After four years of operating in stealth mode, fintech service provider Woodcore has emerged strong with a firm foothold in emerging markets. Backed by Ingressive Capital, FCMB, Voltron Capital, Metis Capital, and other investors, the company is ready to take its vision of digitising, simplifying, and optimising banking operations globally.
Founded by Samuel Joseph (CEO) and Toyin Olasehinde (COO) Woodcore is a product of years of experience working in core banking systems across the globe. With over eight years of experience in banking, including being a country manager at Fiter, a gold partner of the Apache Fineract CBS, Samuel Joseph managed the implementation of core banking systems for some notable financial institutions in Nigeria and Europe. They include Sparkle, VFD, Clane, Ibanera, Woven, Onepipe, Lendsqr, and Omnibiz and these experiences inspired him to develop a more robust and modular core banking system:Woodcore.
According to Toyin Olasehinde, (ex Interswitch and COO of Treford), the goal of creating Woodcore is to “provide technology solutions that are composable, and dynamic enough to build out multiple fintech use-cases.”
The Woodcore bid
Woodcore offers users speed to market, saving them excessive development resources. This API-first core banking system can either be a wrapper to legacy banking systems like Finacle, Flexcube, or Temenos, enabling banks to extend digital products and services or be used as a primary core banking solution for standard banking operations including in both over-the-counter banking operations and workflows, however, it is an API-based product first.
With the rise of digital payments and other fintech solutions, financial institutions need access to reliable and adaptable banking systems. Core banking systems are centralised platforms where all banking data is stored, shared, and run. These systems enable bank customers to conduct Internet banking, card functions, transfers, and other important banking tasks. Woodcore is designed to be a region-agnostic core banking system that can be extended to fit multiple use cases by any experienced developer.
Users can spin up the Woodcore infrastructure using a simple command line interface (CLI) with custom system specifications. Woodcore offers financial institutions flexible deployment options but recommends Huawei Cloud, AWS, or GCP. It also has features that support any choice of hosting partners.
From stealth to emerging markets
Woodcore was developed focusing on the Middle Eastern, South Asian, and Eastern and Western African markets. Starting from Nigeria, the company has found validation across several markets, simplifying banking operations in Nigeria, Gambia, and Zimbabwe.
In the past four years of operating underground, Woodcore has offered seamless APIs to 24 financial institutions, including ROVA Bank by FCMB and Kredi Microfinance Bank. These institutions combined host approximately 1.3 million accounts. Woodcore has processed over 4 million unique transactions and over 500,000 API calls daily. The company is now bringing its seamless and efficient banking API to other markets.
The future of Woodcore
“The future is now,” says Samuel Joseph. “For the past 4 years, we’ve been quietly working behind the scenes, perfecting Woodcore, our next-generation core banking platform. Operating in stealth mode, we’ve dedicated ourselves to building, testing, benchmarking, and refining solutions for some of the most complex banking use cases. As we step out of stealth mode, our focus is now on emerging markets, where financial institutions are hungry for innovation and technology that can bridge gaps in accessibility, efficiency, and growth.”
Woodcore is dedicated to scaling its tried and tested product to wider markets. The company is making inroads in South Asia and the Middle East. They also plan to launch a hackathon programme to build a talent pipeline in core banking operations starting from West Africa. The programme is expected to launch in 2025.
Find out more about Woodcore’s easy-to-use API here.
