
Lastly, you are assured that at every point in time, you will get genuine vehicle documents and our advisors will give you all information on all the papers you require. That’s not all, you can also renew your vehicle documents from other parts of Nigeria while you are in another city or state. For example, you can renew or register your vehicle in Abuja while you’re in Lagos or even outside the country, see how it works here
CarPaddy has also collaborated with a lot of fintech companies by providing them with an API through which they can offer these services straight on their platform to their customers. So for example, you can just open your Paga app and process your vehicle paper renewals right on Paga just like you pay for phone airtime or data, same with other companies like Baxi, Driveme.ng, NowNow, Capricorn and now they are in the process of exposing these APIs for banks.
To renew your vehicle papers in Nigeria, simply visit www.carpaddy.com and in 24-48 hours you will get your papers delivered to your address.
