If you’re familiar with the African tech ecosystem you’ll know that there are hundreds of fintech companies currently existing and there are more coming up every day. Facilitating payments is important on the continent and many companies have taken up this mantle. Despite a global downturn in funding, African fintechs received $590 million in VC funding from investors early this year, and that amounts to 69% of the total amount raised by startups in Q1 2023. This fintech drive is mainly led by the desire to increase financial inclusion on the continent.
Once in a while, a fintech solution pops up that manages to stand out from the rest by creating a remarkable solution for financial inclusion. Sudo Africa is one fintech standing out from the rest with its innovative solutions and a commitment to excellence.
The card masters of Africa
Founded by Aminu Bakori and Kabir Shittu, Sudo Africa was born as a solution to a problem the founders encountered. While working on a mobile wallet system they decided to issue cards in collaboration with local Nigerian banks. This turned out to be a herculean task because the process of getting the cards took weeks and the cards barely worked. Most Nigerian banks are great with internal transactions but terrible when it comes to external services like interbank transactions and international payments. To solve this, they created Sudo to make the card process easier and more efficient.
As a modern, user-friendly, card-issuing platform, Sudo provides an open API for anyone to be able to issue physical and virtual cards for both local and international payments in minutes. This helps businesses, merchants, and even individuals offer financial services tailored specifically to their needs quickly.
Sudo Africa is pushing the envelope for financial inclusion by offering three main distinguishing perks. The platform, in partnership with licensed card issuers, allows users to issue cards within days. As stated before, while traditional banks take weeks or months to give cards, the company’s infrastructure allows any business or merchant to issue virtual and physical cards to their customers in a matter of days. This process significantly cuts down wait times, allows businesses to offer premium services to their customers, and hastens the time to scale for businesses offering these services because they can service their customers faster and ergo grow and make money faster.
Sudo Africa also offers bespoke card services. The beauty of its open API lies in how customizable it is. Let’s say you’re a company that covers employee expenses on trips. You can create and manage your own cards, create a spending limit, and even specify where your cards can be used by the employees. This bespoke feature hands control to users and lets them decide what features are beneficial and essential for them. Businesses can use it to prevent fraud and manage expenses efficiently. Users can also decide on the look of the cards and customise them with their logos, colours, and other design desires.
Sudo also offers an embedded banking-as-a-service feature. What this means is that if another company wants to offer banking services, with the help of Sudo, they can create and manage accounts for customers and issue account numbers. This feature enables businesses to build faster, go to market faster, and scale faster. This service also covers compliance and KYC needs.
Sudo’s commitment to excellence
The company is driven by the desire to improve financial inclusion in the swiftest and smoothest ways possible for its customers and their customers. It does this by offering innovative and easy-to-use solutions to businesses and individuals. The company has done this so well that Interswitch has honoured it with three awards for outstanding performance and unwavering contributions to the financial year.
The company has also recorded astounding growth in just three years with thousands of businesses and individuals joining the platform in the past year alone. It has issued over 75,000 cards, and 200,000 accounts, welcomed 6,000 new users, and processed transactions totaling $30 million thus far in 2023 alone.
The geographical distribution of Sudo customers are currently within and beyond Africa including the USA, Turkey, Dubai, Haiti, Canada, Kenya, Togo, Mali, Congo, Cameroon, and India. It is currently working on expanding further and deepening operations in Sub-Saharan Africa.
In three years, Sudo has made a name as the fastest-rising card issuing platform in Nigeria. According to a company spokesperson, “Our vision is to become an established payment card brand that would positively impact Africa’s financial landscape. We envision a future where financial inclusion knows no bounds, where every individual and business has access to the tools and services they need to thrive in the ever-evolving financial landscape.”
The company is result-driven and committed to growth, innovation, and excellence. It is actively seeking partnerships and collaborations with businesses that want to elevate their financial infrastructure. Interested parties can contact the company here or sign up and get started here.
